“From this day forward” This is usually what you hear when your officiant (that’s me!), is performing your ceremony, or some version of this. I will carefully craft the most beautiful heartfelt, inspiring, tear-jerking yet softly humorous individualized speech sure to fill the room with love and happiness.

Now, there are many important parts the officiant will say but the part where your officiant says you may now kiss…the bride! the groom! your person, your forever love, is usually the part everyone waits for. Who doesn’t love a great kiss between two people so madly in love with one another. Have to admit that’s my favorite part especially when I got married, but what exactly does that mean “to have and to hold” well according to the infamous Wikipedia it means a “phrase commonly used in Christian marriage vows”, seriously that’s it, now don’t let that deter you from having the term incorporated into your wedding day speech.

To have and to hold, in sickness and in health doesn’t just mean your person is battling a cold or has a slight fever both of these meanings go above and beyond a surface level of understanding. Imagine, with the best of you, having a partner that not just loves you, but that loves you so deeply, so intentionally, they see within you this light that sits so bright, so beautiful, that they’d be beyond delighted to build a life with you. So in awe of your strength, your courage, your determination, that it enhances their spirit even more in ways they’ve never before experienced.

To have and to hold, to want to understand any and all parts of not just your physcial self but your mentality, your spirit, your past, your present and your future and on a level so deep it creates within both you the most amazing phenomenal language of love. Because I truly believe we are all connected, we are all healers and we are all intertwined, but, when you wholeheartedly have learned to understand yourself internally and externally it helps create the capacity to fully understand and fully accept someone else with an openness not everyone is built for.

In sickness and in health, how imagine all the love between each other, but the person is ill. It can be the seasonal cold, the flu, COVID or maybe they are just not 100% fully charged. Do you still feel that force of love bringing you closer or do you, intentionally or not back away because you just don’t know what to do? How do you care for someone else if you’ve never been cared for? Heres where that childhood or adult trauma may show up. How do you show your love if love has never been shown to you, even in the simplest form? Maybe your person has the physical aliment of something else, maybe its cancer they’re battling, diabetes or a long-term disease, how do you show up for them, how do you show up for yourself during these moments. Do you say, hey look I didn’t sign up for this, I signed up for the 100% healthy you 24/7 for as long as we both shall live. Do you love them less, do you love them from a distance, do you become angry towards them. Here’s a secret, they didn’t sign up for the sickness either, theirs or yours. Consider this, we all have so many challenges in life we face already, many of us on the daily, having someone, and not just anyone, YOUR one, to hold, loving you in sickness and in health should not be one of them. Happy Planning ❤️