Between love stories and life stories

Photo by Ramsay Taplin Photography

Spring is wedding season, and my days are happily full of ceremonies. From paddocks and meadows to gardens and vineyards, I’ve been writing, rehearsing, and standing alongside couples as they speak their vows.

For me, a wedding is always more than an event. It is a threshold, a moment where two lives step forward together into something new, even for couples who have been together for a long time – it’s a new phase in their story.

In Celtic tradition, thresholds are sacred: the meeting place of what has been and what will be. I love to shape ceremonies that honour that sense of passage, weaving in the couple’s own golden thread of story. How they met, how they recognised each other, how they realised, “Oh, it’s you” – that sense of coming home to the other person.

My work as a celebrant is storytelling in its truest sense. It’s not fiction, but it is narrative: a shaping of words to hold meaning, memory, and promise. It’s a way of pausing time, creating a circle of belonging, so that everyone gathered can glimpse the heart of what is happening. And when the vows are spoken, when the old magic of promise meets the joy of the day, it’s luminous.

These past weeks have been busy, but beautifully so. I’ve met new families, laughed with wedding parties, shared tears with parents, and celebrated love in all its unique forms. Each ceremony is a reminder that love stories don’t just belong in books or ballads, they are alive here, now, in the eyes of two people standing before their kin and declaring their hearts.

Life outside the ceremonies gallops forward. My son turned 31 recently (and I still can’t quite believe I get to be his mum). But weddings always bring me back to stillness and to what truly matters. Love, connection and the joy of recognising the one who makes your life brighter.

So, while another part of my life is spent writing novels, here and now my heart belongs to ceremony. These love stories, radiant, timeless, and full of meaning, are the threads I’m honoured to weave. And if you are planning your own wedding, I’d love to help you cross that threshold with words that feel both deeply yours, and touched by something timeless.