A 'Bonnie' Wedding in Cambria, California!

Saturday I had the pleasure of officiating for a Scottish-Style wedding (complete with bagpipes!) at Cambria Pines Inn in Cambria, CA. It was such a fun wedding and delightful change to my traditional garb! Also a wonderful venue to have a wedding, beautiful surroundings, great staff, charm and ambience! So in the spirit of the Scots, here is a Celtic blessing for the very special couple I married this weekend:

May you have,
Walls for the wind
And a roof for the rain,
And drinks bedside the fire
Laughter to cheer you
And those you love near you,
And all that your heart may desire

A Wedding Story To Give Us Hope

Just saw this on Yahoo News this morning. This one needs no explanation. With all the grief, sadness and violence in the world today-this one is a story of love, hope and gratitude.

Strangers Donate Dream Wedding to Bride With Cancer

By Beth Greenfield, Shine Staff 

Gargano, left, and Batugo at Sunday's dream wedding. Photo: COCO Gallery.Of the thousands ofweddings that no doubt took place in the U.S. on Sunday, there was at least one—between Jennifer Batugo and Brian Gargano, held in a picturesque Japanese garden on a Los Angeles hilltop—that had become a matter of life or death. 

More on Shine: Grab the Tissues: A Husband Documents His Wife's Battle with Breast Cancer

At least it felt that way for the bride, who was diagnosed with an extremely rare and aggressive form of breast cancer in late March. Told by doctors that she may only have a few months to live, Batugo, 29, and her fiancé decided they would move their August wedding to April. “We were given kind of a deadline, you could say,” Gargano told Yahoo! Shine. But they had no concrete plans set, and found themselves daunted not only by Batugo’s prognosis, but by the idea of pulling off a wedding so quickly.

More on Yahoo!: Pregnancy is Safe After Breast Cancer

For help, Gargano placed a call to L.A. wedding officiant Elysia Skye. Though he didn’t know it at the time, Skye also happened to be a breast cancer survivor who runs a non-profit breast-cancer support organization. She said she cried when she heard the young couple’s story, promising Gargano, “I’ll take care of it all.” Then she sprang into action, kicking off an Indiegogo fund-raising campaign for the wedding and for medical expenses (which, active through April 26, has raked in nearly $13,000 so far). She also easily convinced Yamashiro Hollywood to donate its venue to the couple’s 30-guest event and got some of the top wedding vendors in L.A. to donate their services, mainly by enlisting one very dedicated wedding planner, Laura Guerrie of Rebel Belle Weddings, to orchestrate the event in 10 days flat.

Sunday's wedding was picture-perfect. Photo: COCO Gallery.“All of the usual push-pull between what the bride wants and keeping everybody happy is gone,” Guerrie told Shine, adding that there were no formal contracts with any vendors, just an overwhelming flood of enthusiastic verbal commitments to create a magical day for the young couple. And it paid off.

“It gave me a lot of hope,” Batugo told Shine two days before the wedding. “I’m fighting now.”

Just after the wedding, for which the bride wore a champagne-hued gown given to her by an engaged friend—as well as a flowing, dark wig (donated) to cover her own hair, which has already begun to thin from treatments—Batugo sounded positively gleeful. “It was such a beautiful day,” she said happily, “and we’re grateful for the graces we received.”

Guerrie added, “Jenn has one of the most positive, bubbly, lively personalities of anyone I’ve ever met, and she was absolutely ebullient today—laughing and dancing and enjoying every minute of the party.”

It was a marked improvement from how Batugo was understandably feeling just after her rare diagnosis of angiosarcoma of the breast on March 22. Until that point, she had been looking forward to marrying Gargano, 34, a respiratory therapist based in Phoenix, with whom she had embarked upon a whirlwind long-distance relationship, becoming engaged to on Valentine’s Day. But on that fateful day, she learned that she may not live through the summer, and that she would need to start aggressive, weekly chemotherapy treatments right next door to the hospital where she was employed as a gynecology oncology nurse.

“I feel overwhelmed, loved, blessed, but the fear and sadness is new. Anxiety keeps me up...” she wrote on her cancer support blog MyLifeLine.org. “I feel hopeless, but I’ve put on the brave, optimistic, smiley exterior people know me to have... but how to keep it up?!!”

The answer came unexpectedly, through the outpouring of love from people who had never even met her before, beginning when Gargano placed his call to Skye’s company L.A. Wedding Woman, which he found on Yelp.

“We met to talk about the wedding, and Jenn was asking me all these questions about treatment and wigs and intimate situations,” said Skye, who was diagnosed with stage-3 breast cancer just after her 24th birthday. After undergoing a double mastectomy, chemotherapy and many reconstructive surgeries, the wedding officiant started a side project, the Elysia Skye Breast Cancer Organization, focused on education and prevention.

“What’s inspiring to me is how much Jenn is inspired. Three weeks ago she was like, I guess I’m going to be dead this summer,” Skye told Shine. “Since this [wedding planning] started, she’s said I’m going to beat this. It just gives me purpose.”

In addition to the thousands of dollars raised through the Indiegogo campaign—which will not only be put toward Batugo’s medical expenses, but Gargano’s hurried relocation to L.A.—the crowd-sourced wedding welcomed a slew of donations. Those donated food and drink, photography, videography, makeup, accessories, balloons, hotel accommodations, flowers, music, wedding cake (“So many people wanted to donate the cake, it was crazy,” Skye noted), a white 1959 Rolls Royce, and, of course, the services of Skye and Guerrie. The total cost of the wedding, had it been paid for, would have run in the ballpark of $20,000, Guerrie noted.

The newlyweds said that having something positive to focus on has been vital to getting them through these past few weeks.

"There are so many bad things happening today, it's good to know there are good people out there, willing to help complete strangers," Gargano said.

Batugo told Shine just before the big day, “I think, in moments when I’m alone, and it’s quiet, like at the end of the day, I figure, oh, I’m still sick, and after this wedding I’ll have to still fight this cancer. But everyone has been coddling me with love, and I’m so grateful.” After the wedding, Batugo said that a personal highlight of the day had been the father-daughter dances, which Guerrie elaborated on for Shine.

“Instead of just doing the traditional ‘father-daughter’ dance, Jenn and Brian also chose to dance with the other’s respective parent. So Jenn danced with her dad, then his. And Brian danced with his mom, then hers. For that last one, their song choice was ‘Don’t Worry Baby’ by the Beach Boys,” she said. “Six-foot-plus Brian, and Jenn’s tiny little mom, and a message of ‘everything will turn out all right.’ Not too many dry eyes in the house at that moment.”

Roger and Chaz Ebert-A Marriage To Admire

I was greatly saddened by the the passing of Roger Ebert. I have always been inspired by his bravery, tenacity and zest for life as cancer mercilessly ravaged his body and significantly altered his way of life. I am even more inspired and awed after reading this article from "OMG" in Yahoo News. A remarkable man, a remarkable woman, an inspiring  friendship and marriage. 

For Roger Ebert, there was one person in his life who got a perennial thumbs up: his wife Chaz.

The fabled film critic found the love of his life relatively late in life, after spending most of his adult years as a bachelor (and even once going on a date with Oprah Winfrey). The woman he'd marry at age 50 would become his best friend and life partner right away, and after Ebert's cancer diagnosis more than a decade ago, would become his liaison to concerned fans (often using humor to share bad news) and the rock he leaned on throughout his illness, until the day he died.

“I am devastated by the loss of my love, Roger -- my husband, my friend, my confidante and oh-so-brilliant partner of over 20 years,” Chaz said via a statement on Thursday. “We had a lovely, lovely life together, more beautiful and epic than a movie. It had its highs and the lows, but was always experienced with good humor, grace and a deep abiding love for each other."

So who was Chaz Ebert and why was her relationship with Roger so special? Read on for a peek inside their marriage.

The scoop on Chaz Hammelsmith Ebert.
Chaz is a Chicago native and received a B.A. from the University of Wisconsin at Madison and got her law degree from Chicago's DePaul College of Law, eventually working as a litigator at the law firm of Bell, Boyd, and Lloyd. She married an electrical engineer and had two children, divorcing after 17 years of marriage.

It was love at first sight … or at least second.
According to Roger, he was dining with Eppie Lederer, better known as advice columnist Ann Landers, after an AA meeting in 1989 (he first sought help for alcohol dependency 10 years earlier) and Ebert went to say hello to a couple of people he knew at a nearby table, who happened to be dining with trial attorney Chaz Hammelsmith. "I didn't know her, but I'd seen her before and was attracted. I liked her looks, her voluptuous figure, and the way she presented herself. She took a lot of care with her appearance and her clothes never looked quickly thrown together," Roger wrote in a blog post for the Chicago Sun-Times in July 2012, to mark their 20^th wedding anniversary. "She seemed to be holding the attention of her table. You never get anywhere with a woman you can't talk intelligently with."

Roger fell hard on their first date.
"She had a particular quality. She didn't seem to be a 'date' but an equal. She knew where she stood, and I found that attractive," he shared in the piece. "I was going out to Los Angeles a few days later, and I asked her to come along. We formed a serious bond rather quickly. It was an understood thing. I was in love, I was serious, I was ready for my life to change."

The couple in 2000. (Brenda Chase/Stringer/Getty Images)

She wooed him with her … grammar?
Both Chaz and Roger have talked about how, during the early days of their relationship the two would write love letters in the form of daily emails to each other. "Her love letters were poetic, idealistic and often passionate," he recalled. "I responded as a man and a lover. As a newspaperman, I observed she never, ever, made a copy-reading error."

Chaz quit her law job after they married so she could join Roger during his frequent travels, but would eventually become vice president of the Ebert Company.
Roger insisted it wasn't just a title, and just the business mind he needed to counter his. "She organized my contracts, protected my interests, negotiated, wheeled and dealed. I've never understood business and have no patience with business meetings or legal details," Roger wrote in the 2012 Sun-Times post. "I had a weakness for signing things just to make them go away. She observed this, and defended me. It was a partnership."

After Ebert had part of his jaw removed in 2006, the couple chose to eat their meals separately.
"I don't like to eat in front of him because it just seems kind of cruel," Chaz said during a 2010 interview on "The Oprah Winfrey Show." "He prefers to [have meals] private." Ebert had to be fed through an IV drip four times a day.

After her husband’s hip fracture late last year, Chaz kept fans in the loop with humor.
"Roger in hospital with hip fracture (tricky disco dance moves) but he is doing well, asking for computer, will probably tweet," she tweeted on December 7, followed a day later by, "Roger Sweetie, lets heal that fracture and get you Dancing With The Stars as soon as possible." She also expressed frustration a few weeks later: "Hospitals have up and down days. This is a down day, intense PT, but Roger is making progress. Fractured hip a bitch," she wrote alongside a younger photo of Roger.

Towards the end, the couple created a language of signals.
After his cancer robbed him of the ability to use his voice, Chaz was constantly by Ebert's side to help him communicate. While he often wrote notes, he used different hand signals to explain what he wanted, as demonstrated during the Oprah segment. He had a signal for asking Chaz to read to others from his notepad, one for requesting a trip to the men's room, and there was one signal, Chaz explained that had "a lot of meaning." When Roger placed his right hand on his heart in front of his wife, it meant, "I love you."

Rainy Day Weddings On The Central Coast: A Wet Bride Is A Lucky Bride!

Though here on the Central Coast of California we are known for beautiful, sunny days those of us who live here also know we can just as easily have rain! I've officiated at many spring and summer weddings where "out of the blue" we have a rainstorm.  To make sure your wedding day goes without a hitch here is a great article from loveandlobster.com by Christina Wnek.  Though this article is directed toward weddings on the New England Coast where rain is much more common, it seems a good idea to take tips from experts on the subject! Remember "Sposa bagnata, sposa fortunata!”

There’s an old superstition that rain on your wedding day is a lucky omen. The Italians even have a saying for it, “Sposa bagnata, sposa fortunata,” or “A wet bride is a lucky bride.”

Still, most brides would trade a little good fortune for the outdoor ceremony of their dreams. But if you’re tying the knot in coastal New England, you just can’t count on endless sunny skies. So remember another time-tested adage: A flexible bride is a happy bride. Make a backup plan.

Tip number one: Rent a tent. So says Kate Parker, one of our favorite wedding planners and a woman who knows how to prepare for New England’s unpredictable weather. Yes, a tent costs more, but this is not the West Coast, where the sun always shines. If you’re already planning on using a tent, consider ordering just one size larger so it can accommodate guests not only for the reception, but also the ceremony and cocktail hour, Kate suggests. The extra $200 will be well worth your peace of mind. The same goes for shelling out a bit more for a tent floor, so you’re not stuck dancing with dad in a muddy puddle.

Check out the lay of the land, as well. That verdant valley might look like the perfect ceremony site, but not if a downpour fills it with an inch of rain. Shoot for a level surface, and consider keeping your cocktail and reception tents within a short walk of each other, Kate says.

A couple of final notes on logistics, then we’ll get to all of the fun rainy day touches you might never have considered. Write up a communication plan in advance, so you can notify guests and vendors of a location change or other wet-weather contingencies. Be prepared to provide transportation as well. And try to treat your Plan B with the same appreciation for aesthetics as you do the dream vision for your day. If the contingency site for your ceremony is a cramped, drab hotel dining room, you might end up disappointed. “Your rain plan has to be as cool as your non-rain plan,” Kate says.

Now for the fun part. You may think of umbrellas as inclement weather necessities, but when they match your wedding colors, suddenly you’ve got themed accessories. And their counterparts, brightly colored galoshes and wellies, brighten up any drab day. If tracking down matching colors proves difficult, you can always go with classic white (including the ivory Weddington wellie with customizable ribbon and vintage lace-style umbrellas!) Imagine a portrait of you and your intended snuggled under an umbrella in your rain gear. Not bad, right?

And speaking of photography, the soft and balanced light on overcast days makes for flattering portraits free of harsh shadows. If you’d planned to have your portraits taken after the ceremony but a real downpour is looming, stay flexible and shoot them before you exchange vows. A good photographer will be prepared with alternate rainy-day portrait environments, but you can always schedule a backup session for after the big day.

Even more crucial than careful planning, however, is an up-for-anything attitude. Kate has seen brides both rise to the drab weather occasion and completely fall apart at the prospect of a few raindrops. “It’ll break you or make you,” she says. So remember, it’s a nice day for a wet wedding.

15 Fun Wedding Reception Ideas

These are some great suggestions for a fun wedding reception!  They will surely have your guests going home thinking "that was the most fun reception ever!" And, more importantly, so will you.
This article is reprinted from:
bridalguide.com and written by Elena Donovan Mauer

Forget stuffy. Be sure your guests let loose and truly enjoy your wedding with these entertaining ideas — straight from the pros!

1. Walk Down Memory Lane
Make the guest feel like integral parts of the day by incorporating them into the decor—in a gallery of meaningful photos. "We do something we like to call 'memory lane,'" says Northern California event planner Sasha Souza. "We hang pictures of the bride and groom with friends and family along the walk from the ceremony to the reception. It's a fun cocktail party conversation starter." As guests take a leisurely stroll and find pictures of themselves with you, they can reminisce and socialize.

2. Break the Ice Creatively
When you enter your reception for the first time as husband and wife, don't just take a conventional arm-in-arm stroll. "Run. Skip. Dance. Swoop in on a rope swing!" suggests Alyssa Brown of AE Planning+Design in San Francisco. Brainstorm with your groom about the most creative, appropriate way to make a big impression. This is a great way to break the ice and set up for a fun vibe for the rest of the event.

3. Play Party Games
"We did a wedding where the menus were puzzles, so each person got one piece of the puzzle at their place setting, then everyone had to put the pieces together to get the full menu description," says Brown. "Crossword puzzles are fun for the back of a program or if you have guests going on a long bus ride to get to the reception venue."

4. Surprise 'em!
"Pablo Neruda is the world's most romantic poet," sats Bussen. "And a modern, pretty paperback edition of his love poems makes a wonderful, lasting guest favor that's much more meaningful that a bag of Jordan almonds! If you buy in bulk, you might get a discount—contact your bookseller directly. And don't forget to add a personalized bookmark thanking your friends and family for sharing your big day with you."

5. Be Entertaining
Guests always love the energy of a live band but tend to want to hear the original artist sing their favorite tunes. As a compromise, a bride may hire a dance band but also play DJ'ed music during the breaks, or she'll arrange to have live music during some parts of the event and recorded music during others. Souza suggests combining the best of both worlds—at the same time. "We've worked with a band called The Infusion Experience," says Souza. "The DJ plays the original music while the percussion players play live. It's a huge crowd pleaser!"

6. Be More Entertaining
"Consider unexpected, untraditional entertainments like tarot card readers, magicians and flip book stations (booths where guests create quick movies and make mini books)," says Marcy Blum, an event planner in New York City. She advises asking yourselves what sorts of activities the two of you like to do. You can use your shared interests as surefire wedding inspiration. (Did you meet at a comedy club? You may want to hire a stand-up comic.) Or you can use your heritage as inspiration: "I've had couples surprise their guests with ethnic dancers or musicians who share a set with the band," says Blum. "You can hire square dance instructors," adds Blum. "Have them teach guests to do a line dance—they'll have a blast."

7. Offer a Dessert Buffet
You can assume most people have a sweet tooth, so have guest get involved in creating their very own dessert. "A cupcake-making station is a reinvention of the popular hot fudge station," says New York City event planner Shawn Rabideau. "Have abundant trays of different flavors and colors: a guest might pile crushed Oreos on a chocolate buttercream cupcake or top a red velvet cupcake with cream cheese." This sort of do-it-yourself treat is absolutely guaranteed to bring out the kid in everyone!

If you're planning a warm-weather wedding, feel free to get really playful with refreshments. Consider serving up a nostalgic and fun Sno-Cone station. "It's easy to rent a shaved-ice machine from the caterer or a party rental company," says Bussen. "Add a choice of colorful syrups and even your favorite apres-dinner liqueurs. Think frozen White Russians, Orange Shaved Ice with Grand Marnier, or Ruby Port and Berry. This will be the hit of the party."

Your Ideal Wedding Size - Small and Intimate or Large Gathering?

Here are some great tips on figuring out how many guests to have at your wedding and how you should tailor the guest list to fit your needs!

Reprinted From: Yahoo! Contributor Network/Yahoo voices/Jennifer Drake

As anyone who has been involved in the planning of a wedding surely knows, there are countless decisions to be made about that special day. One of the most important decisions to be made about your wedding is its size, or how many guests you will invite. The size of your wedding affects so many other factors that this must be figured out in the early stages of planning.

Consider what type of feeling or mood you want present at your wedding ceremony as size is an essential part of creating this. A few hundred guests automatically creates a different atmosphere than standing in front of thirty family members. Do you want a very formal, traditional ceremony, a large party atmosphere, or an intimate celebration of your love? How have you imagined you wedding in your mind? A smaller guest list may make it easier to personalize the wedding ceremony to reflect your relationship and unique personalities. It may also simplify the planning process and lead to a less stressed couple on wedding day to have a smaller size wedding. However, a gregarious and outgoing couple may love the idea of having a huge crowd and being the center of attention.

Do you already have a location picked out? If so, this may provide you with some limitations as to how many guests you are able to invite to your wedding. Decide whether the guest list or the venue is more important. If you want a destination wedding, you probably won't be able to fly three hundred of your closest friends to a Caribbean beach or a chateau in France. You simply may not be able to fit that many people into a beautiful but small local church, either. Likewise, it would seem silly to rent a huge space for your wedding, then only fill it with twenty guests. In other words, if you already have a favorite location picked out, you may have plan your guest list and wedding size according to those surroundings. This can be used as a great excuse if someone is pressuring you to invite more people: "I'm sorry, we're set on having the wedding ceremony here, and they just won't fit."

Another important consideration when deciding on the size of your wedding is the budget. More guests means more invitations, more favors, more food, and possibly a more expensive location. If you feel bad about not inviting a distant relative or old friend, keep in mind that you probably wouldn't care if someone you barely knew didn't invite you to their small wedding. Focusing on the people who matter most to you now, at you present stage in life, will help you have a joyful wedding ceremony without stressing as much about the budget. When money is the issue, one method is to start by writing your dream guest list of everyone you wish you could invite to your wedding. Once you figure out how much it will cost per person for food, etc., begin cutting people out until you are within budget. If someone else is paying for the wedding, it is only fair that you take into consideration their wishes for the size of the wedding. Traditionally, the bride's parents controlled the budget and told the groom's family how many guests they could invite. However, if the bride and groom are paying, they should have complete control of the guest list.

Compromise: invite only a small number of guests to your wedding ceremony, but plan a large reception afterward. This can be a great solution to the wedding size issue for many people. It's a good option if you have a long guest list but are on a tight budget, or the bride and groom disagree about an ideal wedding size. If you are planning a destination wedding, you can have a big party with your extended family and friends when you return home. Also, families with small children on your guest list may appreciate the option to be part of you wedding day without having to sit through the actual ceremony. Simply send everyone on your guest list an invitation to the reception, and enclose another card for those you want to invite to the wedding ceremony.

Like the rest of your wedding planning, try not to make decisions about your guest list or ceremony size based on what will please others. If you strongly want an intimate wedding with just the two of you present, everyone else may have to deal with just attending the reception. Don't get carried away with size and break your budget by inviting everyone from old high school friends to third cousins you've never met, if that's not what you really want. More than anything, the size of your ceremony should reflect your personality so that you are comfortable with your guest list on the big day.

Finding Wedding Professionals In Your Area

Planning a wedding can certainly be a stressful thing. Planning a location wedding can be even more so-finding photographers, florists, caterers, officiant and DJ, etc. are all vendors that  have to be arranged. Since you don't live in the area where you are planning the wedding of course this can be problematic. While the internet provides a good resource for searching, finding vetted professionals can still be challenging. I would encourage not only paying attention to reviews, but also researching  the local wedding association.  

Here on the Central Coast of California we are fortunate enough to host  two local wedding organizations.  CCWP (Central Coast of California Wedding Professionals) supports our wedding community. CCWP recently celebrated it's 20th anniversary of service and offers an annual bridal faire as well as maintaining a website (http://ccwp.com) that features vetted professionals for your every wedding event need.

The other wedding organization on the Central Coast is Central Coast Bride (http:/centralcoastbride.com) Central Coast Bride features local vendors, planning tools and it's own schedule of Central Coast Bride bridal fairs. Additionally,  Central Coast Bride is a foundation.  The Central Coast Bride Foundation contributes to causes locally, nationally and internationally.

To find out more about associations in the area you are planning your wedding initiate searches containing words like "wedding association, " "wedding professionals" and "wedding organizations.