There is a line in Ecclesiastes that has always stayed with me: “For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven.”
Weddings, too, seem to follow the seasons. Most couples prefer to marry when ceremonies can be held outdoors—when the weather is gentle, the breezes are warm, and flowers are in bloom.
For my part, I have taken advantage of this quieter wedding season to tend to other work. In recent months, I have been largely immersed in teaching at the local college, building and launching a course that required both focus and care.
And yet, like spring itself, Wedding Country is never far away.
How could it be? Wedding Country remains that place the mind returns to when it begins to imagine good things ahead—when life lightens, even if only slightly, and grace has a way of carrying us through.
I came to Wedding Country by an act of good fortune, and over time my wife Linda and I have made a life here. We have lived together in this blessed country for forty years. I remember when we first arrived thinking, What a beautiful place. And now, after all these years, it has come to feel that serving as an ambassador—and a welcomer—to this place may be one of the great joys of my life.
In creating this officiating practice, I have tried to reflect that same sense of place: a setting where two people stand at a threshold and make a promise—not of perfection, but of intention. Not of certainty, but of willingness. A place where a ceremony becomes something more than an event; it becomes a moment of meaning, shaped with care.
And perhaps, more than anything, it is a place of belonging.
Not in the sense of arrival, as though everything has already been resolved—but in the deeper sense of choosing, again and again, to make a life together. To create something like a home, even in the presence of uncertainty. To say, in front of others and to one another, this is where I will stand.
And so, as the season turns and I find myself stepping back into this work, my sense of purpose has only deepened.
Last weekend, I found myself in the garden for the first time this year—planting the espalier tree Linda brought home last fall, setting a second compost bin beside the first, shelling purple runner beans in preparation for another season. All of it done with an eye toward what is coming, and with a quiet anticipation of warmer days ahead.
Time away like this has a way of clarifying things. It strips away what is unnecessary and leaves behind what endures. And what remains, for me, is a renewed conviction that a wedding ceremony should be an expression of something deep—something that deserves thoughtfulness, honesty, and a kind of quiet dignity.
And like the garden we are just beginning to plant, this next season of Wedding Country will reflect that.
There will be continued attention to the craft of the ceremony—to language, to structure, to the telling of each couple’s story in a way that feels true to who they are. There will also be space for reflection: on marriage, on commitment, and on the human longing for connection that underlies it all.
If you’ve found your way here, whether as a couple planning a ceremony or simply as a reader, I’m glad you’re here.
It is springtime in Wedding Country once again.
Welcome.