{Does This Path Have a Heart?}

Dear Bride-to-Be: This may sound a bit strange to say, but when you're planning your wedding, remember it's all about the love! Yes, there's the dress and the cake and the band and the flowers and the shoes and the vows and the list goes on. There are scads of "things" to be included and make decisions about.

But remember, that's only the "stuff" -- the trappings of the wedding. It's easy to get so caught up with the "things" that you lose your connection to your relationship, your family, your friends -- your focus on the love that brought all of this together. And a wedding that's been planned without the open heart of inclusion is a wedding where intimacy is missing.

“Weddings are increasingly notable for their amazing lack of intimacy, their evolution into industry,” NPR commentator Jacki Lyden stated in her story, “Spectacle of Matrimony,” leading up the wedding of Chelsea Clinton in the summer of 2010. Speaking about weddings in our celebrity-driven, appearance crazed culture, she explained how “they’ve evolved into must-haves and appointment-list mega-spectacles.”

But Chelsea's wedding -- a large, celebrity-list affair -- as well as the recent wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton -- an even larger, celebrity-list and royal affair -- were intimate, deeply personal expressions of love and relationship. Grand and regal, yes; however, you could feel the love and intimacy, the sense of relatedness, and the open-hearted connections throughout the celebration.

So it's not about the size of the wedding; we see that large weddings can be intimate and tender. It's all about you opening your heart (to everyone) and have your love come first in all the decisions you make. Keep this quote at your wedding planning fingertips: "Look at every path closely … then ask yourself one question: Does this path have a heart?"

Love. Listen. Let go.
....with love from Cornelia

[Top Photograph: Genevieve de Manio]