Life and the future

I've been getting excited about life again. That's not to say that before I was on the verge of something drastic. I was just in the day to day routine of life: Wake up early, go to work, come home -or go to school then come home, go to bed, do it again. My roommate is engaged and while I was a tad jealous of her at first, I now wish that we were closer so that she would let me help with her plans (is that selfish?). I want so badly to be a social event planner and I really, REALLY want to plan weddings. I know I would be so great at finding out how people want to celebrate an occasion and then doing it for them. I would love to go to stores and venues and bakeries and help my client find exactly what he/she is picturing. So I started looking at schools again. Before I had a really hard time finding anything good but I've done some reading about the industry and looked a little harder at one of my top choices and found two, count them! TWO perfect programs at two colleges near me. I sent an email to the hospitality department at one school and now I have a phone meeting with the head of the department tonight at 6:00. I hate talking on the phone, but I'm really ecstatic at the prospect of having a career I love being within reach.

I found this article on an ezine while looking for music to sing at a wedding:

What better motivation for becoming a top level wedding planner than planning your own wedding and loving every moment of the process! This is exactly the way Rebecca Stone came into being Duet Weddings in February 2006. “I was completely head over heels smitten with the wedding planning process after planning my own wedding,” she told YWD. “I loved every second of it, starting with a vision, planning the details and then seeing it all come true and experiencing the magic of the day.” And when it was all over, there was no question in Rebecca’s mind concerning what she wanted to be doing each and every day thereafter: planning weddings, whether the request be for ‘month-of’ assistance, a full-service wedding, or anything in between.

After learning the planning process so thoroughly through her own wedding, Rebecca’s main goal was to share her experiences and what she had learned and to help other brides and grooms. “I understood exactly what they are feeling -- the excitement and happiness of the engagement; the confusion and stress which comes with the abundance of choices and costs; the wedding daydreams (and inability to focus on much else); and wedding nightmares (the repeated dream of forgetting to buy shoes resulting in many sleepless nights).”

And, she shared with us, she loves being the great listener for others that her friends and family were for her. “I want to be able to reassure and help. I wanted to guide and advise. I want to allow others to enjoy the process completely and enjoy the big day knowing that everything is being handled with the greatest of love and care.”

With her own wedding serving as her initial inspiration, we asked Rebecca about the source of her continued inspiration which we simply love what we found out: her inspiration is you! Rebecca virtually beamed when she shared, “I love nothing more than the look on a couple’s face as they walk back up the aisle as husband and wife during their recessional.” She also loves the look on their faces, the wide-eyed awe, when they first walk into their reception and the way their smiles for each other actually glow during their first dance. “As much as I adore the little details and beautiful wedding ‘things,’” Rebecca says, “what inspires me most are the couples I work with.”

But she does love those wedding “things” too. “I absolutely love the details and the ability to constantly create and imagine,” she says. She admitted a little secret, that she can talk for hours about flowers, invitations, linens, and gowns, and she lists some of the wedding-planning tasks she loves the most: ‘playing’ with paper products, scouring flea markets to find the perfect vase, planning menus and tasting accompanying wines, buying fabrics and ribbons to perhaps be used later as table runners, embellishments for the napkins, or another creative endeavor. A morning at the flower mart is also among her favorite things, where she enjoys spending the afternoon arranging and rearranging the flowers she has purchased until she achieves the perfect look.

Whether your wedding is to be in Rebecca’s vicinity, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, the Santa Ynez Valley, or a destination wedding anywhere worldwide, Rebecca’s enthusiasm is infectious. “Yes, yes, yes!” she says. “I absolutely love to travel and would be completely thrilled to take on a wedding opportunity anywhere in the world. Be it exotic and remote or bustling metropolitan - destination weddings are a huge dream of mine!”

Please plan on calling Rebecca immediately after that magical day you become engaged, because she takes on only a limited number of weddings each year in order to provide you with a superior level of attention and continuing magic. “I try to plan each wedding as if it were my own.” she says.

For you, this is a good thing, because the exquisite way in which she planned her own wedding resulted in a feature article in a leading bridal magazine. Rebecca says this was a huge honor and accomplishment after pouring her love into planning each and every little detail of that beautiful day. And this is the type of exquisite wedding Rebecca and Duet Weddings will lovingly and enthusiastically plan for you.


By Susan Hart Hellman, Executive Editor


Rebecca's website was at the end of the article and on her website is this blog which I have now put on my blog roll: Duet Weddings
I could run around my office building for an hour and not get tired, I'm so deliriously happy. Rebecca is me, well except I haven't gotten married, but I just love what she loves. I feel how she must have felt a couple of years ago right after she discovered her passion. My life ISN'T over. I have a future again!