I Don't Need Your Money

As a career advisor, I hesitate coaching anyone into a maverick posture when they have a job offer at 20-40% less than their last paycheck, but they have the clock ticking against the three months severance from their last job and their mortgage and their child's college tuition payments are on the horizon for several more years.

BUT... It's OK to think that "I don't need this; I don't need to settle; I can keep going until I'm in a financial squeeze that compels me to take that much less".

The same is true for consulting fees. This happens when potential clients attempt to nickel and dime you. In my wedding celebrant business, I get calls from people who have seen my website and tell me they've read the range of fees for my services. On the website, I do not outline point for point where the charges break down, but if I start at the low of 250, it's strange to hear a groom tell me he's having a wedding with 100 guests at the most expensive hotel in this city and he wants to pay me no more than 150! There is nothing wrong with shopping price, but there's an image issue and a values issue here---this groom would not ask his hotel caterers to serve jello mold for dessert or ask his photographer to use discount disposables, to cut costs. It's just NOT DONE. He knows this.

I don't need his money, even though I had that weekend open this summer. At the same time, there are others who engage my services for 150. Who are they? These are people like a couple I married in May, who came to my house and in my meditation room said their vows. I gave them a keepsake copy of the standard script, took pictures for them, had fresh flowers at the front door and found small tokens to decorate the ceremony room to reflect their Latino nationality. My services were their biggest expense.

It all comes down to this: none of us needs anyone else's money, whether we're in plenty or in want. We need to earn a living and money shows up when we contribute to the greater good. So remember this, not as a defensive posture, but as an empowerment and a sign of inherent trust.

Green weddings: going organic

There are occasionally organic wedding ceremonies and I witnessed (officiated) one last Saturday evening. What makes a wedding organic? It springs from the natural, and a park wedding, rain or shine is natural, especially when the temp reaches 94 degrees at 5 PM.

This wedding was originally designed to be just the bride and groom and yours truly. The photographer would snap pictures and the couple would have a party in the Fall and show the photos and tell their friends what the day was like. But something Pied Piper happened on the way to the nuptials.

And we ended up with thirty guests, including the bride's father flying in from North Carolina, and her grandmother driving in with other family from fifty miles south of the city. So as we waited for the couple to arrive from opposite ends of the park, we formed an honor guard. And then someone said the two gorgeous teenage sisters (nieces of the bride) could sing a Josh Groban song a Capella in harmony, well....you get the picture?

This was an organic wedding, the ultimate in GREEN. The grand tree facing the swan pond was decorated with battery operated votive candles (you can't bring fire into the park); we had no chairs but formed a semi-circle around the pair; by default we opened the guest list to twenty or more passersby.

We were lucky in many ways. The girls ability to sing was just the stroke of musicality that added a refinement that I would not have imagined we could add at the last minute. But there it was. Green weddings at this level are not for everyone. As hot as we were, we could easily have been chilled out and hovering beneath umbrellas. But that's how the real green weddings work. We were all there for the words, the commitment and the joy of the outdoors and all its possibilities.

Wow. It's June

I have been remiss in my posting here; it's been several weeks since I've given myself the time to write. So what's new?

I have turned a corner in developing wedding ceremonies. Through the amazing trust and courage of several recent couples, I have written and will soon deliver their love stories without their having seen and approved the script copy before they hear my rendering for the first time.

Some of you don't know that in my officiating ceremonies, I introduce the couple and begin the ceremony unofficially by telling the gathered guests the story of this couple and how they came to be standing in our midst ready to commit to a lifelong union. Up until a few weeks ago, I wrote the ceremony and sent it back to the couple to read and approve. After all, they should hear what their guests will hear. But recently several couples have said that they wanted their beloved other's thoughts about them told to them as a surprise. And having done this once two weeks ago, I can see that it has an amazing depth of intimacy I never could have guessed.

This new trust has opened up a richer way of writing, a bolder level of speaking. The wedding ceremonies I now write get much closer to the poetry that exists within the hearts and minds of the individual people whose story I'm telling. Couples who use my services are required to answer a series of questions about themselves and each other and if they let themselves answer fully and honestly, they usually say the most exquisite things well worth telling just the way they wrote those words.

Thank you for your trust. It is my pleasure and privilege.