Writing Love

one song at a time

There’s something quietly magical that happens before I write a single word of a ceremony. I was first inspired to try this after interviewing my Vancouver Island colleague, Life-Cycle Celebrant™️, Frank Wall on a podcast interview you can connect with on this substack page. Frank spoke about using music as a way of entering into a person/couple’s world when he is writing a ceremony. Since then, I’ve begun asking couples to share songs that feel like them: what they cook dinner to, what they road trip with, what brings them back to each other after a long day. I gather these into a playlist, press play, and let it loop as I begin drafting their ceremony.

Over time, the music starts to do something that even the most thoughtful questionnaire can’t quite reach. It softens the edges of formality and invites me into the emotional landscape of their relationship. I begin to notice patterns like the tenderness in acoustic tracks, the joy in upbeat dance rhythms, the nostalgia tucked into older songs. Recently, one couple included Lady Gaga’s “You and I,” and I found myself returning to it again and again. On my first read of their questionnaire, I hadn’t fully grasped the depth of their long, back-and-forth journey but as I listened, something clicked. There was a grit and devotion in the song, especially in that repeated pull of “sit back down,” that revealed a love shaped by leaving and returning, by tension and choosing each other anyway. Suddenly, I could hear and see a layer of their relationship that hadn’t yet made it onto the page.

Listening on repeat becomes a kind of devotion to their love story. It allows me to write from a place of connection rather than construction. I’m not just assembling words that sound beautiful. It’s more like translating a feeling that’s already alive between them. Music gives me access to the spaces between their answers and the emotional texture of their bond. When I finally sit down to write, it feels less like starting from scratch and more like continuing a conversation that’s already been unfolding in melody.

Now it’s time to track down Ingrid Michaelson’s ‘You and I’ (not at all the same as Gaga’s) and get back to capturing another wedding ceremony.