What Does Cooking Have to Do With a Successful Marriage?

When I sit down with you to start talking about your ceremony, I want to know more than how you met.

Of course I want to hear that story. But I also want to know what you love doing together, what makes you laugh, what you’re slightly obsessed with, and the things you might not think have anything to do with your wedding.

Because sometimes, those are the things that give me the best ideas.

I call it the golden thread.

It might be something that runs through your life together, something you both love, or simply something that tells me a little more about the two of you.

Take one couple I worked with, Lauren and Rob. They told me how much they loved food. Cooking together, eating out and finding a good bottle of wine. It was clearly a big part of their life together.

So, when I was asked to give them some words of marriage advice, I started in the kitchen.

I compared a good marriage to a favourite recipe. Trust, love and respect were the essential ingredients. Strength was the stock that held everything together. Independence was the spice cabinet, because you still need to keep your own flavour. And support was the helping hand when something needs stirring, tasting or, occasionally, rescuing.

It worked because it was theirs.

Another couple were rowers. In fact, rowing was part of how they met, so it seemed rather obvious that there might be something in that.

There was.

A successful rowing pair has to trust each other. They need to find the same rhythm, agree on the direction and know when to pull harder and when to ease off. Sometimes they need to communicate without saying very much at all. And, of course, the boat only moves forward when they pull together.

There was our marriage advice.

Neither of these ideas came from a book of wedding readings or a list of things you might like to hear on your wedding day. They came from conversations with the couples themselves.

And that’s the bit I love.

When we’re talking, I’ll be listening to the things you tell me, including the things you probably think are completely irrelevant. What you cook on a Sunday. Where you always go on holiday. What your friends take the mickey out of. The business you’ve built together. The film you’ve watched far too many times.

You don’t need to arrive with a perfectly formed story.

Just tell me about yourselves.

Because somewhere in those conversations, there will be something that gives me a way into your ceremony. It might become a piece of marriage advice, a story, a reading, a joke, or simply a line that makes you both think, yes, that’s us.

And that’s when the storytelling gets interesting.

Not because I’ve added lots of personal details for the sake of it, but because the words have come from things you’ve actually told me. Your interests, your personalities, the way you are together and the things that matter to you.

So don’t worry about giving me the ‘right’ information when we first meet.

Tell me the ordinary stuff.

Tell me the things you love. Tell me the things that make you laugh. Tell me the things you don’t agree on. Tell me the things that make absolutely no sense to anyone else.

Somewhere in all of that, there will be your very own golden thread.

Once we’ve found it, we’ll find the little ways to bring it into your ceremony, so that every word could only ever have been written about you.