From the Founders | An End, and a Beginning.
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To our Brides and Readers,
Since our founding six years ago we have always sought a personal, honest, approachable relationship with you through every medium we use to communicate. Today we’re here to share some some stirrings of our hearts, and some significant news:
In January 2022, we at Spoken Bride will be concluding our ministry.
Gosh, it feels like a big exhale, but also like a bated breath, to publish these words. Over the past year we’ve loved working alongside our team of unbelievably creative, hardworking, prayerful women, pursuing our mission to highlight all that is good, true, and beautiful about Catholic marriage. We have shed tears of joy and wonder over every single gallery and video you’ve shared with us, cheered on our community of Catholic vendors, and most of all, learned so much from the stories, intentions, and insights you’ve entrusted us to tell.
And yet. From the start we’ve aimed to create a company culture where vocation is foremost. What would a marriage ministry be, really, if we didn’t prioritize our own marriages and calls, trusting that the Lord blesses saying yes to Him in every season? It felt like a huge, irrational surprise when we felt the Holy Spirit nudging us, with ever-increasing clarity, toward transitioning away from this work we love and believe in so deeply, turning our gaze inward and ahead. Amid all the passion we feel for marriages that will change the world, we’ve realized the necessity–and goodness–of changing the world in the hiddenness of our individual marriages and families, and we look to the season ahead with peace and resolve.
What does this mean for you, the invaluable readers who’ve joined us in this work through your comments, intercession, writing, testimonies, and investment? Here, a few important points about our conclusion:
Will Spoken Bride’s content be going away?
No! Our website, social media, Vendor Guide, and podcast will remain available, though inactive. No new content will be produced after January 31, 2022, but you’ll have continued access to finding Catholic wedding vendors, browsing our Wedding Directory for inspiration, and listening to three seasons’ worth of practical and spiritual support for brides and newlyweds.
Wait! I haven’t finished my wedding program.
We’ve got you! All of our customizable digital products–including wedding programs, stationery suites, and thank you notes–come with free lifetime access to our editing software. Once you’ve purchased and received your products, they’re yours for good to customize and print. Bear in mind that these products are proprietary and copyrighted, and are for your personal use only.
Speaking of programs, can I still purchase one? Will your shop stay open?
The Spoken Bride Shop, which includes our best-selling Catholic wedding programs along with a range of other products for your wedding liturgy and home, is open through December 30, 2021.
There are two essential, endlessly inspiring ideas we’d like to leave you with– ideas we endeavor to worship and live by. First, the Lord is the ultimate artist.
Only a perfectly creative Creator can design specific, indelible love stories marked with infinite expressions of His loving hand. Every vocation, including the call to marriage, is a divine romance. Any desire you experience for a beautiful wedding isn’t shallow or insignificant. When held in a balanced perspective, that desire is a reflection of the Father’s own all-encompassing beauty and goodness.
Your wedding offers you and, by extension, everyone present, a window into this sacred beauty. Beauty is a bridge, communicating a depth of understanding that surpasses words and points us to its source. When you deeply love your Catholic faith, drawing your loved ones’ attention to beauty and goodness offers them a glimpse of what God is like. And that glimpse has the power to speak volumes– to pierce and awaken.
Second, He is the ultimate host.
If goodness, truth, and beauty are a bridge, where do they lead? To the heart of the Father. Always, he beckons us and meets us right where we are. He invites us.
Our Catholic faith can extend an invitation, not build a wall. It can communicate through those things unspoken that stir the heart to consider its purpose and to embrace its ache for the eternal. Your wedding day, and marriage, can embody the love of God for his children and foretell the heavenly wedding feast–the ultimate invitation. We’re all called to the banquet.
From us to you, thank you, thank you, thank you.
In whatever capacity you’ve encountered Spoken Bride over the years, we are beyond grateful for all that you are. We sincerely hope your experience was just that: an encounter, real and true without artifice, unafraid of the Cross, a source of encouragement and positivity.
We have loved serving you, and though it’s the end of our active work on this ministry, don’t lose sight of the fact that your wedding day is anything but: it’s a beginning. Let’s begin.
In Jesus, through Mary,
Andi Compton and Stephanie Calis
Spoken Bride, Co-Founders & Owners
Image credits: Elissa Voss Photography | Claire Watson Photography
Lord God, from You every family in Heaven and on earth takes its name. Father, You are love and life.
Through Your Son, Jesus Christ, born of woman, and through the Holy Spirit, the fountain of divine charity, grant that every family on earth may become for each successive generation a true shrine of life and love.
Grant that Your grace may guide the thoughts and actions of husbands and wives for the good of their families and of all the families in the world.
Grant that the young may find in the family solid support for their human dignity and for their growth in truth and love.
Grant that love, strengthened by the grace of the sacrament of marriage, may prove mightier than all the weaknesses and trials through which our families sometimes pass.
Through the intercession of the Holy Family of Nazareth, grant that the Church may fruitfully carry out her worldwide mission in the family and through the family.
We ask this of You, Who is life, truth and love with the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.