words

the heart of woven.

It has been a year now since my first woven wedding. It's been a year and still I carry this tiny business in my hands while in turn it carries so much of my heart and soul.

I have been thinking since the summer that I wanted to start a page with words for you. A place where you could understand why this business is so much a part of me. I have delayed it long enough but now feels like the perfect time to start. So here we go.

I am from Asheville, NC, and I went to school for events, focusing on non-profits. I assisted a few weddings and did my very first wedding in Atlanta. But after a trip to Central America, I fell in love with the place and moved there in 2010 to teach dance and help begin a sponsor student program for the locals. I lived there for the most part of four years. Eventually I met my husband in Nicaragua, we got married and moved to Spain in 2014 until we returned to his hometown of Nashville in 2016.

My life has been full of hospitality, mentoring and believing in people and their dreams around the world. I set weddings aside for a while but little did I know everything that I was growing was going to bring me full circle. I was good at the task of wedding planning and design, but during those years my heart was beginning to understand what this dream was all about.

For so long I watched bridesmaids let their insecurities surface and steal the joy of the season. I watched brides grow tough skin in a season where they should have been left soft. I remember listening to the groom argue with a grandmother on the wedding day about something that could have gently been handled before the wedding. If they had just been given the space to talk.

My heart ached to change the stigma that fell around weddings and the season before it. Why should this be a season that we just tell people to ‘push through?' How can I cultivate space for brides, grooms and their families to have those conversations and clear the way for the wedding to embody the spirits of the bride and groom. To create an atmosphere of peace around their wedding.

That’s what is happening and this is the journey of Woven.

Why Woven? - Weaving is a process of making strong fabric from two sets of yarn. So many elements coming together in accord. It’s the word and a process that symbolize all that goes into such a sacred moment in time.

But most of all, Woven, that was the name of the song two dear friends wrote and sang over my husband and me on our wedding day…

Continue this journey with me. I want to learn from my brides, grooms, families and vendors on how best to serve you during this season. Let’s exchange chaos for peace, together.

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Whitney GorbettComment