While I like to think I am the best of both of my parents, my mom and I were very close and watching her health decline while Rick and I  were falling in love, celebrating our engagement and planning our wedding was difficult. Fortunately, she made no secret of her happiness for me, she adored Rick and was thrilled I had finally found my one. The photograph above is and will likely always be one of my most cherished pictures from our original wedding. We planned this hometown wedding in Waukesha, where I was born and grew up, so it would be easy for my parents to attend.  My mom had dementia and her short-term memory was declining thus why we chose to hurry up and get married.

Rick and I had many heartfelt conversations about how, where and when to have our wedding, many that ended in my tears. Being a wedding planner most certainly did not exempt us from the stress, emotion and challenges of planning a wedding or two, in fact, it actually just complicated the situation. The goal and the only real non-negotiable was to have all our parents in attendance. Easy? Not so much, but happy to report: mission accomplished.  Thanks to my wonderful husband and my amazing and accommodating in-laws for making it happen. Having my mom at our wedding offered me so much comfort in her final days. She passed away peacefully two months after our wedding.

Our other ask was that our nieces and nephews and siblings were in attendance. That’s all we really needed. Of course, we wanted our friends, aunts, uncles and cousins, but given the situation, an intimate immediate family wedding in Wisconsin sooner, followed by an encore celebration in Boston with extended family and dear friends, later was the decision we landed on. Turns out, it was an excellent decision! If anyone was offended for not being included in our original wedding, hopefully after my mom passed they were more understanding to what motivated our difficult decision.  Neither wedding was perfect, life happens and is unavoidable, but we did have two beautiful, wonderful and very memorable wedding weekends with those we love.

I will attempt to share much of our back story, the planning and of course the fruits of our labor in the weeks and months to come. First I want to talk about my mom briefly, because she was superb, deserves to be honored and will be remembered always. She was a passionate, lively, courageous, strong willed, big-hearted woman. She loved her family and children most. In her prime, milestones, birthdays and holidays never went unacknowledged. She was thoughtful, generous, festive and loving. I am a better woman, friend and event planner because of her and I plan to honor her memory by being a loving wife and devoted mother, cherishing my family the way she treasured hers.  My husband read the eulogy I wrote at her funeral. We played songs from Elvis and The Beatles and filled the room with old photographs, mum plants, dear friends and our extended family.  It was a sentimental and appropriate tribute to my life long friend, companion and mother.

Thank you for indulging me as I get personal– it feels necessary in order to be authentic– something I pride myself in personally and professionally. 

My mom on our wedding day.

My mom’s eulogy:

Here is my mom’s obituary and a tribute to her life.

xo, 
Tammy