Transcription of Celebrating Love #125
Dr. Lisa: This is Dr. Lisa Belisle and you’re listening to the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast show number 125, Celebrating Love, airing for the first time on Sunday, February 2nd, 2014. Today’s guests include Leslie Oster, general manager with Aurora Provisions and Kate Martin, owner and creative director with Beautiful Days.
Over the years, many couples from here and from away have celebrated their love by being married in Maine. Each February, Maine Magazine celebrates love with its wedding issue, which tells the stories of these special couples. Leslie Oster and Kate Martin who have been a part of countless special wedding days, today, share their perspective about what it means to celebrate love in Maine. Thank you for joining us.
I love it when I have the chance to bring friends of mine into the studio and have conversations and I’m not just bringing them into the studio to have conversations because they’re my friends. I’m bringing them in for other reasons. Today, I’m speaking with Leslie Oster who has been a friend of mine for a while. She’s also the general manager at Aurora Provisions and works quite a lot with the contemporaries group at the Portland Museum of Art and she’s everywhere, doing everything, connected with everyone so anybody who doesn’t know Leslie Oster, you will soon know her. Today, we’re going to talk to her so thanks for coming in, Leslie.
Leslie: Thank you, sweetie. That was a lovely introduction.
Dr. Lisa: It’s kind of appropriate because we’re now in the month of February. We’re talking about celebrating love. We know that you’ve been a big part of the Maine Magazine wedding issue for many years and the work that you do brings you in contact with people who are, themselves, celebrating love through weddings and other events. Why do you do the work that you do?
Leslie: I don’t know that we set out to be this kind of wedding machine that we are when Marika first bought Aurora but the women who owned it previously, you may know Cheryl and Noreen that have El Rayo who did a great job of setting up Aurora and then Marika’s owned it for 14 years now and I came with her to sort of build the catering and event and it just kind of happened that we kind of fell into this wedding world, weddings and funerals.
We never turned funerals down. I think it partly because it’s a place where artistry really can make magic. You can work with people and realize their dreams. Every story is a different story and every couple has a different vibe and what they want it to be about and how it has to really be reflective of them and we’re in a unique situation because we don’t have set menus. We don’t have set ideas. We don’t have set venues that we go to.
As you know, we’ve catered out of closets before and so it’s really a lovely process to sit down with a couple at the beginning when they’re just so excited and then watch the process through and really hone their ideas and then be able to complement who they are with what we do. It was kind of like theatre for me and I was a theatre major back in the day and a filmmaker and worked as a painter so this artistry is really important to us and through food to be able to paint a pallet that really reflects who those people are and what they’re about so at the end of the day, we’re like, “Oh, that was a great caterer. That was great floors. That was a great wedding.” Everything came together and represented those people, the two people getting married and whoever they may be.
It’s really interesting how many couples I’ve maintained friendships with. I think one of the couples that Kate and I worked together is going to be in the issue, Linda Kraus and her husband Evan Meinbergen. Every time they come to me, they come in and we have lunch together and we visit together and pretty sure as soon as they get pregnant, I’ll be one of the people who are the first to know. I mean you create these bonds with people that’s pretty special.
Dr. Lisa: The name Aurora, it was lyrical. I believe Aurora was the goddess of the dawn.
Leslie: She is the goddess of dawn.
Dr. Lisa: Is, right. I don’t think she’s gone anywhere.
Leslie: Hopefully not.
Dr. Lisa: But even that, it does speak to some bigger theme. It’s not just, “Here’s a sandwich. Eat this sandwich and have fun at your wedding.” It really is this idea that it’s the sensuality and the taste and really incorporating all of these things into the celebration.
Leslie: It’s funny when I ask the girls sort of how they came up with the name, they have a story that is different from how we perceived it so when Marika first came, we had this and it’s still on our old logo. I don’t know if it’s still there but it’s a beautiful. I went and saw the painting in Florence, this water carrier from the painting of the Head of John the Baptist so that was how we sort of rebranded of this idea of this woman bringing water and fruits. She’s got this beautiful head of fruits and she’s sort of bringing this offering into the painting and into the scene.
I think that we just sort of tried to kind of hold on to that through the years. The original tagline was beautiful food for busy people and I think we sort of moved over, 13 years moved away from that. We still want to make beautiful food but it’s more about bringing beauty into food and sort of bringing emotion into food and so that when you dine, you’re not just eating. You’re actually having an experience.
I think when I first came to the wedding world, nobody really cared about the meal. It was all about, “Well, we have to do the first dance and we have to do the toast and we have to do and then we have to take them to dancing and then there’s the after party.” I’m like, but what about the meal? Isn’t that sort of what you’re here for? Isn’t that the celebratory dining together, breaking bread together? One of the first things I ask people is like slow down and let’s think about that meal. Let’s not rush through everything.
I think in retrospect, some of the nicest weddings are the smaller ones that have the long tables of 25 people and they’re just so happy to just share and they’re so happy to share the experience and the food becomes sort of the vessel for that.
Dr. Lisa: As you’re describing it, it does strike me that there’s something very sacramental about it. It is the communion, it is the breaking of the bread and you’re right. I’ve been to a number of weddings and event halls where you’re served a rubber chicken and the hard rolls and you’re kind of forced to sit around with people that you may or you may not really know and there’s sort of a discomfort but the opposite side of that is really opening yourself up to the tastes of the food that you’re eating and the smells and the beautiful arrangement.
Leslie: And also bringing as much of the couple into the food. Some of these we’ve done … I mean God, we’ve done an Indian wedding. We’ve done Chinese. We’ve done Polish so it’s kind of that’s really fun too. What did you grow up with? What did you grow up with? The interview I put the brides and grooms through, it’s like “what do you like?”
It’s almost more of what you dislike is what guides us when we’re readying menus because that’s so much easier to pin. What are your favorite restaurants or what is your family culture? Is there something special? Do you have to have fin and haddy, do you have to have lobster? Do you have to have pierogi? I mean whatever it is that your grandma that will really appreciate that you took the time to remember that part of your culture or South end Italian cook or North end Italian cookies, something that’s just bringing memory into it and history and connecting all the dots.
I mean you’re marrying two families together. You’re bringing two families together, hopefully, and why not share a meal and get to know each other and celebrate the couple but also celebrate the joining of families.
Dr. Lisa: It’s also nice that you’re able to offer something to people that they don’t always have time to do for themselves. This last Christmas, the significant man in my life, he and I wanted to host Christmas Eve dinner for my family. My family is very large. It’s French and Irish Catholic. There’s many of them and many small children and I work in … the way that my life works, we all have a lot going on and you were able to step in and create these amazing vegetable dishes and the main course that I actually eat which is not always the case because I don’t eat meat and it was exactly what we would have wanted to be able to do for ourselves which is huge.
Leslie: I think that that is sort of the beauty in Aurora and the amazing team that is there. I mean we just can’t say no like yes is the answer, what’s the question? Sort of, that’s one of the abiding rules and Marika certainly instilled that in all of us since she’s the first one to, at 62, to be in the kitchen working at nine hour a day, which is pretty impressive. Sorry, I didn’t mean to give your age out loud, but it is. I mean for a woman, she was one of the first women to ever have a restaurant in Maine in Belfast back in the ‘70s and I’m so inspired by her and I think everybody that works with us is inspired.
Our head chef is almost 50. I’m almost 50. We’re bringing up the young kids but we’re still at it because we love it. We don’t want to stop. We got a good thing going.
Dr. Lisa: That’s evident even when sitting on the Aurora Provisions store on the West end. I’ve had many meetings there. I’ve had my cup of soup. I’ve had my tea and lots of great brainpower you can see kind of percolating around the people who sit there and the people who work there. They’re very friendly. They’re very connected.
Leslie: They all have other aspirations. For most of the people who aren’t professional cooks or chef, this is a stopping point on their way and they’ve just finished college or they’re in graduate programs or they’re a jewelry maker. We have a jewelry maker. We have a couple of artists, an actress, a singer so it makes … again, that’s the theatrical part of it. We tend to draw in people that have similar interest or used food as a way to express it.
Dr. Lisa: What role did food play in your own life growing up?
Leslie: That’s a good question. I’ve thought about that often. Two very separate cultures. My father’s a Ukranian Jew so I had a lot of cool times when I was really younger watching my grandmother make traditional Eastern European food and it’s interesting because Marika’s Ukranian too so she have way very similar … we grew up with similar dishes just served different ways because they weren’t Jewish like applesauce and latkes is not something that would ever happen in the traditional Ukrainian family but in the Jewish family, you have applesauce and latkes.
Then, on the other side, my family was complete Wasps like Lincolns and my grandfather was the cook. He would put a roast out. I lived with them the summers on Cape Cod and he would cook a meal every night, solid American meal sort of something you’d see in Fanny Farmer or traditional cookbooks and then I inherited his mother’s recipes and it’s interesting how much you go back to them. It’s sort of interesting fun like lockover and traditional American recipe so it’s a real mixed mashed.
I don’t know that my mother actually cooked a lot. She worked and then I in the summers, worked in the restaurant business on Cape Cod because that’s what you did when you’re in school in college and found myself in kitchens and found myself in front of the house and back of the house and ended up just sort of learning and then opened a bar restaurant, well that wasn’t a bar really, in college with friends.
The drinking age went from 19 to 20, 20 to 21 while we were in college in New York and there was a real need to look at drinking in dorms and it was a real problem and at one point, someone fell out of the dorm window so I was a peer counselor and another friend of mine who was very recognized said, “What if we proposed a non-drinking fun dance club like a non-alcoholic club?” which is still going on today at Vassar which is pretty cool.
The administration gave us money and an adviser and the Culinary Institute is right up the road so we had an adviser from them as well and we created this really cool open at 9:00 place to come and have mocktails and burgers and fries and dance yourself silly as a way to sort of combat the underage drinking that was going on so it was kind of cool so that was my first running of a restaurant. It kind of stuck I guess.
Dr. Lisa: What’s your Maine connection?
Leslie: My great, great grandparents were from Rockland. They’re buried up at Samoset and then my mom summered here in Owl’s Head when she was younger and then she, 25 years ago, decided to move to Camden and work for one of the Schooners who are good friends of ours and my sister followed and opened a business in Rockland and then this came about and I kind of fell in love with Portland but Marika took me to Hugo’s when I would just sort of change cans and the person who I’m speaking of knows who they are.
I had this fabulous meal and this amazingly handsome server. I’m like, “Oh, this is nice” I looked at condos and looked at what was available and I’m like, “I think I could live here.” He’s very happily married to one of my dear friends with children but at the time, I was like, “This is what it’s like, really good food and handsome men and affordable housing. I’ll move to Portland,” and also the business. I was really inspired by what I saw going on at Aurora and what we could build. They didn’t have really a catering department. They did a couple things a year. We did 22 weddings last year plus the museum because we have a café at the museum as you know and all the museum events and another little business out at Prout’s Neck and how many people that get employed, I mean it’s amazing.
We just put an addition on this past summer. We didn’t mean to do it in the summer but that’s okay and really grateful. I think everybody this year is surely grateful to have good work year round and that the community still supports us so much.
Dr. Lisa: Here on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast, we’ve long recognized the link between health and wealth. Here to speak more on the topic is Tom Shepard of Shepard Financial.
Tom: Money, it’s something we all love and hate. On the one hand, when we feel like there’s an abundance of it flowing through our lives, the world seems like a pretty great place and there are days when we’re not big fans of our finances. It happens to all of us. When you feel pressured by what’s happening around you because of limited financial resources, it can seem pretty dark. When that feeling begins to take hold, stop for a moment. Take a deep breath and consider this.
Money is not an inanimate object. It is a living and breathing thing and you have a relationship with it. As it goes with all relationships, your feelings ebb and flow based on where you are in any particular moment. It’s not always rosy nor is it always dark. It’s all about acceptance and understanding so you can fall in love with your money.
If you’re wondering what’s love got to do with it, I’ll leave you with this. To acquire money requires us to build and create value for our friends. The Greek for that love is philia. To acquire money requires sacrifice, agape. It requires us to reach out and help our extended family. The Greek for that is storge. To acquire money requires that we do things with passion, thelema. To acquire money requires us to create things that are beautiful and to build things where the beauty can be appreciated, eros. Making money, creating value requires us to paste together a love that is big and inclusive.
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Male: Securities offered through LPL Financial, member of FINRA/SIPC. Investment advice offered through Flagship Harbor Advisers, a registered investment adviser. Flagship Harbor Advisers and Shepard Financial are separate entities from LPL Financial.
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Dr. Lisa: You do have a very strong connection to the arts community. As you mentioned, Aurora has the café at the Portland Museum of Art and you yourself have done a lot of work with the contemporaries group at the Portland Museum of Art and I think now, the Director’s Circle, I think you’re moving into that.
Leslie: Yeah. You know it. Moving on up right?
Dr. Lisa: Right and these are both groups that are supportive of the museum but also are very social and the connections there are important as well. The events that the Contemporaries put on, one of which is coming up this week, the first week in February, they always sell out. People always enjoy the food, the dancing, the music, the connection and I think this goes back to the same thing you’re talking about, the joy of a wedding is the same as the joy of a Contemporaries event that’s being with other people and having the chance to celebrate love as we talked about.
Leslie: Yeah and celebrate our community. I mean I think when people come to me, the connection that I see is people come to Maine to get married, it’s very specific. They want that connection to Maine. I mean I can’t tell you how many Brooklyn couples we’ve married in Maine. They all say someday we’re going to move here and a lot of them has.
There’s this real romance around a Maine wedding as testified by every magazine including our wonderful Maine Magazine. Whether it’s on a farm or whether it’s at the ocean, there’s something magical. I think in general, that’s something magical about Maine. We have the shortest growing season of probably any state in the union and we worship it. As a result, we worship what we have.
I always laugh when my couples want to have tastings in January. I’m like, “Well, I don’t know what you want to taste but it’s not going to taste anything like your menu in August.” As you know, I work with a lot of local farms and I’m on the board of cultivating communities so food issues are very, very, very close to my heart. For us, it’s having the beauty of these products whether it’s from our oceans or from our fields and then using that as sort of our help to the bride and groom to show up where they’ve decided to get married so this is really about place. It’s about place and it’s about Maine, which we are very lucky to live in.
Dr. Lisa: Leslie, another group that you have found very important to support is the Slow Food Maine Group. You’re on the steering committee for that organization so it’s not just about the food being from Maine. It’s how the food is prepared and how we approach it and how we incorporate it into our lives.
Leslie: Absolutely. I think I wish Marika was here. There’s some respects that she could tell the story but when she moved here in the ‘70s, she said she would have killed her best friend for a head of fresh lettuce, that it was before we started which is that was just horrible. You couldn’t get fresh food and this generation now, we’re so used to it. We’re so lucky to have the farmers’ markets that we have and the indoor farmers’ market on winter and we have to actually remember that 35 years ago, that actually wasn’t here in Maine and that now, we have a lot of barren potato fields and a lot of places that are still in need of some help.
Luckily, I can’t believe I’m saying this, our governor did something good. He actually signed the GMO labeling bill which we’re hoping that will pass … I think four more states have to pass to make it happen and that’s going to be huge especially counteracting what’s happened in congress yesterday. I was with the farmers not being able to sue Monsanto for compromised crops. It’s just crazy and I’m not on the policy end of it which is good because it makes my head spin so we really try to make an effort to support our local producers. They’re not all organic but they’re all local because sometimes that’s entirely more important because they know what’s in their fields. They know what they’re bringing to you and for the most part, they are organic without paying gazillion dollars for the certification, not a gazillion dollars, but paying for the certification.
Then you create connections with your farmers. Then you then take that to your menu so oftentimes, well, any restaurant in Portland you’ll actually where it’s sourced from but it even has now now come into recipes like we have Floppie White who the White family is very aware, you know Hildreth White. Floppie has this wonderful tomato recipe that we made for her 10 years ago. It is now on every summer menu and people are like, “Who’s Floppie?”
Then you tell this wonderful story about the coast of Maine and this woman who created this … probably it was her grandmother’s recipe so for me, it’s the storytelling too about the food, where it comes from, the love that it was grown or harvested with, I mean our fishing industry, unbelievable people of what they’re doing and how they’re helping to maintain our culture of fish and aquaculture in Maine. I’ve been following Abigail Carroll on Facebook, Nonesuch Oysters and they were really worried with the freeze that they’re going to lose all their babies, their babies which are two years old.
It takes a significant time to grow an oyster and she posted the other day after the frost like oh, they’re all fine. They’re on the bottom. They’re good. The babies are good and you’re like, you’re actually invested in a baby oyster because you know that that is going to be your product in three or four years and you get to tell that story so I don’t know. It’s about storytelling. It’s about storytelling and good food and love and love of what you do and not resting on your laurels like waking up every day and saying it’s going to be a good day. We’re going to make something good. We’re not going to be for everyone.
As much as you’re interviewing me for your wedding, I’m interviewing you to do your wedding because the bond that’s created is like you have my cellphone number pretty early on. You can call me at 2:00 in the morning if you’re freaking out so I have to have that trust in you the same way you have to have that trust in me that we’re going to make this work.
I have an assistant for the first time this year. She’s fabulous. I think you met her actually. She’s gorgeous and smart and young and there was more at her age than I could have ever imagined to know it back then but just watching her watching me train her and then watching her deal with people, I’m like wow. We can actually teach people how to do this. That’s what I’m hoping. That’s what I’m hoping that we’ll have a whole new generation. You have to have a little psychiatry in there. You got to have a little, a lot of patience and you have to be really understanding of this couple and who they are, these people for whatever reason, especially if it’s funeral.
How many people you take that you walk their hand through that? You become like another clergy person because you’re inevitably providing the comfort. I think that at the end of the day, I want people, me personally, I want people to be fed and nourished and feel really good about what they’ve eaten.
Dr. Lisa: You end up being part of their story.
Leslie: Oftentimes. There are some funny, funny stories when that book comes out. Kate and I, we’re starting it. At first, we thought it would be really fun to just do just sort of parody like the craziest things that ever happened to weddings but I don’t know. There’s something in the works someday.
Dr. Lisa: I look forward to reading it. I’m sure everybody who’s listening is going to look forward to reading it as well.
Leslie: It’s a long way off.
Dr. Lisa: No. It will happen. It’ll happen. Leslie, how do people find out about Aurora Provisions?
Leslie: Wow. Well, Maine Magazine is really a good place to start. I have to say it’s probably been one of our most successful ad campaigns. We always do really funny ads but we’re on the web. We’re working on the website actually currently which will be much easier for people to use and then we’re on the West End at 64 Pine Street and we have the café at the Portland Museum of Art and we’re pretty accessible. Just come on in and say hi and have like the best cappuccino in town pretty much. Sorry, bragging a little bit and one Bob’s scones. Yeah, and just come and experience us. It’s very different. It’s nice because we’re many different businesses under one roof.
Dr. Lisa: I can attest to that and I can attest that you’re many different people in one body and a joy to know and I’m so grateful that you were able to take the time out of your very busy schedule and come talk to us today about celebrating love. We’ve been speaking with Leslie Oster who is the general manager of Aurora Provisions and a friend of mine and so many more things to so many different people. Thank you for coming in today.
Leslie: Thank you for having me. It was a pleasure.
Dr. Lisa: As a physician and small business owner, I rely on Marci Booth from Booth Maine to help me with my own business and to help me with my own life really. Here are a few thoughts from Marci.
Marci: As you settle into this new year, I hope you take a moment to consider the health of your business and how you can make certain it continues to thrive. Now is the perfect time for your business checkup. It’s a perfect time to reflect on the systems and processes you had in place last year to determine what worked and what didn’t run as smoothly as it should have, write down the specific changes you’d like to implement to tighten things up over the next month, three months, six months or a year. Give yourself realistic tasks and goals. This intersection and planning will go a long way toward making certain that 2014 is a year of great success. I’m Marci Booth. Let’s talk about the changes you need, boothmaine.com.
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Dr. Lisa: You’ve got to like a person who owns a business called Beautiful Days and I think that the people who hire this person, Kate Martin who is the owner and creative director of Beautiful Days, really find that their days specifically their wedding days are made more beautiful by having her around so thanks for coming in and making our day beautiful, Kate.
Kate: Thanks, happy to be here.
Dr. Lisa: When we were talking about doing our show about weddings which is sort of in homage to the wedding issue the Maine Magazine does every year, they said, “You know, you really have to have Kate Martin in. She is got to be one of the best of the state. We have her represented in magazine all the time and plus, she just has this amazing energy.” I suspect that you use that amazing energy to try to create really wonderful experiences for your brides.
Kate: You need to always kind of be excited about what you’re doing and embracing everyone’s most special day and I’m the first one to admit that sometimes you don’t have that energy so you can’t be creative all the time but my clients inspire me. Their stories inspire me. Our setting inspires me so that really is what keeps me going. It’s not necessarily about the wedding itself. It’s about the people and where they’re getting married. I love Maine. I love the spaces and places and people who work in Maine and how creative we can get and hopefully show that Maine weddings are fun and elegant and classy and flirty and everything all at once without being too contrived or too trendy.
Dr. Lisa: But you’re not really from Maine.
Kate: No. I grew up on Nantucket. My parents moved from New York City in 1971 when I was just about three, moved us to the beach which is great so one of the reasons why I love working in Maine especially coastal Maine is just my love of the ocean and the seaside and also just the architecture and the feeling of New England. I’m a lover of all things New England and classical architecture but also modern architecture as well and I love being able to see kind of especially in Portland, Maine kind of fusing growing cities and traditional architecture and so yeah, growing up on the beach, I continue to be thankful every day for that life I was given and my appreciation for being by the ocean and living in New England and a good, healthy life.
Dr. Lisa: Why did your parents originally decide to move from New York City to Nantucket? Did they share that with you?
Kate: I think that they went there shortly after they were married or just before they were married just for a weekend and they fell in love. They were both working in New York City. They both grew up around New York City within their lives but I think that they were just drawn to this funky little island which at the time was just a bunch of kind of fishermen and funky folks and I think they just fell in love and I think that they thought that it would be a great place to raise a family and they were right.
Dr. Lisa: Is that similar to the reason why you ended up then kind of hopping from Nantucket to, I know you went elsewhere but then came up to Maine?
Kate: Yeah. When my husband and I decided to kind of stick together, we moved out to California for a while which was fantastic. We were in Marin County working in San Francisco and just having a fantastic time but as soon as we got out there, we knew that we would end up back East at some point. California is fantastic as it was and there’s many opportunities as it had for us. It just didn’t feel like home.
As soon as we got to California, my dad would say, “Well, Kate. When you move back to New England” My sister would say, “When you come back, you should come check out Portsmouth, New Hampshire.” In our transition back, we started trying to sort out where we would land knowing then that we would like to buy a home and start our family. My husband has a connection with Bethel, Maine and we just found the right place and we love being in Maine.
My husband goes back. His family goes back, generations into Maine and I think that we had considered Nantucket but we felt that that might be limiting for us and I continued to be thankful about the choice that we made especially now. It’s been about 12 years and we really feel like we’re part of our community in contributing both with our own businesses to offering people certain levels of service and we’re really happy with what we do. I mean we’re both self-employed so it has its challenges to say the least but we love it.
Dr. Lisa: Kate, you shared with me a story about your family that seemed sort of a foundational reason for having gone into the wedding business. You said you went through some very difficult times with your parents who died when you were relatively young and after that, it seemed like every day was a beautiful day. You had been through this really hard, hard time with your siblings and you knew that life was pretty precious.
Kate: Yeah. In my early 30s, unfortunately, our family found ourselves challenged by the sudden illness of my mom and then shortly after was my father as well and I truly believe that one of the reasons why I’m here in general in the larger picture of here was to kind of be there for my parents when they were going through these challenges and be there for my family and then coming out of that, I learned so many positive lessons and I attribute that to my parents and how they kind of related to us and our family about what was going on and how to move forward with it.
Fortunately, my family, we all love each other. I’m the oldest of four and me and my siblings get along great. I can’t imagine my life without them. I chose to look at these challenges as something as empowering instead of defeating and something that for me, if I could go through what I went through with a certain level of grace if there’s such a thing, at least for me personally and thoughtfulness and full of love that I could do just about anything which I think helps keep things in perspective when I work in the wedding world.
As fabulous as everybody’s wedding day should be and it is a beautiful day no matter if it’s an intimate party for 20 under a little tent out on a field or a big grand affair for 200, it’s only one beautiful day out of many that that couple or that family are going to have as they grow up and grow old together and have children. I mean the birth of my son was one of the most beautiful days I’ve ever had and I love keeping up with my clients and seeing that they’re having babies and I write them a little note and say, “See, here’s another beautiful day for you.”
Those beautiful days don’t have to necessarily be big life events. They can just be those little captured moments of making a decision to not work at all and take a day off with your family and go skiing or sit in the house in the snow day and do puzzles instead of bills. I guess that’s how I try and approach just my larger perspective and kind of what empowers me in what I do.
Dr. Lisa: What are some of the things that people come to you concerned about, with regard to weddings? It seems as though everybody always says, “Well, the wedding is the most important day of your life,” which seems very singular but it’s really not just about the couple as much as we would like to believe that it is, it’s really about the couple and the family and the community and friends so what are some of the things that you help people through?
Kate: Most of my clients are from away so they are planning a wedding from New York, Boston, California and everywhere in between. I think one of their challenges is trying to wrap their head around putting on a fabulous celebration when they can’t be here on the ground making sure everything is under control or the mother of the bride can’t be here. If they are, maybe they’re here part time. I think for a lot of couples, that’s challenging and that’s one of the reasons why I think they pick up the phone and track down someone like me to help them wrap their head around how can they produce and execute a fabulous celebration.
I think another challenge is, especially for a mother and brides and grooms and must-be brides, is that they’re so bombarded with images of gorgeous weddings happening all over the world that it gets a little overwhelming and I think they start to think that they feel the pressure to kind of have it all which one of the first things I say is you don’t have to have it all. Let’s focus on what’s most important to you, which is why I really like to get to know my client first.
I send them a little questionnaire and I ask about the bride and groom as individuals, the bride and groom as a couple, what they love to do, their perfect date night, their engagement story and that just helps me kind of get a sense of really what’s important to them and I loop back with those little snippets and remind them down the line when they’re maybe fretting over a certain detail or if they should do a menu versus a thank-you card or something and I’ll loop back and I’ll say, “Well, remember back when we first started working together, you really want to share pieces of you and to make sure that you let your guests know how thankful you were that they showed up.”
We just try and loop back and remember what’s really important. I’m all about the details. I’m all about getting the right color. I’m all about if you want to go nap n’ wrap, we’ll make it work, whatever you want to be but if it’s not important to you, we don’t have to do it so it’s just trying to find that balance of what you truly want, what you truly want to reflect out of your day, how you truly want to bring together all your nearest and dearest, what you want to share with them and also finding that balance with their spending too, not spend what you want but what your budget can afford too.
I think some couples will quickly kind of say, “Oh, our ceremony will be about 20 minutes and it will be quick and it will be great.” I’ll loop back and I’ll remind them, “Don’t forget. That’s why you’re here. That’s why you’re having everyone get together for you is for that 20 minutes, for that 30 minutes.” Regardless of how short it is, it does need to be thoughtful whether you’re being married by a friend who got one day in their mind or if it’s in your family’s church or whatever it is, make sure that you do invest thoughtfulness and care into it because you can have a party any day. You only get married in one day.
Dr. Lisa: What do you do with families that are a little bit more complicated? Say the bride has a set of parents who are divorced or say there’s some family enmity, just somebody doesn’t want to sit next to somebody and it threatens to kind of overshadow all of the joy and happiness of the day.
Kate: That definitely happens. It breaks my heart because it is amazing how sometimes little family emotions get stirred up and sometimes people get a little selfish and you just want to say it’s about your bride and groom. You have to put aside those differences that maybe you had from 20 years ago. I’m 100% honest with my clients when I say you can use me as a buffer because the bride especially, they’re making decisions along with family members that not only are decisions about their day but have emotional weight to them and sometimes, when a mom or an aunt, everyone who has every good intention behind it gives an opinion and you may not agree with it, it may be hard to say no because there’s an emotional connection to it.
I have always told my clients you can use me as the “professional.” Well, the person we’re working with this, this isn’t really as important or we’ll work it out because that comes from a non-emotional connection even though I’m emotionally invested in all my clients and you do sometimes act as a sounding board because there are issues that come up.
There are seating issues you wouldn’t believe, the family, emotional politics that come up when you start assigning personal flowers, putting your corsages that stepmothers are in the mix or someone, dad, girlfriend for 20 years. Do you give her a corsage? and so it is interesting. We do our best to navigate it as that comes up and ideally, I just kind of hold my client’s hand and say we’ll get through it and whatever you want, I will stand up for you and I will say “This is what my bride wants and let’s work together to make it happen.”
Dr. Lisa: The goal of the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour is to help make connections between the health of the individual and the health of the community. The goal of Ted Carter Inspired Landscapes is to deepen our appreciation for the natural world. Here to speak with us today is Ted Carter.
Ted: I think that one of the things that I have noticed time and time again with spaces and places that I’ve created over the years especially my meditation room in particular, that was a space created I just drew a box out in front of my house one day with a spray can and I told them to get the backhoe and dig a foundation and let’s get this meditation room built. That was in 2005. Since then, I’ve had amazing experiences in that room and knows that journeys within that room have been astounding. Whenever I go back in that space that is so powerful and so wonderful, I think spirit definitely well comes to me. I feel it surrounding me so it’s important to realize that we too can create these amazing spaces that welcome us.
In a book entitled Plant Spirit Medicine by Eliot Cowan, I’m going to read you one little passage. It says, “I think it is quite ethical to use the abandoned power places of travel people. In fact, the spirit of such places are often lonely for human attention since they achieved their own greatness by conferring greatness upon their devotees. Remember this and remember the power places in your landscape.”
I’m Ted Carter and if you’d like to contact me, I can be reached at tedcarterdesign.com.
Dr. Lisa: The Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast understands the importance of the health of the body, mind and spirit. Here to talk about the health of the body is Jim Greatorex of Premier Sports Health, a division of Black Bear Medical.
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Dr. Lisa: One of the more recent weddings that I went to was for one of the art directors at Brand Co which works with Maine Magazine and the Maine Media Collective here and we were standing in a field near, I believe it was in a canoe that was standing upright and then we went under a tent and listened to a band but it was at a camp in the summer in Maine and I’m seeing more and more of this kind of desire to go back to simpler settings, simpler times, reminiscent of maybe growing up. Is this something that you’re seeing and why?
Kate: For a lot of bride and grooms, the appeal of Maine comes from summers spent at grandma’s house on the coast, summers spent at camp. I’ve done a couple of camp weddings where actually they’ve been boys’ camp’s weddings where the groom went to the camp and has this great connection maybe from New York City but he spent his summers in Maine and had such a great connection to that and that feeling of kind of carelessness or kind of freedom as it’s summer and wanted to kind of share that with his bride and with their families.
I think that there’s a kind of trend towards wanting farm, barn. Everyone always loves being by the seaside but having something that feels more grounded maybe or easy but that doesn’t mean it can’t be elegant so Maine does offer so many fantastic venues to create something that is easy yet elegant, rustic yet somewhat refined. It doesn’t have to be all roll out the mason jars, which are great, I think that trend is moving along but I think that people are drawn to Maine for its classic architecture, for its feeling of kind of carefree summers at camps along the ocean.
Some people are drawn to Maine because they’re starting maybe a new family tradition. Maybe they live in Boston and New York and they’ve started traveling up to Maine in the summer times and they see this is some place we want to continue to come to and we want to bring our kids here and let’s get married. Let’s start it now.
Dr. Lisa: It’s February and obviously, February is the month that we associate with Valentine’s Day and with love and that’s one of the words that we haven’t really bandied about too much in this conversation but how do you help the people that you are working with, how do you help them keep the love alive while they’re planning their wedding? I know it seems like an interesting and ironic sort of thing that there might be so much stress that it could actually impact a relationship negatively but I’m wondering … I mean we know that planning an event can be stressful.
Kate: I’m pretty realistic with my clients. When they say, “I just don’t have the time for this right now,” or, “Is this really important?” or, “I’m working 80 hours a week and he is in business school and we’re living in two different cities right now.” I’ll always say, “Don’t worry. We’ve got it. We’re here for you. If something comes up, give us a call. If you’re just not sure about what invite to choose and you’re having a hard time and you’re not getting the feedback that you want, just send it to us. We’ll give you our honest opinion. We’ll do our best to keep you grounded about what’s important.”
This kind of goes back to us getting to know our clients early on and reminding them about what’s important so if there’s kind of concern about you want this fabulous dessert table, you may opt for a DJ so you have a little bit of your budget leftover. Then, I’ll kind of remind them just to step back, take a deep breath. We’ll figure this out. Tell me what I can do for you.
I tell them that I know that they’re busy and one of the first things I say to prospective clients is that I’m just continue to be amazed at how accomplished and driven and smart, so many of my clients are and I recognize that they’re super busy so I try and keep it real. Try and keep things in perspective and just kind of try to move it along and remind them about really what’s the most important and probably fussing over how to word a menu isn’t worth fussing over. Let’s work it out. Let’s figure it out right now and move forward because there are going to be other decisions too that you make down the line that you may end up fussing over.
Dr. Lisa: Kate, how do people find out about your business, Beautiful Days?
Kate: Word of mouth. A client is a great. The fabulous vendors that I’ve had the privilege to work alongside of now going into our tenth year which I just can’t believe. It kind of blows me away. Word of mouth, I get really fabulous referrals from some great vendors. Social media I think is becoming a really big piece of it, a little bit of advertising here and there. I always get great sponsors from being in Maine Magazine, I will be honest and at this point, word of mouth.
It’s been an interesting evolution of kind of trying to sort this out because when we started, it was basically having a website and putting ads in select magazines or papers. Everything has evolved so quickly between Facebook and social media and Twitter and blogs just in the years I’ve been doing this that as a self-employed business owner, the amount of work you have to put in to this additional level of marketing is pretty intense but we make it work. I mean we got to grow with the time and also Google. They search for me. Hopefully, Beautiful Days pops up and …
Dr. Lisa: Your website is?
Kate: Beautifuldaysevents.com.
Dr. Lisa: We’ve been speaking with Kate Martin who is the owner and creative director of Beautiful Days. We thank you for coming in and speaking with us today about creating the beautiful days that you do.
Kate: Thanks. It’s been fun.
Dr. Lisa: You’ve been listening to the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast show number 125, Celebrating Love. Our guests have included Leslie Oster and Kate Martin. For more information on our guests and extended interviews, visit doctorlisa.org. The Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast is downloadable for free on iTunes.
For a preview of each week’s show, sign up for our e-newsletter and like our Dr. Lisa Facebook page. Follow me on Twitter and Pinterest and read my take on health and well-being on the Bountiful Blog. We’d love to hear from you so please let us know what you think of the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour. We welcome your suggestions for future shows.
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Male: The Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast is made possible with the support of the following generous sponsors: Maine Magazine, Marci Booth of Booth Maine, Apothecary by Design, Premier Sports Health, a division of Black Bear Medical, Sea Bags, Michael LePage and Beth Franklin of ReMax Heritage, Ted Carter Inspired Landscapes, Tom Shepard of Shepard Financial, Dream Kitchen Studios, Harding Lee Smith of The Rooms and Bangor Savings Bank.
The Dr. Lisa Radio Hour is recorded in the studio of Maine Magazine at 75 Market Street, Portland, Maine. Our executive producers are Kevin Thomas and Dr. Lisa Belisle. Audio production and original music by John C. McCain. Our assistant producer is Leanne Ouimet. Our online producer is Katy Kelleher.
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