More Than Flowers and Cake
An interview with Felicia Kashevaroff about planning a wedding vs planning a marriage
This post is dedicated to all the couples I know planning a wedding right now… Mike & Mark, Lizz & James, Allie & Chris, Kai & Michael, Cody & Noni, Emma & Sean.
In honor of wedding season, this week’s post is an interview I did with Felicia Kashevaroff. I was introduced to Felicia a few months ago, and I immediately recognized a kindred spirit. Felicia is a secular wedding celebrant who cares deeply about “equal partner” relationships. I was immediately intrigued.
Enjoy!
Kate: I have come to the conclusion that the earlier a couple tackles the gender norms stuff in their relationship - the better. And it seems you have come to the same conclusion.
Felicia: I have both personal and professional experiences that tell me couples can benefit from tackling gender norms early in their relationship. When I got married, my husband and I truly thought that we were aligned. We were both Feminists, we both had professional aspirations and goals, and we thought we were on the same page about what we wanted for the future. But that alignment was surface level. We spent no time on the reality of what those things meant. How were we going to execute on our vision? How would we share time and resources so that we both had access? How would parenting and career pauses impact us, and how would our unconscious gendered conditioning create obstacles? Ultimately, this misalignment destroyed our marriage. 25 years after I got married, I see the exact same dynamic playing out with my clients. The young parents I coach have the best intentions, but they're flying by the seat of their pants. They're shocked by the harsh realities of modern parenting. Most have little access to family support and affordable childcare. Money is TIGHT, and they don't know how to balance their ambitious dreams with the intense demands of raising children. All of this takes a toll on a couple's mental health and their relationship. My hope is that by reaching these young couples earlier, we can prevent some of the suffering and resentment they experience.
Kate: When Evan and I got married, which was in a Lutheran Church, we had a meeting with our minister a few months before the wedding. It could not have been more than an hour, and I think more than anything it was his way of "checking" to see if he could marry us with a clear conscience. And maybe that conversation helped him learn some tidbits about us to put into his sermon at the wedding. But that was all. Don’t get me wrong – we adored Pastor Art. I'm just saying hindsight, I realize there was no real relationship work. What do you know about pre-wedding practices across varying religions?
Felicia: There are a wide range of pre-marital programs across different religions. The Catholic Pre-Cana program is mandatory and focuses on the sacrament of marriage and natural family planning. Protestant pre-marital education focuses on biblical teachings and lifestyle. Jewish teachings emphasize Jewish law compliance and community integration, and Islamic pre-marital education integrates Islamic principles with relationship skills. Requirements range from a one-hour meeting, like you experienced, to a rigorous six-month program. The thing that all pre-marital education has in common is that it is teaching religious dogma. Essentially, these programs are based on the church's teachings about what marriage means and how that should apply to YOUR marriage. As you can imagine, a challenge to gender norms is unlikely to be found in any of these programs.
Kate: Now I have two follow up questions. First, are these existing practices enough? And second, what about people who are not religious?
Felicia: Great questions. My answer to the first is yes and no. Some pre-marital education is better than none, so if your religion's teachings align with your values, you will likely see some benefit. Another interesting finding is that couples who participate in pre-marital education of any kind are more likely to seek relationship support in later years, and that is a very good thing. But, as I alluded to before, these religious programs are designed to promote the church's teachings, which means that essential topics related to modern couples are usually left out of the mix.
As for those who don't align with a religion, the problem is that most simply don't engage in pre-marital education at all. Research shows that 60-90% of all pre-marital education happens in a religious setting. That leaves a lot of people without the necessary skills and resources to navigate modern marriage and parenting. Most non-religious couples think they don't need it. I promise you… they do.
Kate: As a secular celebrant - what do you do differently? What do you offer the couples that other celebrants do not?
Felicia: It's funny that you ask the question that way because my officiating + coaching program is called "I Do Differently." My goal as a celebrant is, first and foremost, to create a beautiful, meaningful ceremony to celebrate a couple’s wedding. The absolute best way to do that is to get crystal clear on both their love story and their shared vision for the marriage they want to build. I place a special emphasis on deconstructing gender norms by using the wedding planning process as a tool to uncover unconscious gender conditioning. As we all know, the wedding industry is deeply gendered, and those gender norms can become entrenched without a couple even knowing what's happening. Because a "bride" is supposed to care more about all of the details of the wedding, she is likely to do way more of the cognitive and emotional work of wedding planning. For example, the bride may research tons of vendors, present a few options to her partner, make a "shared" decision, and then call it equal. It's a recipe for structural relationship inequality, but it happens all the time. My program dissects that process and teaches couples to not only challenge their gendered conditioning but also learn how to build shared systems that truly prepare them to share the mental load more equitably. And you get a fabulous ceremony at the end of it!
Yes! I’ve written about the gendered expectations around baby showers – but wedding planning is exactly the same. Emotional labor is emotional labor; if you start your relationship with one person doing more and one person doing less, it sets a patter for years to come.
Kate: To wrap-up, what is your advice to new couples looking to tie the knot?
Felicia: Here’s my top three!
1. Take advantage of any pre-marital education you have access to, but make sure it aligns with your shared values. If you can't find one you like, reach out to me. I'll help you find one, even if it isn't mine.
2. If you can't afford a structured program, read books (like Equal Partners!) and ask friends and family members about their biggest marital challenges. But for goodness sake, make sure you are BOTH engaged in the effort to learn!
3. Try to spend as much time planning your marriage as you do planning your wedding. Weddings are beautiful, but fleeting. The goal is for your marriage to last a lifetime.
If you’re interested in talking to Felicia, check out the contact page on her website: Tend Task. Tell her Kate sent you! And knowing that most couples planning a wedding don’t have a ton of extra cash laying around, buying some couples coaching sessions as a wedding gift could be a great gift idea. What’s a better use of money than an investment in your future?
If last week’s substack about porn literacy got you thinking, you might be interested in this article from NPR I just saw yesterday: From the pandemic to porn, here’s how norms around sex are shifting for Gen Z.
This newsletter arrives (just about) every Wednesday afternoon. This is in honor of my dad, who used to call Wednesdays “hump day.” He’d say - Katie! You’ve got the majority of the week behind you already, and you’re so close the the weekend. So, when this hits your inbox - even if you don’t read it - think to yourself… congratulations! You made it over the hump, and you’re closing in on the weekend.
Thank you for reading! Please forward this on to anyone who might be interested.
I love this! In fact, I love it so much I preemptively posted about it on Threads here: https://shorturl.at/G5iY6. You know, great minds and all 😉
Really appreciated this, as I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how conservative institutions, political or religious, tend to do a much better job of trying to mentor young adults into deliberate and conscientious reflections on various kinds of life choices, including marriage and sex. I wish there were more progressive or at least center-left voices out there, so it’s great to know about Felicia’s work!