John Rosendale, Wedding Officiant

05/03/2025

Sometimes, I feel overwhemed with appreciation for what my wedding "business" has meant to me.
It's about the love and the people, and how fortunate I've been to be in the middle.
This may be my last summer (2025) performing ceremonies. It has been a blessing to have officiated over 400 weddings during the last 18 years. It has never felt like a job, and nearly every bride and groom have made me feel an important part of their celebration. I have been honored. I can't thank them enough!
This summer, I will book just 15 weddings, and I have half that booked so far. I'll buy a new suit, shirt, and tie, and look forward to every one of them.
Thank you to those who have followed this "blog" and supported me - if just through their emojis 😊!

06/11/2024

This summer was perfect for weddings! I had planned to perform no more than fifteen ceremonies, but in the end, I conducted twenty. It's hard to say no to a couple in love.

Among the most memorable ceremonies were a Russian wedding in Seattle, one at Mount Peak Farm in Enumclaw, a Hindu wedding at Snoqualmie Ridge, and a hike to Lena Lake in the Olympic Mountains, which was 6.4-miles round trip with an elevation gain of 1,532 feet over thirty-seven switchbacks. That one took ALL the energy I had to give!

I also had the privilege of officiating many traditional yet inspiring weddings, held at the chapel on Fox Island, The Red Cedar Farm in Lofall, and Kiana Lodge on Sandy Hook Road near Poulsbo. Plus in various homes, parks, and backyards.

Overall, it was another wedding season filled with excitement, adventure, and the joy of standing before two people as they exchanged their vows in a lifelong commitment to each other.

21/06/2024

We hiked 6 miles with an elevation gain of 1500 feet yesterday to perform a lovely wedding ceremony at Lake Lena, in the Olympic National Forest.
It was the first day of summer, the longest day of the year, and I needed a good part of it to get to the event and back. It was a serious test of my new hips and knees, and they served me well. Albeit, I was a bit sore this morning.
The newlyweds were joined by a photographer, a musician, two best friends, a brother, myself, and my wife, Denise.
The weather couldn't have been better. There couldn't have been a nicer, friendlier, or happier group of people in attendance.
This was truly a special event. Thank you, Ward and Chelsea!

18/04/2024

"A love affair has to do with immediate personal satisfaction. But marriage is an ordeal; it means yielding, time and again. That’s why it’s a sacrament: you give up your personal simplicity to participate in a relationship. And when you’re giving, you’re not giving to the other person: you’re giving to the relationship. And if you realize you are in the relationship just as the other person is, then it becomes life building, a life fostering and enriching experience, not an impoverishment because you’re giving to somebody else … This is the challenge of a marriage."
-Joseph Campbell

13/04/2024

I have returned from our winter home in Thousand Palms, CA., and am again booking just a few weddings for the summer. As mentioned last year, I intend to spend more time enjoying summer weekends with my lovely wife, Denise.
Participating in wedding celebrations has been a wonderful experience! I may never retire from this altogether. But as I have officiated nearly 400 weddings, I'm ready to slow down. 🙏

13/04/2024

When you love someone, you do not love them all the time, in exactly the same way, from moment to moment. It is an impossibility. It is even a lie to pretend to. And yet this is exactly what most of us demand. We have so little faith in the ebb and flow of life, of love, of relationships. We leap at the flow of the tide and resist in terror its ebb. We are afraid it will never return. We insist on permanency, on duration, on continuity; when the only continuity possible, in life as in love, is in growth, in fluidity - in freedom, in the sense that the dancers are free, barely touching as they pass, but partners in the same pattern.
The only real security is not in owning or possessing, not in demanding or expecting, not in hoping, even. Security in a relationship lies neither in looking back to what was in nostalgia, nor forward to what it might be in dread or anticipation, but living in the present relationship and accepting it as it is now. Relationships must be like islands, one must accept them for what they are here and now, within their limits - islands, surrounded and interrupted by the sea, and continually visited and abandoned by the tides. ~Anne Morrow Lindbergh
(Book: Gift from the Sea [ad] https://amzn.to/3Jgbk7o)

01/03/2024