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As Founder and Chief Visionary of SparkVision, MaryBeth Hyland is an expert in workplace culture and is known for her ability to operationalize a company’s core values into the day-to-day norms for increased passion, purpose and productivity. Hyland is a Circle of Excellence member after being honored as a Top 100 Women in 2015, 2017 and 2019. She was a Leading Women winner in 2012 and a VIP in 2018.
Women Who Lead asked her to share what she is passionate about outside of her typical job.
For the past 3 years, I’ve had the incredible joy and honor of marrying more than a dozen couples. A dream come true when a friend and former leadership volunteer from a young professional program I ran asked me, “What’s one thing you’d hoped to have accomplished, but didn’t get a chance to before you left?”
The answer was so obvious in my heart, “Well it’s going to sound weird, but I really wanted two people to meet at this program, fall in love, get married and I would officiate their wedding!” He was shocked but delighted. Then a few weeks later, that very same friend came to me and said, “So we didn’t meet at your program, but we’d still love for you to marry us. Will you?” I got ordained that very day!
Since then, I’ve been living on the highs of tlove vibes by going on to marry four of the volunteers from that very program where the idea was sparked, along with cherished friends, and engaged couples who found me online because they wanted something more intentional for their ceremony.
As a professional keynote speaker and writer, crafting and officiating weddings is one of the moments I feel most alive and acting in my purpose.
I delight in interviewing each of the love birds separately so I can weave together their responses to share the story of who they are as individuals, how the universe brought them together and why the world is a better place because they’re uniting in marriage. Shouldn’t a ceremony be about that incredible stuff instead of the run of the mill “insert name here” experience?
Oddly, that’s not the norm for most weddings. Couples are typically focused on the reception and neglect the most important part and the complete reason why they’re celebrating — the act of getting married in their ceremony!
With this new perspective and cherished role in my life, I get to orchestrate traditions from all different religious and cultural backgrounds. The joy of learning and facilitating those connections is a total alignment of my personal values of reflection, connection, sense of belonging, mature love, growth and storytelling.
This recent addition to my weekends has infused me with a deeper love for my own partner, family and cherished relationships in life. If you love love the way that I do, officiating weddings is hands down the greatest way to see, feel, hear and know that feeling of deep love on a cellular level.
www.ourlovelens.com
Interested in sharing your passion? Contact Patrick Brannan: [email protected].
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This article is featured in The Daily Record’s Women Who Lead: A Woman’s Guide To Business. The mission of the Women Who Lead (formerly Path to Excellence) magazine is to give our readers the opportunity to meet successful women of all ages, backgrounds and beliefs and learn how they define success. Read more from Women Who Lead. |
