CINDY MATCHETT, CELEBRANT New England Regional Director, Celebrant Foundation Senior Faculty Member, Celebrant Foundation I am an artist and mom and Celebrant officiant who supports couples in finding their own voices in the midst of wedding chaos, and in creating personal wedding experiences. My background in psychology has taught me social and interpersonal dynamics, especially around group behavior and ritual. As a former professional project manager, I am very organized, a good listener, and can balance details in context of the bigger picture. My art explores personal journeys, rites of passage, and letting go of old identities to enter fully into new ones. For our own wedding, my husband Mike and I sought resources in many non-traditional places. We read gardening books, Mary Oliver’s poetry, books on the “mirages of marriage” from the 1960s. I studied Carl Jung, Joseph Campbell, and Arnold van Gennep. We looked at Buddhism, African ceremonies, gay commitment ceremonies, Ethical Humanist gatherings, and Quaker Meetings. I compared Jewish ketubah to the legal documents used to create business partnerships. I explored name changing rituals and traced family trees. Much of this I studied again, in further depth, at the Celebrant USA Foundation when my path brought me there. I wanted to know, beyond the party, what we were doing, what it meant to us to be taking this big step. Click here to read what my father’s older sister wrote about our wedding. As an installation artist, I appreciate uses of space that convey intimacy, that tell a story, that give everyone in that space a powerful and moving experience. Choices of music, colors, readings, actions and other ceremony participants are tools to add rich depth to the experience. The wedding becomes a vivid and beautiful world for you and your loved ones to step into and be transformed. Click here to see some of my art. As the first Celebrant in New England, and the Celebrant USA Foundation’s longest serving faculty member, I have had the distinctive pleasure of teaching and mentoring our area’s growing group of Celebrant officiants. I have helped many couples and their families from all over the country (and the world!) navigate their path to this significant threshold, and I have been honored to do so. I love what I am doing, absolutely love to talk about weddings, and look forward to supporting you in yours! Learn more about Celebrants at the Celebrant Foundation and Institute. Cindy Matchett, Celebrant .. PO Box 420, Harvard, MA 01451 .. (978) 263-5937 info@meaningfulweddings.com © 2009 Cindy Matchett