Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hello, Kayla here and welcome back to imperfectly honest. When most people think about weddings, myself included, they think about dresses, venues, guest lists and vows. But what if the fanfare of the event itself isn't actually the point? In this episode, Elizabeth sits down with my dear friend Morgan Kloss, who is fresh off a truly unforgettable wedding in Moab, Utah, and they settle in for a conversation that goes far beyond the big day itself.
Together, they unpack the emotional and financial weight of weddings, the pressure of tradition, and the surprising ways these milestone moments can strengthen our relationships with the people we love. Along the way, Elizabeth reflects on her own wedding, her divorce, and a recent conversation with her ex husband that reshaped how she thinks about marriage growth and lasting love. One of her insights in particular really stayed with me, and it's this Sometimes when the best way to show our love for others is to allow them to love us in their own special way. This is an honest, thoughtful exploration of what happens when we stop asking whether a marriage will last forever and start asking whether it's helping us become who we're meant to be.
Elizabeth and Morgan take it away. Let's get to the episode.
[00:01:25] Speaker B: This isn't imperfectly honest.
I'm Elizabeth, and after about four decades, I'm shifting from the person I always saw I should be to the person I really want to be. In part because I've learned to be honest both with myself and just about everybody I encounter. It's not always perfect. Sometimes it's a rocky road. But I'm learning a lot by being imperfectly honest and thought you might learn something too.
Hey all.
The question of whether, when and how and where to host a wedding is typically seen as an important life question.
But for me, that question always seemed immaterial.
I did have a big wedding in 2007 and I would have been really happy with a no frills courthouse elopement. But instead I had a picture perfect, eat your heart out Martha Stewart kind of a wedding that people are still talking about 19 years later.
And that is because my wedding was not my wedding. It was my mother's super bowl, as my father likes to say.
And there is not a single thing that I would have changed about that wedding. It taught me that sometimes the best way to show my love for others is to allow others to love me in their own special way.
And my mother, my in laws, my friends, my community showed up for me in a really, really big way on my wedding day. And I've never felt more love than that.
And all of those people spent an exorbitant amount of time and money expressing that love.
And as I embark on my next chapter, a couple years out of a divorce, I'm thinking about what I might do differently. And I can't help but wonder if there may have been a different way and maybe an easier way for my loved ones to show their love for me without causing so much stress or expense.
And as I've been asking myself these questions, I just happened to hear about a wedding that was very different, but seemingly as extraordinary, if not more extraordinary than my wedding. My friend and partner in crime and imperfectly honest Kayla Gorski recently attended this wedding and I decided to invite the bride to come and talk about her experience.
So, Morgan, thank you so much for being here.
[00:04:06] Speaker C: Oh my gosh, thank you so much for having me. I feel so honored, Elizabeth. And man, I, I just feel especially honored just hearing you tee up the wedding that was in the words that you just gave. Yeah, really just excited to talk about it and I'm really excited to hear about your experience as well. I'm always fascinated when someone calls an event my mom's super bowl. So I, I need to all the, the details to that.
[00:04:32] Speaker B: Fabulous. Well, just to give our listeners some context for this conversation, can you just quickly introduce yourself and paint a picture of the wedding that you just managed to pull off?
[00:04:47] Speaker C: Yeah. Well, my name's Morgan. I have been born and raised in Bozeman, Montana. So big lover of the outdoors and all things mountains since I was a young kid. And I was raised to be a very headstrong and fiercely independent female. And so I actually really surprised myself with the wedding that I put on as well, just because it was so much larger and grandiose than I had ever expected for myself. And admittedly, I actually didn't even ever expect to have a wedding or to get married for that matter. I just didn't think, I really believed in the institution.
I thought the whole idea of signing a contract to agree to being with someone forever was really unrealistic, especially given my experiences previously with love and throughout my life. So it was really interesting when I found myself both engaged and planning a wedding at 35 to a 42 year old. And yeah, I mean, I think first just the saying yes was a surprise, but then the image that we built the wedding in was great and different. But when I got proposed to, I was immediately pretty overwhelmed and not just by the concept of marriage, but I, my head went straight to like the pressures of a wedding and what I Wanted a wedding to look like or not to look like. And that was a pretty bizarre feeling because I'm a woman that's always had a plan and always had goals. And I realized when he proposed to me that I had never actually given thought to what kind of wedding I wanted, how big I'd want it if I just wanted to elope, or all these things. And so it took us actually two and a half years of being engaged for me to actually figure out what I wanted to do. And then ultimately we landed on something that when I really reflected on it with my. My own heart, felt like an experience that I wanted to share with my loved ones. And that was genuinely going to get me excited for that day.
Not just because I wanted to be excited about the partner that I was entering into this next chapter with, but I wanted to really be excited about every bit of the dollar we were spending, the time we were giving, and the resources we were asking our friends and families to devote to this event in this moment. And so ultimately we actually landed on getting married down in Moab, Utah, a place that we love very dearly. We go down there two times a year to ride mountain bikes. And we essentially did kind of a week long music festival, bike festival, kind of programming. And yeah, we had all of our friends and family down there. About 130 people came down. We took over a campground outside of town and had shuttles running all week for folks to ride mountain bikes. All together, we rode mountain bikes into our welcome party. And the wedding itself was out at kind of a large group site. And we got married amongst the red rocks. And then we had a Grateful Dead cover band and we had a Burning Man DJ that, that played for us under the milky Way until 4 in the morning. And it was, it was just amazing. So, yeah, I don't want to talk too long about it, but I will say I didn't realize how big of an event I had bitten off until I was really in it.
And I was very worried going into it, just given my general nervousness around marriage and weddings. At the outset, I was very nervous I was going to get on the other side of this big investment and of this big thing and go, gosh, I should have just done something small or, gosh, was it worth it or do I really need to do that? And I can safely say now, being on the other side a couple weeks out, I would do that day, I would do that week, I would spend that money over and over and over and over again. It was like truly the Best five days I've ever had. And I think one of the reasons I feel that way is I've been hearing it from our friends and family, too. I think we provided them this experience and this feeling that I really had hoped we would. And yeah, it's just been a delight to put it together and also to get the chance to reflect on it.
[00:09:05] Speaker B: I love that you've got full conviction still. And it's like, I want to say that I feel the same way. And honestly, I'm not sure if I feel that way when I think about the mouths that could have been fed with the amount of money that was spent on my wedding, that's hard for me. Yeah. And when I think about the amount of love that I felt, and I had an extraordinary mother who really, really cared about being a mom and really, really cared about giving me that wedding.
And so to me, that's the main thing that I go back to and I still feel unsure about.
[00:09:51] Speaker C: Sounds like, to me, it's like the feeling that you felt like the love you received, but also the thing you did for your mom is what makes that day feel special. But was there anything about that day that you felt really was in your image versus her image? As you've been kind of going on this journey of asking, would I do it again, Is there any piece of that day beyond maybe the people that were there that really stood out to as maybe what allowed it to give you that experience that would maybe want to be replicated?
[00:10:21] Speaker B: Well, yes. My mom has this new condo in Florida, and she put these fish on the wall. It's maybe 20 fish, like a school of fish on the wall. And there's one fish that is swimming upward, swimming upstream. And she told me that that's her, Elizabeth's.
And I grew up in a small town in Michigan, very traditional, white bread America. And we had Cuban food at our wedding. And people didn't even know what to do about that.
And that was my choice. That was not my mom's vision. And in my mother's defense, she really did invite me to share what I wanted in the wedding. The thing was, I just had so few wishes. I. I didn't care that much about it. And I knew, I mean, my mom doesn't do anything that is less than extraordinary. And so I knew it would be a fabulous wedding and that she would likely do a much better job than I would pulling off a wedding like that.
But in my father of the brimming speech, my dad said, so we're having Cuban food Tonight.
Is anyone here Cuban? Has anyone been to Cuba? Has anyone actually had Cuban food before this wedding? So I'll always remember that.
Yeah, it's nice to be that fish that swims upstream every once in a while.
[00:12:04] Speaker C: Absolutely. I mean, that is just such a big compliment in my opinion. But I also, it came to my mind, I have to admit, I have also never been to Cuba. I was like, what is Cuban food? I can't even place in my head what that would be.
[00:12:17] Speaker B: It's delicious. Maybe we should get our mutual friend Kayla to do something on her podcast, let's do it with Cuban food.
[00:12:26] Speaker C: Maybe as we talk about weddings as a group, she could make your. Your wedding meal and we can try some Cuban food together.
[00:12:33] Speaker B: I love that.
[00:12:35] Speaker C: You know, it's interesting that you are. You were talking about the financial piece of this because there were two reasons I was really hesitant to have a bigger wedding.
One was just the fanfare of it because I just didn't ever imagine myself as a bride. I just didn't want to fall into this trap of like buying and doing all the standard wedding things just because I thought that's what I had to do. And having been someone that also kind of swims upstream a lot with my family and in my life, I, I don't know, I had this chip on my shoulder. Like, no, even if you get married, you're not going to do any bit of the traditional stuff because it's just not who you are. So, like, I had to overcome a little bit of that. And it was interesting in doing this whole searching I did have around the wedding, that there were pieces of the traditional element that I ended up doing. That, honestly, looking back, are some of my favorite parts of the wedding. But the second biggest thing that was really holding me back for a long time was the money.
No matter which way you dice it, even if you have a wedding of 70, 80 anymore, you're still looking at a pretty sizable amount of money for something.
And I still can't believe how much we spent on it, even though it was more than half than most of my friends who are also getting married right now. But I found two days before we got married, VOX actually came out with a podcast on modern day weddings and the cost of modern day weddings. And for better or for worse, it actually made me feel a little bit better about what we were spending. But it was also just a staggering report. And it was saying that weddings on the east coast right now are averaging 350 to $500,000 on average. My Gosh, weddings in rural populations. So, like, where we were and throughout the Midwest, the average weddings anywhere between 50 to $60,000. And the West coast is more around, like, 150 to $200,000.
Gosh, I felt good that I was more in that rural population of Price Point, but it still made my stomach really sick to think about just how many things you can do and we could be doing with that money today versus this event.
And also now being on the other side of it, though, I mean, people tell you it's the best day ever, but it really is an incredible experience of love and just an opportunity to get these people from all different walks of life together in one place.
And in a time that is kind of rot and heavy in so many ways. It just felt so amazing to be surrounded in love and to be celebrating something so joyful, which made me almost go, gosh, I don't. I don't know if I could really put a value on that. So it. It. It did ultimately feel like it was a very fair price. But regardless of the fact, it's. It's pretty. Pretty terrifying to see the dollar amount that's really getting associated with these things anymore.
Yeah.
[00:15:29] Speaker B: And everything's relative, so it's hard to argue what the right amount is. When you think about it from the perspective of it's impossible to put a price on love. What do you think was your most priceless moment of your wedding?
[00:15:46] Speaker C: That is such a good question. And it's one of those traditional moments that I truly didn't want to put on the day, and that I only did because my husband really wanted it. And it was my dance with my dad.
I was really resistant to doing any sort of formal programming beyond the ceremony. I decided not to do any photos with our photographer, other than just a few, so that we could just get right down to our friends and family. And so with the speeches and dinner and everything, I just. I really was hesitant to take more time to requiring people to do something, like watching people dance by themselves.
But Gabe had wanted to dance with his mom, so naturally, I planned to dance with my dad.
And as the night was progressing, and everyone tells you this, but, my gosh, I was just completely gobsmacked by how fast the time moves from the time you walk down the aisle to the time the band's done for, you know, the formal programming of the night is done. It felt like 10 seconds, but I was transferring from speeches out to the dance floor. In theory, we were slated to do our dances. And I looked at My coordinator. And I said, I want to cut the dances.
We're well behind schedule. I just want to get the band playing. I feel guilty getting everyone to watch Just another thing.
And oddly enough, I know this sounds so cheesy, but a friend of mine was standing by, and she heard me say that, and she grabbed my wrist and just said, hey, I know you feel rushed right now. She goes, but the night of my wedding, Wes, her husband, talked me into doing the dances. And she said, and it is the one thing that I think about most of our wedding, she was, do the dances.
And I ended up doing it because she said that. And I had probably four of the most treasured, sweetest minutes of my life with my dad. He's very stoic, very reserved. Typically, he's not very outward with his love.
And those four minutes, he just talked to me about memories and just his love for me and his pride and just his happiness for us. And I don't know, it just. I've never felt more close to my father in that moment.
I'm getting choked up even thinking about it. And I am just so grateful that that wedding allowed that moment to happen and that my friend happened to be standing in that moment when she was to make it happen. And truly, I look back on that and go, those four minutes were worth all of it.
[00:18:33] Speaker B: That's so nice. That's so nice.
I'm getting choked up thinking about potato.
[00:18:40] Speaker C: Did you do a dance with your dad?
[00:18:42] Speaker B: Probably, but for some reason, I don't remember that. But I definitely remember his father of the bride's speech. He worked for months on that speech, and people still talk about it, that it was very well done. And it's funny, I asked him in prep for this to send me the speech, and. And it is a good speech, but I remember it being so much longer than
[00:19:12] Speaker C: I think.
[00:19:13] Speaker B: It was just so meaningful in the moment because of the way that he delivered it and because I knew he had spent so much time on it. And he's the one that came up with the Cuba joke that I will never forget.
[00:19:27] Speaker C: So, yeah, you know, it's funny, I.
[00:19:31] Speaker B: When you.
[00:19:31] Speaker C: You mentioned it was really for your mom, your wedding, it is amazing how much now, looking back on it, feels like it was actually for my parents, even though I really thought there was nothing about this wedding that felt in their image. But the process of this wedding, my relationship now with my. My husband, has brought my family so much closer, and it brought my sister and I close for the first time in our lives, which gosh that was not on my bingo card. Like, having a big wedding was just not. I never thought that was gonna correlate to a closer relationship with my family. I thought, if anything, it was actually gonna cause drama and division, and it couldn't be further from the truth. I really felt like that whole experience was for all of us, not just me.
In a good way.
[00:20:19] Speaker B: Well, in the spirit of this imperfectly honest podcast, there are a lot of moments of love in weddings, and it can also be a battleground.
imperfectly honest conversations.
Did you have any imperfectly honest moments where you had to have a difficult conversation or anything like that?
[00:20:44] Speaker C: Yeah. Gosh, I have so many questions for you on this, too, because I would imagine if mom was going to town on your vision, I would be curious, maybe what you dug your heels in. But, you know, it's so funny.
I thought about that question earlier, and I was raised by a bunch of hippies, and so was Gabe. And these are people who got married at a courthouse in, you know, handmade sweaters and just had cake at home. And one of them got married at an ashram on his side. And so when we got married, I actually reached out or got engaged. Excuse me. I actually reached out to both of our moms and was just like, hey, anything you guys feel particularly called to help with? You know, I just want to invite that in because I have no vision for how this is going to be or how this should be. And if you do, like, I want to be respectful of the mother of the bride fulfilling a dream, because here you are, you have a blank slate that's kind of willing to take your lead. Both of them essentially came back to me and said, oh, I didn't really ever think about that. Do you want me to be. And so quickly I figured out that the drama around my wedding wasn't going to be with the moms.
And ironically enough, the only really hard conversation I had to have was with my dad and my dad and I. Which is so funny that my best moment was with my dad, and the hardest moment was with my dad. But my dad and I have never really disagreed in my life. He's got tension with my sister sometimes, but we have always just kind of been lock and step with things. And he also has never told me what to do in my life. He's always been a very. Chart your own course, do what makes you happy, yada, yada, yada. I was shocked when we started to plan the wedding that my dad basically told me, you have to invite everyone in my Family and some background. My dad is from a hugely Catholic family. There's nine kids, there's like 26 cousins.
We're close to them, but not nearly like where we are with my mom's side.
And he has a lot of tension with a lot of them.
And it's the first time I had to tell him just no. And it's the first time he's ever told me yes, I don't care that you're saying no.
And so there was a lot of back and forth and that was really hard. And I still think he's disappointed and sad that I ultimately didn't cave on that. I think we found a middle ground.
But that was a surprising moment of politics that I really didn't expect to see coming from that person in particular.
So that was challenging. How about you? Did you have any hard lines? I mean, I know you'd mentioned you also didn't really have a big vision or expectations for your wedding.
[00:23:34] Speaker B: You know, I actually don't recall any conflict with my mother.
She was respectful of my wishes, which were very few and far between.
And I just have a ton of confidence in her as an artist. And I'm sure we might have had some moments, but they must not have been significant enough for me to remember. But my most notable and imperfectly honest moment was actually with my ex husband.
And I learned an important lesson that I kind of have to relearn throughout my life.
Even though I took a backseat to my wedding, I am a leader personality and I knew what the flow of our wedding was supposed to be.
And my ex husband just didn't care that much about it.
And he was helping to grow a really fast moving business. And he had run a 24 hour old running race right before the wedding, which in hindsight was a terrible idea.
Oh yeah. And he was so tired at our rehearsal dinner. And we had this flow set up where we were going to do some short speeches and then people were going to get up and do the buffet.
And I asked him to get up and welcome everyone like we had agreed to.
And he had forgotten, I guess that he was just supposed to welcome people. And then the speeches were going to start and he gets up there and starts telling people, thank you for being here, please get up and get your food.
And I ripped the microphone from his hand and said, no, we are not getting up to get our food.
We are have some things to share with you first. And then I said, and this might be an indication of how our marriage is going to go.
I said, it Jokingly, but my ex husband did not find that funny at all.
And we have these pictures of him with this really, really angry face. It's quite funny. And we were able to laugh about it later.
It's funny that we're doing this podcast today because actually I had a three hour conversation with my ex husband, the most meaningful conversation that we've had since our divorce. And I learned the same lesson in that conversation that I learned that moment in the rehearsal dinner, which is that sometimes you just need to let time heal some wounds to be able to communicate with each other and to be heard and to laugh about those moments.
Yeah, I used to look back at that moment thinking that was an indication that my marriage probably wasn't going to work out.
And now, now I'm gonna look back at that moment and say I am grateful for the two decades that I spent with my ex husband. And that's an indication that sometimes you just need a little bit of time to be able to hear each other.
[00:26:59] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:26:59] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:27:00] Speaker C: It's a really good reflection.
Yeah. And also, women are just always right.
I mean, I don't know, I'm a type A as well. And I would also say by experience, obviously I'm joking with that comment, at least in the world of event planning and in my experience as well, I was shocked at how much Gabe did not know, nor really cared to know what the process was or the plan was for the day.
And yeah, I would say, if we are being imperfectly honest, I would say we definitely had more than one moment in those few days leading up to it where I would get asked something and go, have you not read the emails? Have you not read the color coded agenda and looked at the nice timeline that I so nicely built and set up for you over the last week? And yeah, I mean, I think in those moments it's funny to me now because I am just so type A and I do events and things for a living. So of course it's very obvious to me and more easy and comes naturally to me. But I definitely had a few moments where I felt really frustrated and let down by him in his kind of lack of.
I don't want to say that. Taking of it seriously, but almost his lack of appreciation for what felt like a huge amount of work based in love that I put into that experience for us. And I did eventually say those exact words to him and it really did hit him. And I think he, he came back around to really realizing that he had missed the mark on, on some of those. But that that was, that was hard. There's definitely some moments in there that felt hard.
[00:28:47] Speaker B: Well, the other thing that I told my ex husband in that three hour conversation is that the thing that I most regret about our marriage is that I spent so much time trying to figure out how to articulate why I was right about things.
And I heard a saying yesterday as well from another friend that women go into marriage convinced that they can change their husbands, and husbands go into marriage convinced that their wives will never change.
And there was some truth to that. In our marriage.
I married an extraordinary man.
And I think maybe in a misdirected approach to love, I saw how extraordinary he was and liked to point out how things could be better.
And yeah, I wish I would have accepted him more for who he was and looked inward a little bit more as to why I felt a need to change my husband all the time. Because at the end of the day, people are who they are and at some point you got to take people or leave them.
[00:30:12] Speaker C: You were saying you, you spent a lot of time trying to explain why you were right.
Was it, was it a. Because you felt like you weren't being heard and that you felt like you always needed to kind of explain your feelings or whatever it might be, or was it more you were right in like what you were saying he needed to do and that he just was unable to meet you in the vision that you had. I guess I'm just curious if you could expand a little bit on like, what you. You mean by that.
[00:30:45] Speaker B: Yeah, great question.
I think there might have been a little bit of both.
Sometimes I have this pattern within life that I really like to articulate my feelings and thoughts.
And when someone doesn't hear me, I just take the approach of obsessing about how I can better articulate my thoughts.
And sometimes people just aren't able to hear me for whatever reason. Everybody hears things differently based on their experience and their personality and all these things.
And so I think, I wish I would have just accepted that sometimes, just like in that moment at our rehearsal dinner, neither of us were going to hear anything from the other person.
We were at a point where we were not open and curious.
And I think through most of my marriage, when I would get to one of those moments where my husband wasn't able to hear me. I just kept talking louder and tried to better articulate what I was saying and that didn't matter.
[00:32:00] Speaker C: See, I, I always get really interested in, in this kind of stuff too, because I, I don't know what age you got married at. So I don't wanna, and I don't wanna assume, and I'm not gonna make you. You say that, but I would just be curious if you feel like had you gotten married later in life, if you think that you would have gotten out ahead of those. Those issues or that maybe you wouldn't have gotten married and you would have married someone differently, that that issue wouldn't have been maybe so prevalent because you had had more time to kind of learn what you just shared about yourself in relationship.
Something that I've been chewing on is Gabriel and I both kind of got married not late in life. I'm not claiming to be, you know, an older person, but, you know, 35, 36 and 42 is not young by any means. You know, we're slighted in our careers. We both were in long, serious relationships prior to meeting each other. He was with a woman for 11 years and owned a home. And I'd been someone with seven years and shared a home and traveled the world with that person. And I feel like when I met Gabe and the reason maybe I was finally in a place where I actually could say yes to someone and actually could believe in marriage was because I. He was the first person I ever met who, when we started dating or spending time together, I was so aware of my shadow work and my weak spots and the stories that I tell myself when I'm in a place of scarcity that I led all of our dates around, that thanks to so much therapy, I was able to really put words to where I knew I struggled and I could tell him up front where I knew we were going to have hard times as a unit. So for that reason I'm like, I just have so much respect for folks that have been able to maintain marriages that happened, you know, took place earlier in life when they were in their 20s. Because I think about what it took in terms of my own self awareness to get me down an aisle to say yes to someone in a place where I actually feel like I was going to be able to actually stay in this marriage. And I just don't think I could have ever made a relationship work with anyone I met in my 20s.
Because I have changed so much and I needed the last 15 years of dating or what have you to really get to a place where I could say forever and really mean it. And hearing you share that reflection, I'm like, gosh, I wonder if we're going to have similar kind of revolutionary moments of awareness and who we are and how we are or if our timing in trying this whole marriage thing out might save us from some of those things that might happen when you get married younger because you haven't had the chance to, to do the tango and the hard self reflection and work.
[00:34:53] Speaker B: One of the things that is often missed in a wedding is that the wedding is about a marriage, not about the wedding.
And for me, I don't regret my marriage. I got married at 25. To your point, it was an imperfect marriage and we had the opportunity to grow up together and we were best friends.
And there's things that I will do differently in my next chapter.
But I am really grateful that I had a partner for that first chapter.
And I don't actually believe that marriage has to be forever, which is a controversial statement.
I believe that love doesn't always fit into neat and tidy boxes and that people change over time and that sometimes they grow apart and sometimes they grow together.
And the next time around I want to focus less on whether it's going to be forever or whether it's perfect and focus more on whether it feels right for right now and whether we can support each other to be the people that we really want to be.
[00:36:12] Speaker C: I couldn't agree with you more. And I think that what you just shared is exactly why I have never, up until recently, I never, never believed in marriage as, as just I, I'm like, I do agree that we're constantly changing and having fallen in love multiple times in different capacities prior to meeting my now husband, one thing I knew was true is that just people change, people evolve.
And your feelings of love can change and evolve. So I always thought, how, how crazy is it knowing that, that we still have this thing where we, we say forever to the point where we sign a contract that like kind of.
And I still kind of hold that belief. And also I am amazed that despite that awareness that we do continue to choose marriage at times, myself included, I, I surprised my own self with that.
But I guess, like, with that, I guess I'd be curious, like, would you get married? And if you would, like, what would your wedding look like today?
[00:37:14] Speaker B: My imperfectly honest answer is that I am definitely open to getting married in this moment. The main advantage that I see is and call the person I love something other than the ambiguous term partner. I hate that
[00:37:33] Speaker C: you are funny. My husband hates. I don't use husband at all. I call him partner still. And he's like, come on, we just worked so hard to overcome the use of partner. Like use husband. Let's do it.
[00:37:45] Speaker B: That's so funny. Yeah.
When I got married, was so ready to ditch my last name and ditch partner.
So, yeah, I've stuck with my married name, so I don't have to worry about that anymore. But I am definitely open to whatever makes sense. And in closing, I actually want to wrap up this conversation because in the spirit of love coming at different times and different chapters of love, I'm actually getting ready for a date.
And coincidentally, my ex husband just moved in with a woman that he is very much in love with, and we are both pursuing new paths in an exciting and great way.
[00:38:44] Speaker C: Congratulations on that. And I want to hear all about it at some point, maybe share it over some Cuban food on dish and tell as we talk about dating and all these fun things that is falling in love in life in its different shapes and forms. But thank you so much for having me on here. I don't know if there was anything else about the wedding you wanted to discuss.
[00:39:08] Speaker B: Well, the last thing I'd love from you is to tell me the most coziest, warmest, loving moment that you have with your ex partner, now husband that you had at your wedding.
[00:39:26] Speaker C: Oh, my goodness.
Ooh. The coziest, warmest moment.
I think the tenderest moment that we had was during speeches. His father was giving a speech, and his dad actually was recently diagnosed with dementia and has been really struggling. And it's. It's created a lot of strain on them. And his dad was always. Has always been his hero. And it was incredibly important for Gabe to have his dad there, have his dad involved, and to speak. And it was. It's a big reason, actually, why we. We kind of started to put the pedal to the metal on making a wedding happen.
And his dad got up and started speaking, and it became very clear that his decline was much more significant than I think we were even aware of. And we had just been so caught up in the buzz for the few days before that we just really hadn't had a lot of time to connect with him. And his dad got pretty lost, and Gabe had to kind of get up and help him along. And it was just this wild full circle moment because his wife was leaning in and crying, and it's been really hard on her. And a number of our very close friends were crying because they've recently lost their dads or knew him when he was younger. And Gabe sat down, and I could just feel the gravity for him in terms of the sadness of watching his dad failing, but also the gravity of, like, watching the community that is Built by way of a marriage and knowing that all these tears that we were witnessing were because of love and relationships established through, you know, his dad's wedding to his mom and the kind of creation of the world that they built and being in partnership and.
And I know it sounds like a really sad moment to be highlighting, but I felt like in that moment, I was able to lean into him, and he was able to lean into me, and I was like, I am your wife, and I have just said that I am gonna love you through all of the hardest and all of the best times. And this is one of those moments that's both the best and it's one of your hardest.
And, like, we're doing it. This is what marriage looks like. This is what it feels like, and instead of pulling away, we're only leaning in. And this is just kind of like our first moment together as being, like, we are officially a unit through the highs and lows. And in that moment just felt.
Felt really special in a lot of ways. And then last, I'll just say we've had so much fun. On a funny note, we've just had so much fun getting all of our photos back across the various different platforms. And we had disposable cameras. We had film cameras. We had everything. And laying in bed together, looking through those photos and just talking about our people and sharing stories has just been a really awesome way when we just keep looking at each other going. We did that, and it was fucking awesome. And we had so much fun, and I love you so much because, man, we're sitting here looking at this world we have built together and the people that we have in it, and we just feel so insanely lucky. And so that's been just, like a ripple effect of joy that continues to make our days really, really fun and to kind of keep the wedding and that day and that experience very much alive and something we kind of collaboratively cherish together.
[00:43:08] Speaker B: Well, I love that. I think the ripple effect of joy is a good way to come close out. And, Morgan, thank you so much.
[00:43:18] Speaker C: Elizabeth, thank you. This was so fun. It was really nice to. To get more time with you. Kayla speaks the world of you, and as you know, she is a treasure herself. So anyone Kayla adores. I. I equally adore back. So thanks for. For giving me the chance to spend some time with you.
[00:43:32] Speaker B: Yeah, I echo that. Thanks, Morgan.
Bye.
[00:43:36] Speaker C: Bye,
[00:43:39] Speaker B: Sam.
