Michelle Sponseller Celebrant / Officiant

10/28/2026

We're thrilled to be representing the Celebrant Academy at the very first LaborOut conference. Being part of an inaugural event feels special, and we can't wait to meet the people building this movement from the ground up.

If you're an end-of-life doula, you already know how to sit with a family in their hardest hours. You hold space at the bedside. You listen to the stories. You know the person, sometimes better than anyone else in the room.

So who better to help shape the goodbye?

That's what we love teaching. How to take everything you already carry and turn it into a ceremony: the eulogy that sounds like them, the ritual that fits their life, the words that help a room full of grieving people breathe together. It lets you walk with a family the whole way, from the bedside to the farewell.

A big thank you to Death Doula Kacie for helping make this connection happen. ❤️

If you'll be at LaborOut, come find us. We'd love to hug you, hear your story, and talk about the art of ceremony.

Learn more at www.celebrantacademy.org

celebrantacademy

10/18/2026

Yesterday handed us one of those October days you couldn't order if you tried. Blue sky, the whole park awash with gold leaves, loads of sunshine, and just warmth to stand outside in a suit without regretting it.

Kaitlynn and Timothy were married at the gazebo at Millpond Park in Blanchard, surrounded by all their favorite people.

Now, some couples light a unity candle. Some pour two colors of sand. These two brought a propane torch.

Their dads heated the iron. Yes, really. Then the two of them handed it over together, and Kaitlynn and Timothy pressed it into the wood themselves. An H inside a circle, the very same shape as the rings they'd just slid onto each other's hands. Their name. Their date. A little smoke, and a very satisfying hiss.

It'll hang in their home, and someday it'll be the sign at the end of the drive at that farm they keep dreaming about.

Paint comes off. Ink fades. A brand goes down into the grain and stays, which is a pretty good way to say what these two just promised each other.

Congratulations, you two. Best Saturday I've had in a long while...

10/14/2026

Join me tonight at this terrific venue!

WE'RE HAVING ANOTHER VENUE OPEN HOUSE!!🌲💍✨

We are so excited to welcome you to Camp Deer Trails on Wednesday, October 14th from 6:00 PM - 9:00 PM for another venue open house! Are you planning a wedding, small event, or camping getaway in 2027 or 2028? This is the PERFECT opportunity for you!!!😆

The entire camp will be open to self-tour, some of our favorite vendors will be on-site with tastings and other goodies, and we even have an EXCLUSIVE booking discount! Stop by to have your questions answered by our coordinators, get a feel for the Camp Deer Trails vibes, and see what a wedding, small event, or weekend getaway in the woods really feels like. 🌲🎉🍾

To RSVP for our FREE event, use the link below👇

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfyWTmyU6xUZ6ze7C6TxWHEiOj_BSyj7V6xgLFpsG6IVBFywg/viewform?usp=header

10/07/2026

I did not expect Ted Lasso to make me tear up but, here we are.

The season finale used Mary Oliver's "When Death Comes." I've stood in front of grieving families and read those words at end-of-life services. It's one people ask for when the person they lost was wide awake to life: the gardener, the traveler, the grandpa who knew every bird at the feeder.

What I love about it is that it isn't really about dying. It starts there, honestly and without softening anything, and then it becomes a poem about how to live so that you've done more than pass through.

Here's the full text for you to read it in its entirety.

WHEN DEATH COMES

When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox

when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,
tending, as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.

When it's over, I want to say all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it's over, I don't want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.

I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.

--Mary Oliver

10/04/2026

Some weddings you carry home with you. Yesterday was one of them. ❤

Dominique and Dylan found each other in December of 2020, when the whole world had gone quiet during Covid. He drove to her apartment that first cold night with Mexican food because he'd already figured out it was her favorite. They stayed up talking until four in the morning and never touched the food. Five years later, they stood in front of everyone they love and made it official at Little Flower Barn.

Their ceremony had a ring warming, every guest held their wedding bands for a moment and sent a wish, a blessing, a quiet hope, before the rings ever reached their fingers. By the time they said "I do," those rings carried the weight of every good wish in the room.

Dominique and Dylan, thank you for letting me tell your story. It was an honor from the first word to the last.

Wishing you a lifetime of ordinary days and big moments, and the thousand small ways you've always chosen each other.

10/02/2026

Best ring delivery I've seen yet: last Saturday at Berridge Barn in Greenville, Josh and Kayla's son Silas rolled down the aisle in a remote-control car with the rings riding sh***un. 💛

It was an honor to stand with these two as they became Mr. and Mrs. Underwood. Congratulations, Josh and Kayla!

📸 NissaJ Photography + Film LLC, Grand Rapids

09/26/2026

My office for the afternoon, celebrating Josh and Kayla!

09/25/2026

On Saturday I gave a little hint about the unity ritual Aliona and Kaleb had planned. Ready for the reveal?

No candle. No sand. These two sealed their marriage by making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

Here's what I love most about what I do: every ceremony I write is built for the two people standing in front of me. Nobody gets a copy-paste script. Aliona and Kaleb are warm, funny, and completely themselves, so their ceremony got to be warm and funny too. This is the passage I wrote for their unity ritual, and read aloud as they built their sandwich together:

"Now, Aliona and Kaleb have chosen to seal their union in a way that is entirely, wonderfully them.

Some couples light a unity candle. Some pour two colors of sand into a single jar, never to be separated again. Aliona and Kaleb considered all of that . . . and then decided they'd rather have a snack.

And it's a fitting choice, because peanut butter and jelly are a lot like the two of them: sweet, a little nutty, and good enough to stand the test of time.

On their own, each is good. Peanut butter is steady and dependable, the one that holds on tight and doesn't let go. Jelly is the sweet one, the one that brings the color and the fun. Apart, they're perfectly fine. But together, they're the sandwich that has gotten every one of us through childhood, on a busy day, and at least one late-night fridge raid.

And notice, they're each doing their own half. This is important. This is marriage. Nobody makes the whole sandwich. You do your part, they do theirs, and somehow it comes together . . . usually with a little more jelly than strictly necessary.

And here's the truth in it: when life gets sticky, and it will, their love is the peanut butter, the glue that holds it all together.

Once these two halves come together, you can't separate them again, and that's rather the point. Aliona, Kaleb, let this sandwich be the picture of your marriage: comforting on the hard days, sweet on the good ones, a little messy in the middle . . . and always better than doing it alone.

That first bite is the first taste of a long and satisfyingly sweet life together. And when fifty years have flown by, may you sit down together, share one of these humble little sandwiches, and remember this exact moment . . . the day the best of two halves became one."

Congratulations, Aliona and Kaleb. It was an honor to tell your story.

If you want a ceremony that actually sounds like you, that's the whole idea. Find me at celebrantmichelle.com.

09/19/2026

My office for the afternoon. ❤️Celebrating Aliona and Kaleb with a tailor made unity ritual I can’t wait to tell you about!

08/04/2026

I saw an article this morning about the shift between millennial and Gen Z wedding culture, the move away from guest lists and price tags that outgrew the couple, toward something smaller and more honest. It got me thinking about a question I hear all the time.

https://www.elle.com/culture/books/a73258725/millennial-vs-gen-z-wedding-culture-essay/

Does a small, budget-friendly wedding "count" as much as a big one?

Yes. Every single time.

I've married couples in backyards with a dozen folding chairs and a potluck reception, and couples in ballrooms with three hundred guests and a five-figure budget. Neither the guest count or the dollar amount ever told me how much two people loved each other. What told me that was the couple in front of me, and the story we built the ceremony around.

Two people or two hundred. Two hundred dollars or fourty thousand. I build the same kind of ceremony either way: personal, honest, and completely yours.

If you're planning something small, in size or in budget, and wondering if it's enough: it is. It always was.