Magnolia Journal

The Crisis That Made Me Rethink How Weddings Should Be Created

April 07, 2026

The crisis that changed how I plan weddings

The moment everything broke

For a long time, I was moving inside a rhythm that felt normal from the outside, but deeply misaligned on the inside of me

Around 2019, I found myself very tired, not just physically, but in a way that was harder to name
I was caught in productivity, in efficiency, in numbers, in doing more and more, while quietly questioning whether my place was actually somewhere else, in a different kind of work, a different kind of life, doing something different, somewhere else.
I bet many of you have asked themselves what we are “here” for uh?
Good old fashioned question that no of us seem to have the answer for

We tend to believe that what we need to do to serve, to be useful, is completely in a different direction, in professions more humanitarian, more spiritual, more sacred: who thinks that cleaning toilets can be a special unique useful way to serve the world?

But this continuous endless research for something that we believe is the definition of success and fame is just exhausting

Then 2020 arrived and like for everyone, everything stopped even for me

That pause, which at the beginning felt imposed, became the beginning of a deeper crisis, both personal and within Magnolia.
The years that followed, 2020 and 2021, stripped everything away from my hands

There was no distraction left, only space to look at myself, really look deeply
Time to cry a lot indeed
Then 2022 came, with all the postponed weddings, everything overlapping, an intense wave of work that I had to face while still not being well and that is when I truly broke

It was a level of burnout I didn’t even know was possible

At a certain point, I understood that I had to take responsibility for my own recovery, starting from my body first of all, who was screaming for my attention: because I was not well
That decision slowly opened a new path

Around the same time, I began spending part of the year in Sardinia – if you don’t know where it’s located it’s here – birth home of my dear husband. I don’t know what I was looking for, but for sure a city (ndr. I had lived in Florence for all my life till then) was only giving me anxiety and pollution

At the beginning, it was not comforting
AT ALL

The silence there it’s not soft, it is absolute. It surrounds you, it leaves no space to escape, it asks you to stop

That kind of emptiness felt like a void, something we are not really trained to face are we?
And yet, that silence, together with the first steps I was taking to feel better physically, became the place where something deeper started to move
I began to look at myself with more honesty- and you can read more about this here – , to understand what had brought me into that crisis and what was really mine to do and through a combination of health work, personal evolution and professional education and evolution, over time and not without difficulty, something became clear
What I had been doing for years and years was not the problem: it was exactly where I was meant to be

At a certain point, everything aligned in a way that was impossible to ignore

My way of thinking, my sensitivity, my energy, even the way I am physically built to hold and read situations, everything was pointing in the same direction: THIS work is not something I do, it is something I am designed for

It is my way of being in service

The crisis came from not recognizing this, from trying to look elsewhere for something that was already here. Now I am choosing to fully stand in it, to embrace it for what it is and this changes everything
It changes how I experience my work, the level of presence, the depth of care, the satisfaction I feel in what I do, but more than that, it changes what couples experience because when you are working from a place that is truly yours, the entire process becomes something else, more valuable, not just an event being planned, but something that is built in a completely different way

The amazing part?
I have not looked to find a NEW ME, I have “just” found back my REAL ME and in a world of disillusions , where everything and everyone tells us that we are not good enough, it’s so refreshing to feel that ME was the answer

From there Magnolia started fresh new

Silvia
Magnolia