this is officially episode one of the ever be podcast. And I can't really believe I'm saying this. I can't really believe that we're here right now. I am so excited that the podcast. is finally here and has finally come to life. This is a vision that I've had for a few years now, and I'm just so excited that it's finally here. So welcome welcome. If you are a long time follower on Instagram, hi, thank you for joining me on this platform as well.
I just want to give you the biggest like virtual hug right now. And if you are a new follower and you have no idea who I am, then hello, welcome. My name is Mari Wagner. I am a content creator and now the host of this ever be podcast. So I hope that you'll stick around and I'm just so grateful that you found our little community on the internet. Where we talk about all things Christ centered living.
So this episode today is going to be a little bit of a shorty episode, but it's going to be a good one. We are going to get a little deep, a little vulnerable, and I love it. And I'm going to share my heart behind why a podcast, why the name ever be. Because if you know me, you know that everything that I do and all the details in my brand are Intentional and have a reason why in a meaning behind them So there's absolutely a specific reason why the podcast is named ever be.
So first off for like a few years now I knew that I wanted to be on some sort of long form content platform. Because here's the thing I love Instagram and I will always be on there. Like, trust me, I love Instagram.
I'm never leaving Instagram, but I feel like it has lost a little bit of it's like, Bloggy style vibe that it used to have where you would just kind of like dive into, you know, someone's life or like read these long reflections and like all this like long inspirational writing that at least I used to write and that I used to really consume when I first started making content like five or six years ago.
I just feel like it's not like that anymore because short form video has totally taken over and don't get me wrong. I also love reels. Um, but those 10 second videos don't really allow us to go deep. Like I want to, and like, I feel like the Lord has placed on my heart to do with my content, because we're talking about some really real things here. And so I feel like when you go on Instagram, you're just like, not really in the mood to read like a five paragraph essay anymore.
Like, I go on Instagram and I want to, like, find the golden nugget, you know, get a little bit of dose of inspiration, see some beauty. See the updates of like the content creators and the influencers and the people that I follow or the friends that I follow and then kind of hop off and that's it. And that's totally fine. And that's great. Hence why the podcast is now here so that we can do that. And so that we can dive into all the important things together.
And I feel like a podcast is going to be able to give you a little bit more of an inside look into who I am and what I'm like. And something that I try to do on my Instagram content already is to show you that I'm just right there with you. Okay. Like I just want you to know that I am like figuring life out alongside with you. And so. Today. I just want us to get cozy and talk about our life. And I have my cozy set on. I mean, I have my tea.
All my best friends know that I am obsessed with tea and I feel like it solves all of life's problems. So I've got my tea, I've got my cozy set and I'm ready to just dive into the heart behind why a podcast, why the name ever be and what my hope is for you guys in joining me here so, like I said, for a few years, I was kind of debating what kind of long form content I wanted to dive into, whether that was going to be a podcast or maybe a YouTube channel, and then ended up deciding on a podcast.
Honestly, purely for more practical reasons, I felt like YouTube was going to be hard to edit. I don't know. Editing video takes a long time, but also I could really talk a lot. For hours on end. And so Trey and I were like, yeah, podcasting is probably more for you. But the biggest thing is that I really wanted to let you in on more of who I am and what I'm like. And I feel like you'll really get to see that through this platform and on this show.
And I don't know, I just like wish, I really, really wish that we could like sit down together, and that you could see that I am right next to you. Like I am right where you are right now. Trying to figure out what the Lord has in store for my life as well. And we probably have a lot more in common than you think, or maybe you already think that we have a lot in common and we'd probably be great friends in real life. So this way, you just get to see a little bit more of me, more of my heart.
And we're able to have the intentional conversations that I think are so important and that I really want to have together. So let's dive into why the name ever be. So while I was born and raised Catholic I have really been on a journey of coming to know Jesus and really deepening my relationship with him since like 2018.
And this journey of coming to know Christ has been marked with joy and excitement and adventure and a lot of moments where the Lord has asked me to surrender and I have joyfully and willingly like taken the leap and been like, Lord, I trust you and whatever it is that you're calling me to do. And then I faced a really big moment of surrender in 2021. Because we were planning our wedding in the midst of a pandemic, of a pandemic.
So any other COVID brides out there listening to this, I want to give you another big virtual hug. My heart goes out to you because man, that was hard. Those were some hard times for everyone, of course. But planning a wedding in the midst of a pandemic It is just something I highly don't recommend, um, anybody doing and pretty much our whole engagement season was tough. It was, good and beautiful in the sense that like, it was beautiful to know who your husband is going to be.
And we grew closer to each other and closer to the Lord, but it was really hard. There were a lot of challenges and a lot of it being the fact that we were in the middle of a pandemic and wedding planning. Was super stressful. We were engaged for a year and a half. And during that time, we probably switched locations and venues like three different times.
And we didn't have any official details of our wedding venue and, couldn't send out official invitations to people until maybe six weeks before the wedding. Which is really crazy. And that was basically because of all the laws and regulations that were constantly changing. Like one week, only 10 people could gather another week. Nobody could gather another week, 25 people could gather and another week, maybe a hundred people could gather.
And then it would go back to like, Five people could gather. And so every week the regulations were changing and every week venues were saying like, Oh, like you can't have your wedding here anymore. Or like, Oh, the town shut down or, Oh, like, you know, we have to wait until like the regulation is announced closer to your wedding date. And so that alone made for really stressful wedding planning because we couldn't really plan ahead for a lot of things.
We couldn't really like, Sign contracts for a lot of things and we couldn't really send out invitations because we didn't know how many people we could invite And through it all I'm like, you know Taking this all to prayer taking this all to the Lord and just kind of being like Lord like what is going on?
Like this is supposed to be the happiest time of my life Like I'm engaged and I think in general like I'll have to make a whole nother episode about Season of engagement as well, because I think there's so much to learn there. But in general, I think that I just had this like over romanticized idea of what engagement would be like in my head due to probably all the rom com movies I watched growing up, because I've always been a hopeless romantic.
So I thought that this season was going to be like so joyful and exciting. And like, everybody would be celebrating me and, you know, we'd have all these parties and showers and everything would be perfect. And the wedding planning would be like just this picture, perfect, like mood board, you know, like, like you see on like the wedding planner movie with Jennifer Lopez and then you get to your wedding day and everything is perfect and nothing goes wrong. Yeah, that was.
That was pretty, pretty naive of me, I guess, You know, and a lot of the difficulties were because we were in a pandemic and that was just. A crazy time that we happen to be engaged in. Um, but on top of all that, we were also doing long distance Trey and I's relationship was in and out of long distance because we both lived in different states. And so when we weren't at school in college, we were doing long distance and I was a year ahead of him. So I graduated before he did.
And so I went off to my job. I was a missionary with focus and I moved to Nebraska and he was still in school and he only had a semester left. He chose to graduate a little bit early so that he could get married to me, which is just. dream, but he still had one semester left of college and we did long distance for about eight months during our engagement period.
Now that was really hard because now we're not just dealing with a pandemic, but now we're also dealing with like wedding planning from long distance and trying to set up a lot of phone calls and zoom calls to figure details out. We did our marriage prep and natural family planning classes, like all long distance and like. date nights all virtually and all long distance. And it's one thing to be long distance with your boyfriend.
It's another thing to be long distance with your fiance, whom you are just so ready to be married with and so ready to do life with and whom you're just so in love with and who you're planning this, like a whole huge event with.
And so on all levels, it just was so impractical and so emotionally challenging for us to be long distance during this time and on top of that, I had to have a lot of hard conversations with family members and bridal party members who were all navigating the climate of our world and what we were all experiencing. You know, I had to let go of a lot of what I envisioned my engagement period to be and what I envisioned all these celebrations to be. I didn't have a bridal shower, really.
I mean, I kind of had a virtual one, but You know, it's not the same. And the bachelorette party that I'd always imagined didn't really happen because people couldn't really travel in the middle of COVID. And there were a lot of people that I love that didn't make it to our wedding and a lot of family members who live far away that weren't able to make it to the actual wedding day. So I had to let go of a lot and that took me through a whole journey with the Lord of like, what is your plan here?
What are you, you know, drawing out of this experience, Lord. And on top of all that, as if all that wasn't enough. On the actual day of our wedding, there was like the biggest snow storm to hit Colorado in like a million years that hit on the day of our wedding as I was driving to the church. Now, this was both like a blessing and a curse because I actually prayed for snow. We originally were going to get married up at winter park, which is like a mountain town here in Colorado that I love.
There's this gorgeous little chapel called our lady of the snow up in the mountains, like nestled in the mountains. And like the views are gorgeous. I used to go up there and we still go up there with Trey's family all the time, especially in the holidays and when it's snowing and it is just beautiful. And I wanted like a white winter wedding. And since the mountain town had shut down for COVID, we changed the venue a million times.
Like I said, and that dream was something that I also had to let go of. And I just knew like, okay, I'm not going to have a mountain wedding. I'm not going to have a winter wedding. It's okay. Like. It's fine. The Lord has other plans. And the week of our wedding was sixties and sunnies every single day. And that whole week I did pray. I was like, you know, Lord, I wouldn't mind if there would be some snow on our wedding day.
If you wanted there to be like, maybe a light dusting of snow just to have really pretty photos and then, you know, sunny for the reception or whatever, like that would be great. Thanks. Well, the Lord provided in great abundance as it was like a huge blizzard that hit and a huge snowstorm that hit. There was literally like. three feet plus of snow that all came down in the matter of like a few hours. It was nuts.
So even though it did make for some of the most magical wedding photos and wedding video, And just made the day so memorable for us and for our guests. And for so many people, people talk about it all the time still. And I love it because it was just a fun kind of crazy day for everybody. it did add a lot of travel complications to a lot of the people who were coming to the wedding.
So that was just another thing on top of everything that was like, not really going the way that we had planned or hoped and more people canceled day of, and you know, just added an extra layer of like, wow. Okay. Lord, like. What else, what else you're going to throw at us, you know and so basically as we were encountering all these problems throughout our engagement, um, and wedding planning, we knew one thing, we knew that there would be a wedding mass and that that was for certain.
And so we put a lot of energy and effort into our wedding mass and into, you know, what the readings were going to be, what the music was going to be like, um, what was the message that we wanted to convey to our guests and, you know, root our marriage in. And so we prayed over the readings and what they meant to us. And we prayed over the music and the songs that we were going to pick.
And, we just decided that we wanted our wedding mass to be one where heaven came down to earth And a message of hope and praise was communicated to our guests and that our marriage would just like radiate just like the joy and praise of the Lord. And so the song that I chose to walk down the aisle to that day is called ever be by Bethel music. And I chose to specifically walk down to the lyric. I'm sure it's like in the chorus where it says your praise, Lord will ever be on my lips.
Your praise, Lord, will ever be on my lips. And I chose this song because while I was walking down the aisle to make a vow to the man who I loved so much and who had been so good and faithful to me always, I also, as I was walking down the aisle was making a vow to the Lord, to my God, who had always been good and faithful to me as well.
And I wanted to make this promise to him that no matter what life through our way, what plans the Lord had for us and our family, that his praise would ever be on my lips. And I promised to share the truth that he's a good and faithful father every day for the rest of my life.
So here I am on this new platform that the Lord has called me to be on, to share my heart with you and to hopefully inspire you to live a Christ centered life and to see the beauty and the joy and the freedom that comes with a life with Christ. And through this podcast, his praise will quite literally be on my lips. So thank you. Thank you for being here. Thank you for listening to this episode and for following along on this journey that I'm inviting you on. I am so excited that you're here.
I'm so excited for what's to come on the show. I have so many amazing episodes and incredible guests already lined up that I know you are going to love. And I just can't wait to share it all with you. But before you go, if you love what you heard today, please subscribe, like the podcast and leave a review, maybe a five star rating, share it with your friends and just get the word out. It would mean so much to me. Plus follow us on Instagram. You can follow the ever be podcast.
Instagram, which is just at ever be podcast. You can find me on Instagram at Mari dot C dot Wagner. And you can find our Catholic lifestyle brand on Instagram, which is at West coast Catholic. I'm on Instagram all over the place these days. So you can find me in any of those places, but definitely follow us on the podcast, Instagram. And if you have any requests for any topics that you want to hear or any questions that you're like, can you please make an episode about this?
I'd I want to know what that is. You guys, like the Lord has placed it on my heart to serve you. And to create content for you. Like I said, to walk alongside you. So tell me what you thought about this episode or how you're feeling about the podcast. Hopefully you're excited and celebrating with me. and if you have any ideas of what you want to hear and you're like, please, Mari, talk about this.
Please drop me a message and I will read it and take it to heart and totally consider adding it to my content so that is officially a wrap on our very first episode of the show. I'll be dropping episodes every Wednesday. So mark your calendars, set a reminder, subscribe to the podcast. So every Wednesday you and I can hang out while you're driving or cooking or cleaning or hanging out, whatever it is that you're doing. Join me every Wednesday. And with that, I will see you next week.