Board Members

Aimée Newlander left a very successful career in and around the health and wellness corporate industry. She focused on the ‘connectedness’ needed with change management projects, brand marketing and senior management. Then she pursued a long standing passion for organizing and managing events, founding Weddings by Aimée in 2009 and her ‘mindful planning’ style approach. She knows that educating couples on how to feel prepared, organized and how to prioritize is so important, as there are many things you don’t know, to know. Her business quickly grew and became much more then education that she offers to the people she works with.

She is extremely creative and has a true artistic flair that has helped her organize very individual weddings from intimate and organic affairs to the more glamorous and opulent occasions. Aimée’s professionalism, warm personality and superb eye for detail mean that you can truly relax and enjoy the planning process without having to worry about a thing on your wedding day. Aimée considers herself a “Destination wedding planner”, specializing in areas such as Lake Tahoe, Big Sur, Carmel, California coastline as well as International locations (Italy, France, Mexico).

“Team” is a big part of who Aimée is, from her time playing international Soccer, to her passion for collaborating with other vendors at her events. She has managed budgets in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, cultivated stakeholder relationships for large scale events, and offers expertise in venue sourcing and procurement (including government permitting).

One of Aimée’s passions is developing venues from raw space, moulding a larger vision from scratch. She’s applied her passion, vision, and skills to founding the Slow Weddings Network, and hopes to see the global movement grow to be a well known, household organization.

 

With 14 years leadership experience in the sports, media and entertainment industries, Rosie has an established reputation for successfully planning, developing and delivering world-class events, initiatives and venues globally. She is passionate about event marketing and developing unique and meaningful consumer experiences.

For the past six years, Rosie has held a leadership role for two of the largest sporting events to come to northern California – Super Bowl 50 and the 34th America’s Cup. Prior to that, Rosie led teams around the globe to deliver successful events and venues such as the Volvo Ocean Race, Modern Pentathlon World Cup and the London 2012 Olympic sailing venue.

A graduate of Portsmouth University, England, Rosie has a B.Sc in Biology specializing in Marine and Environmental Science. Rosie maintains a keen interest in conservation and the environment and is also a sports enthusiast that enjoys being outdoors – hiking, running, mountain biking and surfing in the Bay Area.

Local sourcing, sustainability, inclusiveness and mindfulness are some of the core values that Rosie likes to apply to major events and projects. Knowing that these principles are also at the heart of the Slow Weddings Network, makes it easy to support this new venture.

 

Karla Wade has been an artist for as long as she has been alive. She has always had a gift to be creative, and has worked with many different mediums including Native American themed, interior design, decor, and flowers.

After she graduated from college, she chose a profession related to her studies in the law enforcement field. She started working as a Probation Officer, and has held this career for 16 years, but always dedicated time to her creative passions. The passion she has working with flowers led her to starting her own business providing florals & design for weddings and special events. This work provides Karla with an outlet that her current day job can’t provide. It provides a healing, and balance to her daily work life that is filled with so much pain and suffering. It creates this balance, and zen for her, which fills and feeds her soul. Work-Life-Balance is extremely important to her. When she’s not working, you’ll find her on the beach with her two Boston Terriers “Karl” and “Lillie”. Karla has a strong skill set in organization, accounting and overseeing large project work and is detail focused.

Karla was introduced to the Slow Weddings Network and was extremely excited about the passion, cause, and community of those involved. Karla feels the integrity of Slow Weddings is very mindful, compassionate, and inspirational. She is excited to be part of Slow Weddings Network, and is thrilled to be working together with local business owners, joined with like minded professionals, to connect, and collaborate to provide a wonderfully “slow wedding” experience for couples nationwide. This is the new direction that the wedding industry is moving to, and she is happy to become part of this incredible movement.

 

Aimée Page is a Santa Cruz native, with 30 years of experience as a professional pastry chef working in restaurants and bakeries throughout California, Seattle, and New Zealand,. She founded Hollyhock Cakes, a seasonal garden inspired baking company specializing in wedding and event work in 1996 . A curious creative, Aimée loves to travel and has worked on biodynamic farms in the south of France and New Zealand.
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Aimée’s background in dance, theater and as a performing musician inform and inspire her creative and heart forward approach to her culinary work, and her deep affection for brides, grooms, and anyone excited about having a party.
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She especially loves gardening and is passionate about flowers. Gardenias and tulips are her favorites.

 

 

Naomi is a native New Yorker and world traveler who moved to California and founded Santa Cruz Officiant in 2014. A Certified Life Cycle Celebrant, Earth-Based Minister, ceremonialist, professional writer, and public speaker, Naomi specializes in creating and performing original, custom wedding ceremonies (from scratch) for couples of all beliefs, cultures, gender and sexual orientations.

Naomi fell in love with the beauty and timelessness of ceremony while exploring ways that different religious and spiritual traditions around the world honor the great life milestones and major rites of passage. She has a deeply cultivated understanding of thresholds (such as birth, marriage and death), and loves helping people mark these passages in ways that feel meaningful and alive to them.

In her professional career Naomi has worked as a Sign Language interpreter, a teacher of English as a foreign language in Cambodia, Costa Rica and Japan, and as an astrologer. Her passions include an abiding love of nature, theater and world travel.

Naomi is grateful to be part of an organization that promotes community, sustainability and integrity within the wedding industry. Her hope is that the Slow Weddings movement will help redefine industry standards in a way that has vendors feeling a renewed passion for their work, and couples feeling more deeply cared for through this passage.