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James McManus |
Cornelia Powell has been the voice of conscious, intuitive weddings for over two decades. She offers brides a guide for combining the wisdom of ancient rituals and the freedom available in modern culture to create ceremonies from their hearts. Exploring how the origin of ancient ceremonial traditions reveals the true inner spirit of women, Cornelia leads the way in restoring a sense of intimacy and grace to the world of overly commercialized weddings.
Cornelia developed an imaginative eye for costume early on, playing “dress-up” in her mother’s wedding gown and trousseau lingerie as a child in Alabama. She honed her artistic eye in her early twenties as an associate editor at Vogue magazine. These experiences, combined with her interest in antique textiles and how the past influences the present, contributed to the creation of her namesake shop opened in 1986 in Atlanta. An “art-to-wear” store honoring life’s rites-of-passage and the feminine spirit, it was filled with beautifully restored romantic vintage clothing, designer gowns of antique laces and new silks, and one-of-a-kind accessories.
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Cornelia in Victoria magazine, February 1993.
Photograph by William P. Steele. Courtesy of Victoria magazine. New York City, USA |
Initially designed for the "grown-up" bride, Cornelia's innovative store provided women of all ages an elegant alternative for bridal and special occasion wear. Becoming nationally known over the years, the shop was touted by magazines as “magically unique, something out of a woman’s dream.” Cornelia shared folkloric stories that addressed the deeper questions of a bride’s transformational journey with the thousands of women who came into her shop—and today with audiences around the country—establishing her expertise in wedding mythology and as a spokesperson for conscious, from the heart weddings.
To the dismay of romantics everywhere, Cornelia closed her shop after 14 years. Afterwards was a time of travel and expansive exploration, finding the inspiration for the language for her book envisioned years before. Interweaving tales of costume history, wedding mythology, women’s studies, goddess legends, and her own intuitive musings, Cornelia writes and lectures on subjects close to the heart of all women. Her book in progress, Weddings of Grace: The Bride You Want to Be, The Woman You Become, focuses on women’s inner growth as the heart of wedding traditions, creating more meditative, intimate weddings and relationships.
Cornelia continues her entrepreneurial ventures with a transformative twist. She intends that her online magazine, Weddings of Grace (launched in September 2006), brings ease, pleasure and reassurance into a bride's life, shaping a more conscious world.
Cornelia speaks of every woman’s life as a series of rites-of-passage, illustrating the magic possible when each passage becomes spaced with the reverie of inner stillness. At the heart of Weddings of Grace and Cornelia's voice is this message for all women: "Look inside to find yourself." 
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