Think about the last time someone you love died. Think about what got said at the funeral. The stories, the specific moments, the “I had no idea she felt that way about me.” The things that made you cry not just because someone was gone, but because they finally said the thing. Out loud. In front of everyone.
Now think about your best friend. The one who has held you together through the worst of it. The one who has heard every version of the story you keep telling yourself. The one who showed up when you didn’t even ask.
When did you last tell her what she actually means to you? Not a birthday caption. Not a “love you, talk soon.” The real thing. The specific thing.
That gap is what this episode is about.
Jennifer Hobbs is the owner of Rhinestone Wedding Chapel in Nashville and the creator of Bestiemony, a trademarked friendship commitment ceremony she invented because she was sitting in her own chapel one day, listening to wedding vows, and thought: “Wait. My best friends have been keeping every single one of these promises to me for years. Why haven’t we said this out loud?”
If the concept of a friendship commitment ceremony sounds like a stretch, stay with me. Because the more you sit with it, the harder it is to argue with.
Why Friendship Never Gets the Ceremony
Jennifer spent years as a corporate controller and CFO before she left, moved to Nashville, and bought a wedding chapel. She now spends her days surrounded by love, and she has made it her work to make sure platonic love gets some of that same attention.
Here is what she noticed from inside the wedding world: we have built an entire architecture of celebration around romantic love. Anniversaries. Valentine’s Day. The engagement party, the bridal shower, the bachelorette, the rehearsal dinner, the wedding itself. And somewhere in the middle of all of that, there is a maid of honor. The woman who got the bride down the aisle, not just that day, but in life. The one who put her back together a hundred times over.
And what does she get?
“She doesn’t expect to be celebrated,” Jennifer said, “because we don’t celebrate her. We never give that relationship any ritual that we give everything else to.”
The birthday is the closest thing we have. And as Jennifer pointed out, a birthday is a celebration of a person, shared with everyone in her life. It is not a celebration of the specific relationship you two have built together. It is not a moment where you say: “Here is what you have meant to me. Here is what you did. Here is what I would not have survived without you.”
I actually recorded a whole separate episode about this after Jennifer and I talked. If birthdays are doing all the heavy lifting in your friendships, head to Episode 188, “Are Birthdays Doing Too Much Work In Our Friendships?” Because one day, even a really good one, is a lot of pressure to put on a friendship that deserves more than that.
What a Bestiemony Actually Looks Like
Jennifer did not just come up with the concept. She built it, trademarked it, and has been running Bestiemony ceremonies at Rhinestone Wedding Chapel ever since.
Here is how it works. The friends arrive, often coordinating outfits, which Jennifer says happens almost every time. They start with a photo shoot, which she does intentionally to ease the nerves before the ceremony. There are bouquets and veils if they want them. There is music. There is a whole photography area designed for it.
Then they move to the small chapel on the property, a little Amish-style building with a bell on top. Jennifer has asked each pair to send her the backstory of their friendship ahead of time, and she writes a ceremony from it, the way an officiant would write a wedding ceremony. She reads their story back to them. Then they read what they wrote to each other.
“It’s things that we think the other one knows,” Jennifer said. “And we do take for granted that they know we love them. But when you say it and you tell somebody something that’s that deep and so rooted in love, and tell them what you really think about them… you can’t imagine the experience.”
She closes the ceremony with a pinky promise and declares them besties for life.
Yes, people cry. Husbands standing in the back cry. Strangers who stumble across the filmed versions online cry. Because the feeling in that room is the same feeling you get at a wedding, Jennifer said. You are surrounded by love that is being named out loud, and you cannot help but be caught up in it.
For anyone who wants to see it before deciding if it is for them, the Bestiemony YouTube channel has several filmed ceremonies. Watch one. You will understand immediately why this hits the way it does.
What Saying It Out Loud Actually Changes
This is the part I keep thinking about.
Jennifer did a Bestiemony herself with the best friend who helped her create the whole concept. And she said that even though she thought she knew everything about that friendship, she had no idea the impact she had made. Not really. Not until her friend said it out loud on film.
“I had no idea that I was that impactful in your life, really,” Jennifer said. “That’s really what you’re telling each other. How much you impacted my life. And thank you.”
Here is what I think happens when you say the thing out loud: it does not just feel good in the moment. It changes how you show up afterward.
I brought this up with Jennifer and she went right there with me. Once you know what you mean to someone, once you have actual evidence of your place in their life, you stop second-guessing yourself. You stop getting in your head about the unreturned text. You stop assuming they are mad when they go quiet. You have the declaration. You have the evidence. And that changes the math on every small moment that comes after.
Over years and decades, that evidence shifts how you read the friendship entirely. That is a different outcome than the one where you are always guessing.
My roots of friendship framework has a whole layer about this. I call them story roots: the beliefs you hold about a friendship, the evidence that confirms or contradicts them. A Bestiemony is basically the most deliberate story root you could ever set down on record. You are not just hoping your friend knows. You are saying it. In front of witnesses.
You can hear more about the full conversation, including Jennifer’s plans to take Bestiemony on the road city by city, in the full episode.
The Part Where It Feels Like a Stretch
I want to be honest with you: when I think about doing a Bestiemony myself, it feels a little uncomfortable.
And I sat with that feeling for a while, because I could not figure out why. A Bestiemony is a declaration about some of the most important people in my life. Friends who have been there through the hard stuff. Friends I want to know how much I care about them. Friends I would love to hear from about the impact I have made.
So why does a ceremony feel weird?
Because it is not normal. And when something is not normal, it is easy to let that be the whole reason. “That’s just not something people do.” But that is a different answer than “this genuinely does not feel right for me,” and I think it is worth knowing which one is actually true for you.
Jennifer put it plainly: “We can’t wait till the eulogies to tell people what they mean to us.”
That line keeps coming back to me. Because we do wait. Most of us are saving our truest words for a room where the person cannot hear them anymore. The cost of that is not just to the friendship. It is to the person who never got to feel it while they were alive.
Say it while they can still hear it.
If a full ceremony is not your thing, Jennifer has a simpler version: get a pen and paper, list five ways this person has impacted your life, and write them a love letter. You do not need Nashville. You do not need a chapel. You need a piece of paper and the willingness to say the thing you have been assuming they already know.
Listen to the full episode to hear Jennifer describe what changes in a friendship after you have done this, and why she thinks filmed Bestiemonies could become a resource for anyone trying to figure out what real friendship actually looks like.
How to Do This (At Whatever Level Feels Right)
Jennifer laid out a clear range when I asked her what she would tell someone who wanted to do this.
If you want the formal version, Rhinestone Wedding Chapel in Nashville does Bestiemony ceremonies. Jennifer is also planning a city tour, starting with Savannah, where she will host small groups of best friends for a full weekend experience. Keep an eye on the Bestiemony website and Instagram for dates.
If you want to do something on your own:
- ▪️ Start with five things. List five ways this person has impacted your life. Jennifer says once you start, you will not be able to stop.
- ▪️ Write the love letter. Get into your feelings. Say the specific thing, the moment, the memory, the “I would not have made it through that without you.”
- ▪️ Record it if you can. Put your phone up, hit record, and say it to each other on video. Jennifer said she will share any best friend story on the Bestiemony YouTube channel if you want to send it in.
- ▪️ If you want to make it a declaration, invite people to witness it. Bring the spouses, bring the friends who are on the trip with you. Let other people see what this friendship is.
The point is to say it while they can still hear it.
The full episode, including Jennifer’s story of how the Bestiemony went viral before it even had a name.
