The ultimate University of Wisconsin Oshkosh wedding story goes a little something like this …

A sweet alumni couple—May 2014 graduates Abigail “Abby” (Schultz) and Ryan Roushia, of Neenah—tied the knot at the gorgeous Alumni Welcome and Conference Center on campus in September with a meaningful “master” of ceremonies officiating.

“This was a special wedding for me,” said Sally Masters, UW Oshkosh’s associate director of academic advising. “With the couple being alumni, the venue being on campus at the AWCC and me, a UWO staff member performing the ceremony, it all seemed to be an aligning of the stars.”

In the Undergraduate Advising Resource Center, Masters helps students sort out their personal, educational and career goals. In her other vocation as an experienced wedding officiant (more than 700 couples married since 2004), she personalizes ceremonies to reflect the couples’ values, beliefs and individual tastes.

Masters performed her first commitment ceremony for two friends back in 2003. She loved working with the couple and received compliments on how she tailored the ceremony. Masters was appointed as a Justice of the Peace for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 2004, just a month before marriage equality was legally recognized there … the first state in the U.S. to do so.

“As one might imagine, I was extremely busy with weddings right away,” she said. “There were some days that first year where I performed four or even five weddings in one day.” Later in 2008, she moved to North Carolina and continued her “wedding work” by becoming ordained with an interfaith church in Florida.

“I feel honored and privileged to play such an important part in a couple’s most special day up to that point in their relationship. Since I am an encourager by nature, encouraging a couple as they start their life together is a perfect fit for me,” she said. “It is also important to me to help every couple celebrate their relationship, whether the couple is a same gender or opposite gender couple. It is my philosophy that when a person finds the ‘someone’ they want to share life with, it is a gift and deserves celebration through a marriage ceremony created to fit them, performed by someone who fully supports their relationship.”

For the Roushias, the choice to have their wedding on campus and to have a UWO staff member officiate just made sense.

“The campus is very special to us,” Abby said. “We met each other here, developed into professionals and met wonderful people along the way. We decided to get married on campus because the Alumni Welcome Center is a new building, and it is just gorgeous.”

When AWCC director Laura Rommelfanger recommended Masters as a possible officiant, “we thought it would be awesome to keep all of our wedding in relation to UWO,” Abby explained. “It turns out that Sally knows what she’s doing when it comes to being an amazing officiant. She definitely made our day special, and we still have friends and family talking about our ceremony, because she took the time to get to know us and incorporate all pieces of our relationship into our ceremony.”

Masters worked with the couple to “weave their story” into the ceremony.

That story actually started when Abby and Ryan were in the same homeroom for all four years at Oshkosh North High School. But they never once talked to each other. Later, at their Odyssey freshmen orientation at UW Oshkosh, the two were grouped together by their zip codes. This time, they started chatting.

“We spent a lot of time hanging out in Reeve and getting a simple lunch from the Corner Store. We also spent countless hours studying for our business classes,” Abby said.

They learned to balance their developing relationship and their studies.

“It can make a relationship difficult if each person has their own thing they have to do,” she said. “However, you need to make sure that you allow each other to grow as individuals on campus as well. You each need to grow educationally, professionally and personally.”

In May 2014, Abby and Ryan earned marketing and economics degrees, respectively. Abby now works in customer care at Guardian Insurance, while Ryan is a business analyst with Jewelers Mutual Insurance Co. Following their special day in September and a honeymoon in Disney, they’re looking  forward to their future together.

“We’re enjoying each other’s company and trying new things that we have not yet done together. We want to save up to buy new cars and also start looking to buy a new house. We both want to grow in our careers as well. We just want to see where life will take us,” she said.

Sounds just like the advice Masters often offers to newlyweds.

“There are two things I remind couples of in the ceremony … first, remember often what a gift it is to have someone you love to share life with and don’t take that for granted,” she said. “And, second, spending time together as a couple is really vital. It’s what makes the craziness of life dissipate and brings a couple back to what’s important … their relationship.”

In additional to weddings, Masters performs other rituals, such as baby and home blessings, with her business Masters Ceremonies.

Learn more:

• Weddings and other special occasions at the Alumni Welcome and Conference Center
• Masters Ceremonies.