Most milestone ceremonies celebrate a single couple. In Cartagena this year, the center aisle belonged to seventy women.
For her 40th birthday, celebrity wedding planner and KDE Events founder Kaky Daniel staged what she calls a “sisterhood wedding,” a multi-day gathering that brought together friends from across her life to honor a form of love that rarely gets its own ritual. Held in the Colombian port city where her parents challenged racial and class divisions six decades ago, the event blended processionals, vows, music, and local tradition into something that felt part celebration, part cultural reclaiming, and part collective rite of passage.
The idea didn’t come from a trend or a branding exercise. According to Daniel, it came from a turning point. “I realized resilience is also a form of love to yourself,” she explained. After the loss of a partner in 2022 and a later relationship that ended in betrayal, she found herself questioning the belief that only romance legitimizes life’s biggest moments. “The Sisterhood Wedding was born the day I stopped waiting for someone else to validate my joy,” she reflected. “I didn’t need a groom to feel chosen. I already was, by my friends, by my community, by God, and finally, by myself.”
(Laura Chapman / Courtesy Kaky Daniel)
Why Cartagena Became the Heart of the Celebration
Cartagena wasn’t just a photogenic backdrop. It was the beginning of her family’s story. Her mother, a Black Colombian woman from humble roots, and her father, a white French-Jewish man from an affluent family, married there sixty years ago despite the city’s entrenched racial and class barriers. “Their love was an act of defiance,” Daniel noted. She remembers the fallout that spilled into her own childhood, including being rejected from private schools because of her parents’ union.
Hosting the sisterhood wedding in the same city functioned as both tribute and inversion. “It was my way of honoring the two people who showed me that love can break systems,” she continued. “Instead of repeating the pain, I reclaimed the narrative. Instead of marrying a romantic partner, I married my friends.”
(Luis Briceño / Courtesy Kaky Daniel)
(Luis Briceño / Courtesy Kaky Daniel)
Inside the Multi Day Sisterhood Wedding in Cartagena
Produced by KDE Events, the celebration stretched across several days and drew notable guests including Super Bowl Champion Victor Cruz, TEDx speaker and celebrity publicist Kiki Ayers, NBC LA reporter Stephanie Olmo, and Mexican actress Sherlyn Gonzalez. Attendees dressed in white. There were street processions, drummers, gospel moments, and a shared ceremony that replaced traditional marital structures with rituals centered on friendship and collective loyalty.
Daniel and her officiant designed the ceremony from the ground up. Each woman received a custom friendship bracelet by Colombian jeweler Nelly Rojas, raised in unison as part of a vow to stay committed to one another “even on the days we don’t necessarily like each other,” as she explained. At dinner, instead of menus, guests found handwritten letters that served as individual vows explaining why each friend was chosen and what Daniel promised to their bond. “It turned the dinner into a moment of reflection, connection, and deep gratitude,” she recalled.
(Laura Chapman / Courtesy Kaky Daniel)
(Luis Breceño / Courtesy Kaky Daniel)
Several emotional moments grounded the weekend. The group honored friends who had survived cancer. Another moment unfolded during a gospel prayer with seventy women speaking blessings over one another. “That energy felt like you could touch love,” she remembered.
Colombian singer Laura Grisales performed while the women opened their vow letters. “Her voice wrapped around us like a blessing,” she recounted. “That was the moment I knew this was never about a wedding. It was about choosing each other with no judgment.”
The weekend also included a collective donation to Certified Angels, a nonprofit supporting low income children in Colombia. Daniel said the generosity from her friends caught her off guard. “Watching my friends give without being asked reminded me why I chose them,” she emphasized.
(Bendito Amor / Courtesy Kaky Daniel)
(Bendito Amor / Courtesy Kaky Daniel)
How KDE Events Planned a Ceremony for Seventy Brides
For someone accustomed to running large scale events, Daniel said the hardest part wasn’t logistics. It was letting go. “The biggest challenge was accepting that I was the client, not the planner,” she admitted. She found herself wanting to adjust chairs, call cues, or check run-of-show details. Not doing so became its own lesson. “My team can do it,” she said. “The chaos becomes part of the magic. That is where the love lives.”
(Bendito Amor / Courtesy Kaky Daniel)
Why the Sisterhood Wedding Resonated Around the World
Footage of the weekend went viral, landing in People Magazine and Business Insider. The response wasn’t tied to scale or aesthetics but to the core idea of redefining a milestone when life has taken an unexpected shape.
For women navigating delays, losses, or transitions, Daniel hopes the message came through clearly. “You don’t wait for the perfect moment to live. You create your own moments,” she urged. “Your life is still sacred. Your story is still happening.”
She also stressed that celebration does not require a destination wedding. “Start small,” she encouraged. “Choose your people. Create a ritual that feels symbolic to you. Even a tiny gesture is enough to remind yourself: I’m still here. My story is still moving. And I’m allowed to mark this moment.”
(Bendito Amor / Courtesy Kaky Daniel)
More Weddings & Celebrations
