Meet Jonathan & Ayanna Kilgore | Marriage, Family, & Relationship Therapist & Coach

We had the good fortune of connecting with Jonathan & Ayanna Kilgore and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Jonathan & Ayanna, what is the most important factor behind your success?
The most important factor behind our success and the success of our brand, outside of our faith and guidance of Jesus Christ, is the health, honesty, and transparency of our marriage & relationship.

God healed our marriage to transparently share with others the real truth of what it takes to stay happily married, not just the good parts of marriage. Our willingness to be vulnerable in sharing let’s other couples know that they are not alone in what they are facing and there is help, strategy, and practical ways to get through the tough places. But if we are not healthy, if we re not honest about our journey (past and present), we will drop the assignment.

Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?
One of things that sets us apart from other marriage coaches/therapists is that we do it together as a team. We both have backgrounds in counseling and psychology but we are also both ordained ministers. So we are able to combine theory, science, spirit, and experience to help couples process through their situations through a dual perspectives when needed as male and female.

Getting to where we are in business was not always easy. As much as working together is a blessing and sets us a part, it was also one of our biggest challenges. Being married to your business partner can be interesting, lol. We had to learn to set firm boundaries, schedule times for “business”, time for rest, and time for play. When we found the balance it helped so much. And we still have moments that it gets out of line because we are still finding the groove, but those are much fewer than when we first started.

As much as we love what we do, we have to have that GOD time, ME time, WE time, and US (family) time to keep us in full balance and alignment.

We want the to know that we are committed to making happy & healthy marriages popular again. Both through the example of our marriage and by reminding them that they have a reason to celebrate their Vow to Cherish.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Well a visit with us would have to include all of our favorite things: A DAWGS game between the hedges in Athens, grab a plate from at Kelly’s Authentic Jamaican Food off of Lumpkin Street while we are there.
We’d have to visit FAT MATT’s Rib Shack for some great BBQ. Enjoy live jazz at Churchills. Of course we can make sure they enjoy the main Atlanta attractions: Skyview, The World of Coca Cola, Six Flags, & Stone Mountain Park. And we can end it with a trip to Truist Park for an old home BRAVES game.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
Honestly, we would have to dedicate our shoutout to Grandma Turner (Ayanna’s maternal grandmother). She was the reason we made it through our first few years of marriage without divorcing. She was a women of virtue and prayer and was unbiased whenever we went to talk to her. She taught us how to love each other and stick together in the good and bad seasons. She taught us how to stick it out by putting and keeping God first. She told us the hard stuff that we didn’t want to be needed to hear but always backed it with unconditional love and untouched example.

We want to shoutout our business coach, John Henry Scott III, of Chart to Heart for partnering with us to connect the dots we didn’t even know existed.

We have to shoutout all of our Vow2Cherish Couple’s both current, alum, and the Cherished Couple’s VIP CIRCLE. Every time another couple takes the Vow2Cherish or finds another reason to celebrate their vow to cherish, it encourages us to continue to spread the message of hope, healing, and celebration in marriage.

And of course we can’t forget to shout out our children! They are truly the wind beneath our wings and a lot of why we do what we do. To set an example even for them.

Website: Vow2Cheirsh.com

Instagram: @vow2cherish @ayannakilgore @jonathankilgore

Facebook: Vow2Cherish AyannaKilgore JoanthanKilgore

Youtube: Vow2Cherish

Image Credits
Calvin Finklea (pic on ladder) Nysi Kilgore (all others)