Rebels' Guide

Speaking to a group of people that don’t have to listen to you is a great honour and as a celebrant I’m lucky enough to do this daily. I never forget the great responsibility I have when I pick up that microphone. I want every celebrant to be a powerful speaker, meaningful communicator, to be the rockstar at the wedding that leads the crowd in a song (song or maybe just a spoken performance … because you won’t find me sining) that celebrates the couple getting married. Don’t be confused though: the world doesn’t need wedding celebrants and officiants that desire celebrity and notoriety, but a rockstar commands an audience, is listened to and creates a memorable and powerful atmosphere with their song. Now I can’t sing, so I won’t at your wedding. But I can recommend Benjamin Carlyle or this guy if you need someone. This blog post is written for celebrants, if you know one, please pass it along. This blog post also lends really heavily from a TED tal...

Winter fell on a Saturday this year, and for a few moments, a few of us had to put a jacket on. It was on this stunning Springbrook winter day that James and Amy pledged to spend the rest of their lives together. It was pretty darn special and the only thing that kept me from welling up was the distraction of the vast of the landscape their wedding was set in. Everyone has to drive up to Binna Burra at least in once in their life just to experience it. Or if you’re like James and Amy, visit regularly. The whole soiree took place at Binna Burra, makeup and extra beauty by The Beauty Case , and with photos by Prue Franzmann . I asked the Summerville’s why they invited a chump like me to their wedding: From the moment we found Josh at the Vintage and Handmade Wedding Fair, we knew he was ‘the one’ and our coffee date sealed the deal. We left our meeting so excited to have Josh marry us. Finding the perfect celebrant was of utmost importance and we found t...

The Colonel’s chicken has got nothing on a superb wedding! Put these 11 secret ingredients in and pan and fry until golden. Love – that thing where you look at that guy or girl and your feel elephants in your heart (because butterflies are too small) Reality – take a good hard look at who you really are, because that’s the makeup of this wedding, it’s all about you, celebrating you. And by you I mean both of you. Music – music does things that words and pretty stylings can not. Style – weddings aren’t about style, they’re about people, but every person has their own style. Let that style flow at your wedding, because it’s a celebration of you! Food – it’s not a real party until there’s cake. Drink – need it be explained? A Village – you’re not inviting everyone on Facebook, you’re inviting the people that you would call your village. The people that matter to you, and you matter to them. These are the people that wouldn’...

If there’s a phrase I would pay to never hear again, it would have to be “it’s the bride’s day”. A bride can’t marry herself. What actually is the sound of one bride marrying? (There’s a Pinterest joke in there somewhere) The common myth is that the wedding is all about the bride and what she wants it’s got nothing to do with the groom. The key problems with it being “the bride’s day” are the bride isn’t the only person getting married marriage is 50/50 – there’s no-one in charge of the marriage, it’s an equal union, and a wedding is a celebration of that union we’re in the age of gender equality where men and women are equals it sets a precedent for bridezillas and ain’t nobody got time for that How did we get here? Probably because marriages and weddings in days gone past were pretty bloody weird. It usually involved a pretty young girl being sold, or given, or even stolen, to a groom and then they’d get married and the girl would have to deal with it. Not quite the same a...

Don’t worry, you’re not being invited to a slide night where we spend all evening describing every photo we took of our holiday to the USA. It’d be fun to hang out – but we won’t torture you with a commentary. Instead, here’s a bunch of photos we snapped. We did a bunch of Instagramming on the hashtag #witherstakeusa [ view on the web here  or here ]. We went to the Letterman show and saw Taylor Swift perform, walked 120+km around NYC and Central Park, laughed at a terrible comedy club and did our best to see as many pop-culture landmarks as we could. Washington DC’s monuments and memorials made gave us all the feels and the museums inflicted mass knowledge and wisdom upon us. Puerto Rico was stunning and warm and over all, very pretty. The pics are all below un-captioned and in random order – we’ll let you tell your own story with our photos. One of our photos is even a finalist in a photo competition! Thank you for having us, USA! ...