Rebels' Guide

I’ve just stumbled over a three-year old blog post by Rohin Dhar. Before you read it, please take two things into mind: Someone else’s blog post about diamond rings does not devalue the sentiment and meaning in your own. The article is about diamond rings, not rings or symbols you exchange in a wedding ceremony. This is all about the diamond. A quote from the article: The purpose of this post was to point out that diamond engagement rings are a lie – they’re an invention of Madison Avenue and De Beers. This post has completely glossed over the sheer amount of human suffering that we’ve caused by believing this lie: conflict diamonds funding wars, supporting apartheid for decades with our money, and pillaging the earth to find shiny carbon. And while we’re on the subject, why is it that women need to be asked and presented with a ring in order to get married? Why can’t they ask and do the presenting? Diamonds are not actually scarce, m...

From time to time I invite friends to guest blog on this blog, and today’s post is one of those. If you’re entering into marriage with love and good looks, but no communication, then Connie thinks you might need some help and education. I hope you enjoy Connie’s article and if you’re looking for some help in building an awesome relationship then you could do worse than talking to Connie or another relationship or marriage educator. Communication, because love alone is not enough I often tell my couples who come to me for Marriage Preparation that ‘love’ alone cannot make the relationship last (sigh). The couple also needs to be able to communicate well, especially in times of difficulty. Have you ever found yourself in a heated conversation with your partner and didn’t know what to do or say? Consider these communication tips to help get you through next time: Tip 1. Be solution focused not problem focus – Rehashing the problem repeatedly is likely to lead...

You’re the funny, loud, guy or gal that the bride and groom asked to MC their wedding reception? I was that guy a long time ago and now I’m that guy professionally. So hopefully I can offer some helpful tips! Don’t stress about it too much, it’s just a really awesome party. But you do have a responsibility: you’re steering this party boat down the river and back to the wharf. You are the master of ceremonies cheerleader captain! 1. Know the plan There might be speeches, cake cutting, and other traditional things that are important to the couple, so ask, write them down, make a plan. Plan out, when, where, how, everything will happen of course in communication with the couple. Have a quick chat to the wedding planner or coordinator and make sure you’ve got their priorities as well. There will be important announcements about smoking, social media, and possibly other things so know what they are. Know about a first dance and all of those traditional wed...

A friend joked recently that I need to work on “retaining clients”, that I should go into the divorce business as well. As funny as that is, and despite my line that I don’t really want “repeat business”, I think there’s room for more of something here: divorce ceremonies. Ceremonial traditions have fallen by the wayside in recent days, and good riddance I say to most of them. Our generation was born into a society that did so many ceremonial things “just because” and so much went unquestioned. Now we gladly question, and we enquire, and we investigate, and we find real meaning and purpose in things. The purpose of ‘ceremony’ I see the purpose of any ceremony, a wedding, a naming, a funeral, a divorce, as an opportunity to down-tools, gather round people that are passing through a recognised special moment in life and usher them through. To take them by the hand and walk them through the moment. There’s a community aspec...

I feel like every third Facebook post these days is a rant about the wedding industry and how we’re snobby , rude , expensive , illegal , or dodgy . And more often than not the Facebook posts are not wrong, there’s lots of losers out there. Losers is a pretty tough call, but in my defense they exist. But, for every loser there’s a ten talented dressmakers trying to marry up their talent and craft to a business model that is sustainable and enjoyable, twenty photographers trying to figure out how they can create sweet ass jpegs while paying the rent, and a good handful of super stylish stylists trying to jam the sexiest ceremony styling into your budget. But this blog post isn’t even about them. It’s about you. It’s about this: getting your wedding priorities right. Despite wedding media, mainstream media, mothers, friends and Pinterest telling you so: the dress, flowers, makeup, cars, venue, candles, invitations, cake, DJ, lolly buffet, photographer,...

I just had a chat to Jesse Wagstaff from the Perth Wildcats on 96fm Breakfast in Perth with Blackers, Carmen and Fitzy. Jesse is getting married later this year and the team wanted to impart some wedding wisdom to the groom so that he would be well prepared on his wedding day. So, here’s my five things I think every groom, and Jesse, should have in mind leading up to the wedding. Please note the list is completely exclusive of all of the normal boring wedding planning tips, we’ll leave them for the boring wedding blogs. 1. Prepare a morning-of-the-wedding gift On my wedding day I didn’t even know this was a thing! Britt surprised me by giving my best man, Ash, a watch to give to me and I had to go and find emergency macaroons for the girls! 2. Spend a moment on the day complimenting mums Mums, grandmas, aunties, women in general, spend 300% more time preparing for a wedding than the average male guest so before you spend the rest of the day fawning over your bride,...

If you’ve got a spare hour, fire up your Googles and do a search for pop-up wedding, this link does the search and removes our websites. It’s quite an honour to have so many people loving and copying the idea, but there’s always one question we get and thankfully no-one else is answering it well: what is a pop-up wedding. We honestly get an email every hour or two asking the same question. It’s a valid question, so don’t feel bad for asking. So many people have been quick to capitalise on the idea and say it’s a registry style wedding, it’s not quite. It’s also not a blanket term for elopements, though there is some crossover. In fact everyone that has copied it has pretty much walked away from our original inspiration for the idea. It is quite simply: a fancy elopement consisting of a short and sweet marriage ceremony followed by a photo shoot. You’re in and out in under an hour and it’s beautiful, stylish, and not cliche. T...

I’m marrying Caitlin’s mum, to someone else of course, and when we met recently to chat about their wedding and create their ceremony, her mum hands me this yellow envelope with a note and $5.80 in silver and gold coins in it. The note reads: Dear Joash, I am pritty consearned about child marriage so please accept my donation. From Caitlin As Caitlin’s mum was filling out my booking form it asked her if she wanted to make a small donation to Plan Australia to support the work they do in eradicating child marriage. It’s all about giving girl’s the choice to be married, at an age that they can make a good decision about it. It’s about consent and willingness. Caitlin was, as you can see, fairly concerned that this would be happening so she gathered together all of her savings and donated it. I can’t help but think that her $5.80 is worth more than any single dollar amount I could ever donate to anything. It’s not a...