Rebels' Guide

I met up with Alex and Lisa yesterday, and Alex asked me the best question: What does the institution of marriage even mean? Which is the best question, and something no-one has ever asked me. It’s a question that everyone should be asking this year, a year where every Australian from the federal parliament down is talking about marriage and redefining marriage. Marriage according to the law in Australia is: the union of a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others, voluntarily entered into for life Marriage according to conservative political policies is: the state of being united to a person of the opposite sex as husband or wife in a consensual and contractual relationship recognised by law Yet so much conservative conversation is about marriage being the shell for a family, for child bearing. I say that marriage is: two people joining a union for life, two people that have humbly an...

I’m on a flight to Bali writing this and have just gotten around to watching The Imitation Game , a movie about a Professor that stops a war. I’ll let you research or watch the movie to learn more about Alan Turing’s remarkable, extraordinarily influential, but depressingly short life. Apart from sitting in awe at Alan’s work I finished the movie with so much sadness over Alan’s final years. He was a homosexual man who lived in denial of his true self until he was “caught”, was chemically castrated for his “crime” and then took his life a year later. In his era 49,000 men were charged for indecency, aka homosexuality. Since then even more have taken their lives, been bullied, hurt and abused because of how they love and how they live. Citizens of the earth have this thing where they need to devalue people’s extraordinary contributions to society for crazy and totally illegitimate reasons, like: which deity they believe in, thei...

Nerd weddings are my favourite. And it has nothing to do with Superman cufflinks or walking down the aisle to the Imperial March. It’s actually crazy simple and that means this will be a crazy simple blog post: Nerd weddings are the best because nerds are just people that are comfortable about who they are, what they like, and what they don’t like. And those kind of people make awesome weddings. How cool is our Darth Bride above?! Photo by Iron and Clay Photography . Photo by Ethereal Photography And I love the opener to this wedding video from the Gold Coast’s Best Men Films .

At 8:40pm on Monday night, the 18th of October Married At First Sight debuts on TV and I’m pretty freaking excited. If you didn’t know, I’m the celebrant on the show and I’m so happy to be involved in this social experiment. If you want to know more about my time on the show, I spoke to Fairfax Media  about it! So watch, Tweet , Facebook , and enjoy! I’ll be out of the country as it airs, so Facebook me to tell me what you thought of it. https://marriedbyjosh.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Married-At-First-Sight-Promo.mp4

A groom recently asked me, jokingly, but seriously, but laughing, but inquisitive:  “Does a marriage have to be consummated to be legal?” Aka do a bride and groom have to sleep with each other to make the marriage legal. Short answer: no. Long answer:  in Australia, not at all. Until 1975  not sleeping with your husband or wife was grounds for decree of nullity, but since then the grounds for an annulment in Australia are fairly minimal. What is required legally for two people to enter into a marriage in Australia? The facts What are the grounds for a marriage being decreed null? Allow me to copy and paste from our friends at the Family Law courts: The Court may declare a marriage invalid on the following grounds: At the time the parties were married, one of them was married to someone else. The parties are in a prohibited relationship. The parties did not comply with the laws in relation to the marriage in the place they were married. Either party...

John Howard was the Prime Minister, Tasmania decriminalised homosexuality, Stuart Diver  was rescued from the rubble at Thredbo, the Broncos played in the Super League , Elton John’s Candle in the Wind and Aqua’s Barbie Girl battled it out for top spot on the end of year charts, Cody Simpson was born, and Home and Away was on the TV every night. 1997 was a good year in Australia. It was also the year that Rebecca and Travis were married! Nostalgia bomb! If you were an avid watcher of Home and Away through the 90s like most children growing up in Australia were, you might not have noticed that school principal, Donald Fisher , was also a celebrant and he performed two marriage ceremonies on the show, one of them involving his daughter, Rebecca, played by Belinda Emmett who passed away a few years ago. This blog post is really going nowhere except to highlight that 18 years ago Sia performed her new single  How To Breathe at Travis and Rebecca’s beach...

This is a simple invitation to the bridegrooms of Brisbane. The men of the south-east that are preparing to wed some awesome person. Morgan Roberts and I are hosting a Sewing For Grooms  night on Friday the 26th of June, 2015, at 7pm until 10:30pm at Needlefruit  in Paddington and we’d love you to come. By the end of the night you will have sewn, made, lovingly crafted using your own blood, sweat, and tears, a bow tie in a fabric of your choosing. You will also win at poker and drink beer and eat food. The cost is $69 including GST and everything else. We can’t guarantee you’ll win at the poker though. Sorry. 12 grooms in a room, making bow ties and having fun, boom. [gravityform id=”13″ title=”true” description=”true” ajax=”true”]

Britt spends all day working with wedding vendors, photographers, venues, florists and other professionals as part of her role creating elopements in The Pop-Up Wedding. We figured that her experiences might help you in choosing people to work with in creating your marriage celebration. So, when Britt’s working with wedding slaves professionals she has these three things in mind: 1. Pick a good one Do you like their website and their social media presence … heck, do you like them in person? Here’s our tip, people only put their best on social media, so it’s important to make sure that you like, what they deem, their best work possible. Ask yourself, “does their past work reflect the vision I have for my wedding day?” 2. Step away from the Pinterest Board!!! Oh my goodness, seriously, move away from the Pinterest. Yes, yes, yes, Pinterest has it’s upsides. It is great for sparking inspiration and visualising what you cant put into words, but pl...

Monday, May 18  on Channel Nine. Bring on this crazy social experiment . So glad I’m in it !

Wedding rehearsals aren’t necessary Everyone thinks you need a rehearsal when you don’t. Well, you might need one if your wedding is a show that everyone needs tickets to. Or if it’s an epic production. Or if it’s a show-off. But a real life, raw, awesome, fun, wedding ceremony doesn’t need a rehearsal. It might need a catch up to go over what will happen. It’s nice to catch up at the venue and suss out where everyone will arrive and leave and how to open a door etc. People that are walking into the wedding after everyone has taken a seat (like a bridal party) might like a walkthrough of where they’ll walk and how long it takes so we know if we have enough music. But then again, your bridal party has probably walked somewhere before, right? But it doesn’t matter. People aren’t there for the show. They’re there to celebrate the mind-blowing awesomeness that is two people liking each other to sleep next to each other with the lig...

Every corner I turn in life there seems to be a plethora of people telling other people why things can’t be done. I’m really proud to have so many friends that question that ridiculous idea every morning before breakfast. James Day is one of those people. When his wife’s sister was going to marry one of Australia’s premier wedding photographers , and they asked James’s studio Daylight Photography to shoot the day, he knew he had to up his game. This video tells the story . This blog post shares the story and credits all of the amazing people behind it. You’re a freaking mad man, James. Keep on being one of the crazy ones  you inspirational dude. And as for all of my other colleagues in the wedding industry: let it be known that there are so many more new ideas to be thought. Only just yesterday I had a Skype call with two inspirational girls in Melbourne that have a new one. Here’s to the crazy ones. You’ve got to watch the v...

Raoul and Rosie created an amazing Mexican wedding fiesta at Lightspace and surprised all of their friends with a marriage ceremony. An incredible atmosphere to celebrate a surprise wedding ceremony in! We couldn’t have asked for a celebrant that was more proactive and passionate about making our ceremony a fun, upbeat celebration. Josh encouraged us to write our own vows (which we had never really thought much about beforehand)- and we’re so glad we did! The ceremony was just what we wanted: a fun, celebration of love and happiness shared with all of our nearest and dearest. We’d recommend everyone to have Josh as a celebrant- he’s fabulous! Milque were there to take photos, AV Ideas made the party a visual feast,  Lightspace hosted us, and some guy called Josh said things into a microphone. It was amazeballs! Thanks for having me R&R!!

Last night I watched some other celebrants on YouTube, because I realised I’ve never paid much attention to what others do. It turns out I do things quite a bit different. So I thought it would be worth a blog post to explain what I talk about in a wedding ceremony. I’m an encourager, not an educator. I’m making the assumption that when you walk down the aisle you know what you’re getting yourself into and in the 15 minutes we’re in front of grandma you don’t need relationship or sex-ed. I believe you’re smart enough to figure that out for yourself and seek help and education if you need it. I think a wedding ceremony is a happy time, not a sad time, so I’ll stay away from the yucky things of life and focus on the positives. I talk about a few things the law asks me to talk about, but I do it in an encouraging way, not in a weird “this is what the law tells me to say” kind of way. And I think that a wedding ceremony is a forwa...

“If I had my way, I’d wear jewellery, a great pair of heels and nothing else.” Jada Pinkett Smith My friend Michelle makes jewellery and hair pieces. I’m not going to pretend to know anything about this world as I wear a gold band and the rest of my swag comes from my cheeky grin. I do however remember seeing Britt walk down the aisle with this angelic gleam. It was all of her, plus a spectacular dress and jewellery that just made her shine. If you like jewellery, then you should chat to Michelle. She hand makes necklaces, bracelets earrings, hair pieces and other delightful things that can adorn your body, your bride’s body or her bridesmaids, on your wedding day. Say hi to Michelle at redki.com.au . [foogallery id=”6389″]  

Normy from Divine Studios sat down with me recently and asked me about what I did. You’ll see more of this video series coming soon, but here’s a little drop on why I became a celebrant. Click play and enjoy 🙂 https://vimeo.com/126576652