Rebels' Guide

After the big budget day, the stress and the drinks, all of the things that make up a wedding day, what have you got left over? That’s the thought in my mind as I’m planning most things, like blog posts, or workshops, or events or date nights. How will it all end. Where will we be after the series of awesome things that are about to roll out? If nothing else, I hope you’re left with a lifelong, awesome marriage. Maybe some images. Maybe a USB stick full of those images? Maybe a film, or a cool Instagram hashtag you can scroll back through. Memories would be awesome, hopefully some stronger friendships, and greater bonds with family. Britt and I recently went back through our wedding photos and I was pleasantly surprised that I knew all but one or two people, and almost everyone there we’re still best friends with. That’s a great thing to be left with after a wedding. All of that, along with a lifelong union called marriage with the best person I know . And...

Stuck writing vows? Instead of trying to construct sentences, print out this blog post and answer these questions. From the answers you’ll have, I think you’ll have a pretty good foundation for creating some vows. What are the purpose of YOUR wedding vows? Why are you getting married? When did you know you wanted to marry your partner? Why do you want to marry them? What do you hope will change, or improve, when you are married? How do you want your partner to feel as they receive the vows? What commitment are you actually making? What is something cute your partner does? What was a defining moment in your relationship? What defines your relationship now? What is something they do that drives you wild? What will define your relationship in the future? What do they do that always makes you smile? What do you just love about them? Why do you love them? Why will you always love them? What’s something funny they do? What’s something super cute they say? Is there some...

I’m the hopeless romantic/cheerleader for marriage. I see so much good come from it, I am lucky enough to enjoy one myself, I think better marriages make for a better society. I reckon life is really good when you hook up with an awesome person. So as I was reading Thomas Frey’s article on the 128 things that will disappear in the driverless car era , I started getting excited for the future! The human race is going to be happier, we’ll have more time and more heart to share. We’ll have more quality time to spend and more smiles on faces. Click through to Thomas’ article to get the full list, but I pulled out a few things that when removed from our world, I forecast happiness. Imagine your marriage with the following list of daily pains removed from it. Imagine life with no more: Road rage Traffic Traffic jams Running late Stressing because you’re running late Car crashes Car theft Getting lost Lost cars in carparks There won’t be any more carp...

“When you do the common things in life in an uncommon way, you will command the attention of the world” https://marriedbyjosh.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/vas-felicia-instagram-720-1.m4v Felicia first emailed The Elopement Collective with an uncommon request to do a common thing, marry: I love seeing your posts in my newsfeed. You make me daydream and though I first met Vas some 20 years ago, you make me impatient. With 7 children between us, there is always someone or something calling our attention (and, regrettably, finances) away. But I want to whisper in my lover’s ear, “Come away with me”. I need to feel that I have the right to call him, “husband”. They first met twenty years ago, twenty years of this thread being sewn through their lives, personally, professionally, apart, and together, and finally it was going to happen! I want to marry the one my soul reaches for on our anniversary of Monday 4 January 2016. Neither of us want to wait...

Tomorrow, in their eyes, and the eyes of their friends and family, I am marrying Amy and Te Ana. At this stage, the Australian marriage laws don’t really match up with their understanding of marriage, so we can’t sign any official marriage paperwork, but we can sign this: a notice of intended marriage for the “Marriage Act of one day soon”. Before you download it, let it be known that it is not a legal document it was not produced by a government department and it does not serve as notice for a legally binding marriage when marriage equality is reached, this still doesn’t serve as legally given notice, it’s just a political statement, and an emotional one [ Download PDF here ] A note for my Christian friends I had a friend I used to go to church with asked me recently why I “keep on supporting same sex marriage”, and the only good reason I have is that I reckon Jesus would have too. This article from Relevant Magazine really resonated wit...

I go to great lengths to try and tell everyone all about me before they ever hire me, so there’s no surprises. So when Will emailed me after Sarah and his wedding I thought his feedback was not only encouraging and helpful internally, it might actually be useful to people that are wondering what it’s like to be married by me. His daily job is all about planning and observing risks, so he’s more than qualified to report on hashtag marriedbyjosh 🙂 Initial search for the service We actually found you via Google by searching “Awesome celebrant Brisbane”. You are one of the top hits on the results page and so finding you was easy. What swayed us both was the very honest look/feel of your website; felt very personal to read through to get an opinion on whether a meet-up would be worthwhile. You have a feel to the website of “this is me, come meet me if you like what you read/see and if not, then thanks for your time”. Meet and greets These were great...

Not many people would advocate for people to cancel their services, and I’m probably not going to make a habit out of it, but when a couple contacted me this week letting me know that they were cancelling me, and it was my fault, it has been on my mind ever since I opened the email. Not that I did anything wrong, or bad, or that they were unhappy with me. In-fact it was over meatballs in Melbourne where we first met and laid out the plans for an awesome wedding south of Sydney where I would be the celebrant that everything began to unravel. And the purpose of this blog is to let you know it’s ok. The plan began like this: We have scoured wedding celebrants’ databases and websites and absolutely love your outlook and approach to all things wedded bliss! We do not, as yet, have a particular date in mind as we are trying to pick the best date based on venue/celebrant/caterer availability – so the date I’ve proposed in this form is just indicative. We live in M...

Bridal parties exist because of the historical threat of real actual demons attacking weddings. True story. Our ancestors used to be stressed about demons attacking the good things in life, like marriage ceremonies. Now I’m not going to be the guy to downplay the threat of demons, I still swear to this day that it was a demon that convinced my little brother to stick a fork in an electrical plug, despite mum and dad never believing the story. But depsite the fear, today, demons destroying weddings happens as often as UFOs appear in the night sky, Nessie popping up out of a lake, and Bigfoot strolling through Paluma: never. Regardless, we had this fear of demons at weddings so to reduce the wedding-demon-threat everyone thought it would be a really great idea to dress up a few friends to look a little bit like us so that when the demons arrived to interrupt the nuptials they would be confused because there are so many men in suits and women in dresses. Ta’da, the bridal party was i...

A common conversation we have with couples being married is about their wedding budget, and in particular, their budget for a celebrant. I get asked how much people should budget for a celebrant, or how much should they expect to pay. Celebrants ask me how much they should charge, or if they’re charging too much. Bridal Facebook groups abound with conversations about “my celebrant charges this much” and “you should expect to pay” whenever the topic arises. Even I am far from qualified to talk about how much you should budget for celebrant, if only because it’s not my marriage ceremony. It’s yours. That’s the thought you should always have about your wedding. You’re not hosting any old wedding. You’re not having your parents wedding, nor are you having Facebook’s. You’re not recreating your best friend’s wedding, or that wedding you saw in White Magazine. You’re creating a wholly new event, an event that ...

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Full day workshop on Sunday, May 22, 2016 in Sydney I firmly believe that the only thing I really have to give to my clients, my customers, the people that invite me into their weddings, is my care. Sure I’ve been gifted an authority to marry people, and I might have a good voice and a great PA system, but the thing that sets me apart from the other 8,900 marriage celebrants in Australia is my care level. I care a lot. How much? I’ll let my reviews speak for themselves. I also believe that ever other business person I recommend and work alongside cares about their people just as much as I do, if not more, but they get bogged down in the business of delivering that care. Creating a service that people want to hire you for, whether it’s photography, celebrancy or being a tradie, is only half of the battle. The second half is making it accessible to a population that wants it, and managing those relationships without burnout. What’s in the workshop? In my business, ...