what a wedding SHOULD be!!!!!

Not much more to say really.....they could have chosen to see it as a disaster , instead they saw it as a blessing -what champions!!!!

I want you to get together

I've been trying to find the right words to sum up my experience with this darling couple...planning their ceremony & on their glorious day...I haven't found those words yet...so for now here's a hint at how cool they are...the bride happily walked down the grassy aisle to this song that her groom chose....

Need Help Writing Vows????? Here's some great advice

http://brides.weddingchicks.com/2011/04/22/vow-help-how-to-write-your-own-vows/

A Wedding is NOT.....

I found a gem whilst revisiting the website of  The Spirit House Restaurant.
"A wedding is not a military operation of precision and timing-it's about people coming together and having fun"...I love their attitude.
I also LOVE the restaurant-my husband and I have been going there for 13 years (& we had our wedding dinner there) we've ALWAYS been overwhelmingly delighted by the food, the ambiance, the service-it's a magical place and I highly recommend it-I'd LOVE to marry some people there one day...

Make it your Own

Last week I shared my responses to questions asked by the Enchanted Empire Gals.
One aspect of Wedding Ceremonies that I mentioned & am quite crazily passionate about is making the ceremony a true and authentic reflection of who you are as individuals and a couple. "Off beat Bride" then featured this wedding where the girls made up their own wedding ritual that looked pretty and was meaningful to them....AWESOME!!!


"We loved the idea of incorporating the concept of eternity, and we'd tossed around the idea of a handfasting, but we ended up crafting our own ritual (after a few glasses of wine while working on our ceremony). All the guests came forward, picked flowers out of a vase, and laid them in two conjoined circles around us, making an eternity symbol. We placed this about halfway through the ceremony, so we stood in the circles through the rest.

Maggie Winters Photography

Enchanted Empire asks me FAQ

I was honoured to be asked by the creative lasses at Enchanted Empire to answer some questions about the Celebrant's role in the marriage process....check out my take on the role & while you're there check out their yummy stuff.....

neon graveyard

My sister in law was married in Vegas this year by an ELVIS impersonator. They had their wedding pics taken in the Neon Sign Graveyard...would LOVE to go there one day

I am getting married. And I am having a wedding. And those two truths are different.

Thanks to "The Broke Ass Bride" for this article....


"I am getting married. And I am having a wedding. And those two truths are different.

It’s easy to confuse one into the other, because they look a lot alike. One is normally assumed to be the cause, and one the effect, but not the way you’d think. I think a lot of bridal unhappiness stems from the in-articulation that the wedding is an effect of the marriage.

What I mean is, Getting Married is the end-game; having a wedding is just bonus.

The only thing that really matters about Friday is that I get to stand up with James and pinkie-promise to love and respect him as my best friend and confidant and partner in crime, every day, until happily ever after, the end. Making that promise has absolutely nothing to do with the wedding. Making that promise involves the two of us being ready and willing and resolute and committed to keeping that promise each morning when we wake up and each night when we go to bed. No centerpieces required.

Getting Married is our Because.

Having a Wedding is just the effect. It’s what we’re doing after Getting Married. It’s a lot more work for something that’s, by comparison, a touch superfluous. To love The Groom forever, to be a strong and faithful and supportive wife to him… All I need is to Get Married. Anything else really is just bonus. (Or… an excruciating exercise in pleasing our families. Jury is out.)

It’s the frosting. The Wedding is the frosting.

Realizing that the marriage and the celebration can be looked at as separate things… It brought order back into my world. Birds sang. The sun shone. My mother’s voice stopped sounding like nails on a chalkboard. The question that had been railing me was answered. I knew why I was jumping through hoops and tolerating stress and making all these compromises. Because my marriage to this man is going to be the most amazing thing I ever create.

(And coming from the girl who made hundreds of origami flowers, that’s something.)

That’s the beauty of Wedding Week. You have to sift through the rest of it, and play chicken against the clock… But when you get this close, you can see the beautiful divide between The Marriage and The Wedding. And your priorities sing through, clear as day. And then Your Groom will smile at you, and you’ll realize that it really is all worth it. All the agony and the isolation and the blisters and the broken nails and the nervous twitch you have when someone says “hot glue.”

None of it will endure in the same fashion as your love for one another.

That’s what you see, when you’re forty eight hours away from your wedding. You see your first glimpse of Forever"

The Cutest wedding Song Ever

I rejoice (& cry) when I see declarations of love like this.....
As my daughter exclaimed when I became a marriage celebrant "people should be celebrating their love!!!"-amen to that.
Be brave!
big love

wow

 look at loads of other peoples weddings on line......for inspiration, just to see what others are doing and cause I LOVE seeing how creative some people are-it blows my mind!!

This couple took it all to a whole other level......but what I really loved was part of their ceremony:

“The size and age of the Cosmos are beyond ordinary human understanding. Lost somewhere between immensity and eternity is our tiny planetary home. And yet our species is young and curious and brave and shows much promise. In the last few millennia we have made the most astonishing and unexpected discoveries. They remind us that humans have evolved to wonder, that understanding is a joy, that knowledge is prerequisite to survival. Our little planet floats like a mote of dust in the morning sky. All that you see, all that we can see, exploded out of a star billions of years ago, and the particles slowly arranged themselves into living things, including all of us. We are made of star stuff. We are the mechanism by which the universe can comprehend itself.  The world is so exquisite with so much love and moral depth. We should remain grateful every day for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides. The sum of all our evolution, our thinking and our accomplishments is love. A marriage makes two fractional lives a whole. It gives to two questioning natures a renewed reason for living.  It brings a new gladness to the sunshine, and a new fragrance to the flowers, and new beauty to the earth, a new mystery to life. Kestrin and Jonathan choose to enter this relationship before you, their community, and ask for your support and blessings.”

Stuck for words???

Discovery of the morning....this nifty little site. If you're unsure of how to word your invitations & need some inspiration check it out.
www.verseit.com


big love

Luke and Amz

I first met the adorable Amy (better known as Amz) & Luke at my niece's 7th Cowgirl Themed Birthday party (yes that is a pony in the background)

It's probably not the place you'd normally find your Marriage Celebrant but after a chat they decided I was the one for them.
We had our first "official" get together yesterday. We filled in the little boxes on the Notice of Intended Marriage form or NOIM (for which I needed to sight their original birth certificates)
and my "getting to know you" quiz. It's not a quiz really, it's a bunch of questions I've compiled to help me gain an insight into their backgrounds, lives, relationship and them as individuals which helps me provided the most personal ceremony possible. We got the ball rolling on what vibe they'd like for the different parts of the ceremony-exchanging of rings, vows, music, readings etc & we laughed along the way. 

We're off & running now, whittling down all the options till we get exactly what fits & feels right for them.
I love hearing people's stories-especially the love stories....and I'm stoked to be part of this exciting chapter in their story.

"brides vows to herself"

I LOVE this article ..this is a gal with her head firmly, realistically on her shoulders and not in the clouds....
This got me thinking about my own wedding(s)........
During the (do-your-own-wedding-not one but 2-over-the-easter-weekend) planning phase of my own wedding my husband-to-be-and-me held OUR CEREMONIES and the WORDS WE CHOSE TO SAY as the number one most important part of the entire whirlwind.
We'd had a happy lead up to our wedding, and then suddenly, unexpectedly, tragically Terry's mother died 3 weeks before the wedding. To say this rocked our worlds is an understatement of epic proportions. We cannot express how loved she was, by SOO many people...because she was AWESOME! After the shock wore off we questioned whether we should/could go ahead with the wedding. Every member of Terry's family told us we just HAD to-she was so looking forward to it and would want us to...we both knew this was true and felt that it was ok to do it, and ok to be happy and enjoy the celebrations.
There's nothing like a death to really put your LIFE into perspective....I wasn't one of these gals who had obsessive compulsive control over EVERY miniscule detail...I told my bridesmaid to wear what ever she wanted. One of my wedding dresses didn't work out so we were dress and shoe shopping off the rack one week before the wedding. A friend kindly delivered roses that he'd grown in his garden and I tied them together about an hour before the ceremony. My do-it-yourself hair style flopped (it's impossible to get a hairdresser on Good Friday) and I panicked for a moment before I remembered it wasn't vital in the big scheme of things.
What was important to us? The ceremony we had barefoot on the beach in the afternoon sun...the words we chose to say to each other....the advice we asked our 20 guests to give us as part of the ceremony-that was what was important to us. Were the photos important? yes! We had a wonderfully creative photographer friend who we trusted and admired. Was the restaurant where we chose to eat our wedding feast-yes! (it was & still is our special place)  It is an indoor/outdoor restaurant and a possum fell on my grandmothers head-did it ruin our "perfect night"? no, it is still something we all laugh about 8 years later. Was the fact that we felt enveloped by so much love by the people who shared the day with us-yes vitally important !!!!
We had another celebration 2 days later which included a marriage blessing ceremony (again-words all carefully chosen by us) in an incredible garden venue with dancing (music painstakingly chosen by us-it was REALLY important to us what we played), cake cutting (my sister made the cake) eating (my mum catered & my my younger sisters friends helped serve food & drinks) and speeches. An aunty picked delicate orange flowers from her garden for us, we had friends and family from across the country and the globe celebrate with us...this is what was important to us.
This wedding weekend was 5 years into our relationship...the honeymoon phase had already worn off.....we were realistic about what our relationship was and we were looking forward to our future together. Was it THE most important day of our life? Certainly it was one of them.....the days our children were born were more monumental & mind blowing....but you know what is most important for us?
EVERY day.
Our lives are built by little moments, day by day by day. How we treat each other in the seemingly mundane moments, the words we choose to express love or to hurt each other, the way we choose to parent our children...it's these moments...because they all add up to something big and all of a sudden it's 7, 8, 20, 40 years later and it's not the one off big moments that have the most impact-it's the millions of tiny moments you're having with those you love when no one else is watching......
big love