Amazing turnaround

I conducted a beautiful wedding last year for a Vietnamese couple. The videograper was Bernard Lau and he showed this film at the reception that evening:


http://www.bernardlau.com.au/weddings/lan-michaels-relive-day-sde-love-letters/


I have worked with Bernard a few times and it is always delightful.

Rose Bay or Lake Como?????

Conducted a beautiful wedding on Sunday night at Catalina's Restaurant at Rose Bay. The rain had set in and it was drizzling when I arrived. The outlook was amazing and reminded me of Lake Como......sort of! The photo taken from my phone does not do it justice though. The light was rather eerie and the view rather misty. It was beautiful. 150 at a sit-down dinner. Billiecart-Salmon being served on arrival. Women in beautiful long dresses...........

YOU PEOPLE

I conducted three lovely weddings yesterday and at the second wedding the grandmother of the bride came up to me as I was preparing to leave and said "I don't agree with you people, but that was a beautiful ceremony"

"You people" translates to "celebrants"

I thanked her for her kind words and then advised her that "we people" conduct around 70% of weddings in Australia these days!

A good alternative to the Registry Office

I conduct many weddings in my garden..........such a perfect alternative to the Registry Office. I put as much work into these ceremonies as any other. Couples can have up to 15 at the ceremony (limited to 12 at the Registry Office).

It is completely private and easy to park - have you ever tried to park near the Registry Office? It is impossible.

I supply glass champagne flutes and a silver ice bucket so the bride and groom and their guests can celebrate after the ceremony before heading off to a lunch or dinner. You cannot take champagne into the Registry Office. What is a wedding without champagne I ask!

Here is a photo of a recent wedding in my garden.

No need to marry at the Registry Office!

So many couples get married in the Registry Office, but you should really think about using a celebrant! With a good celebrant the choice is so much broarder. You can get married in a great location, have as many guests as you wish (limited to 12 at the Registry Office) and celebrate with a glass of champagne after the ceremony - no alcohol permitted at the Registry Office.

You may want a very simple ceremony with only two witnesses or perhaps you want 20 or 80......the choice is yours.

A good celebrant will tailor a ceremony to suit you and take the time to learn a little about you as a couple......if you wish. Alternately you can say to your celebrant that you simply want to say the legal words required and that is what you should get.

Celebrant marries celebrant

Actually, I am married to a Clinical Psychologist! But recently I had the priviledge of conducting the wedding of another celebrant. Such an honour. Gerald and Kathleen came to Sydney to have their ceremony with family and friends. It was a lovely ceremony on the harbour foreshore at McMahon's Point.

Wedding photographers

It is a great honour to conduct any couple's wedding, but when they are your colleagues in the wedding industry it is a great compliment. I recently had the pleasure of conducting the marriage ceremony of a couple of wedding photographers. Natalia and Morris were a delight to work with and together we created a truly wonderful ceremony that was so warm and inclusive. Look at their website: www.morrisimages.com.au

Renewal of Vows

I am often asked to perform Renewal of Vows ceremonies. Sometimes these are couples I married 10 years ago, and sometimes they just find me on the internet.

Recently I have conducted two such ceremonies and the couples were both celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary.

This is a photo of Pina & Nicolo. It was such a wonderful ceremony as they were joined by their family and friends. I had the honour of conducting the wedding ceremony of their son Alberto and his beautiful bride Katie last year. It was lovely to catch up with them. They are now expecting their first child in November.

The Renewal was arranged by Pina and Nicolo's daughter, Isabella. What a woman! She has three very young children, yet managed to organize the day with apparent ease.

Delightful couple from the USA

The weather last weekend was of course glorious for my weddings, but the previous week was another story.

I conducted a truly beautiful wedding for Al and Linda who come from Indiana in the USA. The wedding was to be on the harbour foreshore looking across to the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House. Thursday the 21st July was one of the most miserable days weatherwise for sometime. This did not dampen the spirit of this couple.....just look at the photo taken by Raoul Tackelburg - www.raoul.com.au

We did the ceremony in the Sheraton on the Park and then Raoul and Colin - www.cheersvideo.com.au took Al and Linda to The Rocks area and they were so pleased with the results.

Glorious weather for weddings

The last two weekends have been sensational for my weddings - beautiful, clear, sunny Sydney winter weather. Some couples are very lucky, but of course the only thing you have no control of on your wedding day is the weather, so if planning a ceremony outdoors a wet weather plan is essential.

Weddings in France & Italy

Have not blogged for a few weeks as I have been lucky enough to have spent 3 weeks in France and Italy.

Could not escape the weddings though! We saw weddings everywhere we went from Arles in France to the Cinque Terre in Italy.

The one in France was a lovely small wedding in the Town Hall - the bride looking ever so chic in a very pale pink dress (not a wedding dress) and about 20 guests.

The other memorable one was in Venazza in the Cinque Terre where we were staying. It is a gorgeous little village and one Saturday afternoon the bridal party and guests (around 40 - 50) gathered in the beautiful little square on the water and then climbed the steps to one of the hillside restaurants for the celebration. They were all Australian!

African Wedding

I have conducted a number of African weddings over the years and they are always so much fun............usually very colourful and lively. Blanche and Eddy's wedding recently was just the same. I had conducted the wedding of their friends a few years ago and they were there with the lovely baby.

Blanche was born in Botswana and Eddy in Burundi. This photo was taken by Studio Zanetti - www.studiozanetti.com.au - have worked with them for years and it is always a joy.

Blanche was so sweet and even phoned me a couple of days after the wedding to say thank you!

Home weddings

I love the home weddings. They are usually pretty relaxed. This is a photo of the lovely Cathy and I at her wedding last Saturday. Such a beautiful person. Cathy and Paul had been together for 17 years and decided to tie the knot in front of a select group of family and friends.

The ceremony was held at Paul's sister's house and the hosts made me feel extremely welcome.

It was a lovely ceremony (and Skyped to one of Cathy's daughters who is living in the USA) and after some champagne they all went into the city for a celebratory dinner at Wildfire.

Dunbar House

I had the honour of conducting the first wedding at the newly renovated Dunbar House at Watsons Bay in February and recently received this photo and email from my couple:



We had a great night and want to thank you so much for bringing such a calm, professional and experienced manner to our celebration.
We were VERY lucky to have had you look after the most important part of our marriage and you will always be in our heart.

I'm sure we will see you again.
Sincerely

Rosco&Sara

Rosco and Sara were delightful to work with........Rosco is one of those people who is so positive and makes you feel the same and Sara as sweet as!

The Tea Room Group have done a fabulous job with the renovation. Like all their venues, extremely stylish and fabulous service. A joy to do weddings with them.

What is a celebrant worth?

Often I receive email enquiries and the only question is "what are your fees?"..........I find this so interesting as there is so much more to a good celebrant than the fees.

The Marriage Celebrants' Programme was changed around 7 years ago. At that time, across Australia, there were around 3,000 celebrants, which seemed to be more than enough as most were just part-time celebrants with another job. Unbelievably so, there are now in excess of 14,000 celebrants. Many of these celebrants will only do a handful of weddings each year, which is not enough to keep up your skills or indeed develop them.

Some celebrants will charge as little as the Registry Office. Some even do it for less. Of course many celebrants view this as a hobby, rather than a profession. My advice to prospective couples is to meet with the celebrant you are interested in and see what they have to offer. If price is the only criteria, then a cheap celebrant may well be all you need.

You have only one chance to ensure the ceremony runs smoothly, your celebrant dresses well and is extremely professional in how they handle the day, not to mention the legal paperwork.

A Model Bride

They don't come much better than this! Barb and Ben had a lovely ceremony in February. They were so relaxed about everything and were a joy to deal with. After they arrived together and I went to meet them before they entered, I said to Barb's mother that she looked like a model, to which her Mum responded "She was a model"!

The atmosphere for the ceremony was wonderful, enhanced by Barb's family all coming from Canada for the event.

I first met Barb in her role as Events and Marketing Manager for Deckhouse -
www.deckhousewoolwich.com.au - and then I was honoured to be asked to act as her Marriage Celebrant.

I love this photo - it was taken just before they walked into the ceremony.

Surprise wedding

I have conducted many surprise weddings over the years and they are always great fun, but they don't come much better than Jade & Nick's ceremony recently. They had gathered guests on the pretence of an Engagement Party. Only the parents and a couple of others were aware of the situation. Just received this gorgeous photo and lovely email from the couple:

We wanted to let you know how fantastic our wedding day was. The day certainly needed you to take charge – I was nervous about how we could pull the surprise wedding off – and thankfully you took the microphone away from me right when I started crying and took charge – the first words you spoke will never leave my mind!

We had the most wonderful day and can’t thankyou enough. A friend of mine says she works with you a lot – Laura Brown from Frolic Events – she says you’re the best celebrant she’s worked with and we can vouch that’s true!

Hope you are well, and hope we run into you at another wedding soon,
Jade and Nick

Working with professionals

This is a photo of a really lovely couple who were married in the Royal Botanic Gardens recently. Tracey and Glenn were great to work with on their ceremony. It was a perfect afternoon and all went very smoothly. This of course was helped by the great professional wedding suppliers I worked with on the day. The photographer was Ronny Berg from Creek Street Photography www.creekstreet.com.au

I have worked alongside Ronny for many years now and it is always a pleasure. He is so professional and you hardly know he is there. There were a few couples at the wedding who had used him for their own wedding photography, so always a good sign.

The event decorator was Laura Brown, who owns Frolic Events - www.frolicevents.com.au

I first met Laura years ago when she was an Events Manager for a wedding venue. Laura is such a lovely person and has a great eye for design. The signing table she offers is the best in the business. She had also set up a table with bottles of cold water for the guests.........even that looked stunning!

Superb food, great views, gorgeous couple................

Just received these beautiful images from a wonderful couple I had the honour of marrying just before Christmas. The wedding was at Berowra Waters Inn. A long way to travel for me but my husband and I decided to make a weekend of it. The wedding was on a Sunday and as it was my birthday the day before we decided to drive up after my weddings on the Saturday and stay the night. We went to Berowra Waters Inn for a sumptuous dinner, stayed overnight and I did the wedding the next morning.

Jen and Tom had flown back from London for the ceremony. It had all the right ingredients for a perfect wedding..........fabulous couple, great venue, great food, sublime views and a good ceremony. What more could you ask for?

Photos by Glen Allsop Photography - www.glenallsop.com