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