Thursday, December 31, 2015

Make Me a Millionaire!

 1st January 2016, It’s that day when people make resolutions. Usually these resolutions last a week or two. Sometimes even a month two. But, rarely do they last.

People are rather clever about these resolutions. They keep them secret. They don’t share them with their nearest and dearest. Experience has taught them that nearest and dearest have much better memories of these resolutions than those who’ve made them.

Thinking on these lines, I remembered one piece of advice of Tony Robbins, the American guru on getting out of life everything you wanted - and more.

‘If you want something,’ says Tony, ‘ask for it’.

So here I am, on the 1st of January 2016, taking Tony’s advice and, instead of making a secret resolution, asking you, ‘Make me a Millionaire!’

Wait! Don’t go away yet. I have it all worked out.

You may or may not know it, but there are, conservatively speaking, around 300 million English-speaking people in the world.

Speaking conservatively again, around 70 million of these people married in 2014. No doubt they went through a wedding ceremony, planned a wedding reception and went off on a Honeymoon.

Now here are my thoughts. I have published 6 books in English on the subject of weddings, honeymoon, celebrants, officiants and various celebrations.

If only 150,000 of these 70 million English-speaking, ceremony and honeymoon-planning people, bought only ONE of my books, I’d be a Millionaire.

So, guys and dolls, in the media land, help me to reach all those brides and grooms, mothers-of the bride, and all those other people involved in celebrations, who would benefit by buying one of my books - and at the same time benefit me.

Make my 2016 Resolution come true. Make me a Millionaire.

You'll find these books on Amazon and Smashwords.


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Sunday, December 27, 2015

Honeymooning Celebrities

With everyone looking for something different when planning they're honeymoon, how about these.

Germany’s most famous castle which honeymooning couples like to visit is the Frankenstein castle. An apocryphal story has it that it was this castle that actually inspired Mary Shelley’s novel in the 1880s.

It is believed that at one stage Frankenstein Castle did house barons von Frankenstein.

One of the residents of the castle who might have inspired the Frankenstein myth was Joseph Konrad Dippel who styled himself ‘von Frankenstein’. Dippel, a well-known alchemist, created the colour Prussian Blue in his laboratory, and rumour had it that he stole body parts from local cemeteries to further his studies. Some people even went so far as to suggest that he tried to revive the body parts in a search for the secrets to eternal life.

Mary Shelley who visited the castle with her husband poet Percy Shelley, and their friend Lord Byron, wrote her novel ‘Frankenstein’, or the ‘Modern Prometheus’, when she was 19. In the book, Doctor Victor Frankenstein uses electricity to bring to life a creature formed from numerous body parts of executed criminals.

While the many films made keeps the story alive, Frankenstein Castle itself celebrates the Frankenstein connection with an annual Halloween festival.

In Ireland, there’s another castle which made its name by being used as a backdrop for the well-known film, ‘The Quiet Man’ starring John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara.

The Ashford Castle is a five-star hotel whose famous guests have included such dignitaries as Ronald Reagan, past president of the USA and King George V of England. The Castle boasts 84 rooms and sits on 182 hectares (450 acres) of land.

In 2001, actor Pierce Brosnan and Keely Smith held their wedding reception at the Ashford Castle hotel after exchanging their vows at Ballintubber Abbey, a 13th century stone Catholic church in the County Mayo which was also featured in 'The Quiet Man'.

Taking advantage of their wedding location, the couple began their honeymoon with a tour of Ireland followed with a cruise to the Exuma Islands in the Bahamas on a chartered yacht.
Excerpt from



'Honeymoon! A Sizzle or a Fizzle?'



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Wednesday, December 9, 2015

Honeymoon for the first time, or second or.....

Getting married? For the first time? Second? Third? Known your partner for ever? Or just a short time? Are you planning every single detail of your wedding day, or just hoping that without any effort on your part, everything will turn out just fine?

Unless you’re unique, at this very moment, like most people about to be married, you’re wholly immersed in your wedding plans. Keeping the telephone hot, you’re querying this or that reception venue, comparing the virtues of this or that florist and agonising over the choices being offered to you.

And this is the case whether you’re marrying for the first time or this is an encore wedding either for one or both of you, whether you’ve already shared much of your life with your present partner, or your marriage is to be a complete change of status for you both. Whatever your personal situation, whatever the style of your wedding, you’ll spend much of your time planning every detail of your wedding day.

Why? Because, whatever your situation, you want your wedding day to be a day to remember.

But what about the honeymoon? Is that just going to happen? Or are you planning to make it happen? According to one set of statistics, more than 90% of couples who choose a traditional wedding will celebrate their togetherness by taking a honeymoon. On an average, 14% of the wedding expenditure will constitute the honeymoon. In practical terms, the honeymoon will cost three times as much as the average yearly vacation that the couple will take throughout their lives.

Is the cost and time invested in planning a honeymoon worth the effort?

Obviously the intimate details of the success or otherwise of a honeymoon are not readily accessible. Still, there are just enough hints being dropped to suggest that rarely does it exceed expectations. Quite the contrary, in fact! And it seems no different whether it’s a repeat performance or the very first honeymoon for both partners. As far back as 1815, when Lord Byron married, he commented that his three week honeymoon, which he called ‘treaclemoon’, was not all sunshine, that, in fact, it had its clouds.

More often than most people realise, the honeymoon starts with either one or both partners not talking to each other! Just as many honeymoons begin with either one or both partners sulking, more often than not that bedroom activity which everyone talks about, not only doesn’t generate any fireworks, it doesn’t even happen. Again, lack of forethought leads to a situation that one partner or possibly both, will look back at with regret.

Why is it so? Why is the wedding so memorable while the honeymoon quite often isn’t?

The wedding day is as special as it is because on that day people, who normally run around in shorts and tee shirts, suddenly go formal. People who don’t know their right foot from their left suddenly take dancing lessons. People who have heart palpitations at the thought of public speaking become members of Toast Masters in order to make that all important wedding speech. In short, on that day, people turn themselves inside out to play their part in the most pleasing, elegant and dramatic way they’re capable of.

They don’t merely hope that everything will turn out right. They make sure of it.

How can you make sure that your honeymoon exudes the same type of drama?

If you look back to the beginning of your relationship you’ll probably remember that your life, at that stage, was one, long high. Over the years, though, you may have fallen into the trap waiting for all couples, especially those in a long term relationship, becoming so comfortable with each other you no longer feel the need to show your real feelings towards your partner. After all, by now your partner should be fully aware of your feelings, without any special efforts on your part. You’ve been a couple for a long time. You might be one of those couples who’ve lived with each other for years. It could be that by now you’ve brought up several children together.

Where once it was an endless stream of chocolates and roses and hours of passionate sex, it’s now comfortable, and possibly boring routine of paying the bills and looking after the kids.

All that dressing up for a date, or even going out for a date, treating each other with special courtesy and consideration, sending flowers, selecting a special place to celebrate a birthday or anniversary, you’re way beyond that.

If this is the kind of attitude the couple takes to their honeymoon then they can only expect to be disappointed. Whether this is your first marriage or your fourth, to make your honeymoon truly memorable you need to start planning for it in the same organised, systematic way as you’re planning your wedding day. Only in that way will it be inevitably as memorable as you expect your wedding day to be.

More than 60% of the newlyweds choose a honeymoon in a foreign country hoping to taste something unique and different. Yet, in the majority of cases, it will be little more than a holiday like every other holiday they have ever had, except a great deal more expensive.

But it can be different. It can be more than just a vacation. Instead of concentrating your attention merely on the choice of the location, make your honeymoon a time when you show your partner the person he or she fell in love with in the first place. A you at your very best. Use your honeymoon to re-ignite that old relationship to the way it used to be when you first met each other, and you were each other’s best friend, as well as each other’s dream lover.

Whether you’re 18 or 80, whether you’re spending a leisurely month or just a quick week-end, make your honeymoon a time to remember for the rest of your life by preparing for it as carefully as you’re planning your wedding day.
Prepare mentally, physically and emotionally for the best time of your life with
'Honeymoon! A Sizzle or a Fizzle?'

Find it on Amazon and Smashwords




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Friday, December 4, 2015

Unforgettable Wedding Date

Here is the introduction to my latest Wedding Ceremony.

'A wedding is always  a special occasion, but for me, to conduct this wedding ceremony is extra special, because 28 years ago, I was privileged to conduct the wedding ceremony of BF and BM, the bride's parents.

In the past 28 years, the world has changed and so have BF and BM. The two young hopeful, trusting people have become a mature couple. But with all the changes that have happened in their lifetime, one thing has remained the same - the promises they made to each other on their wedding day.

On that day they promised to give of their best to each other, to cherish each other, to support each other through the good and the bad, and most of all to love each other no matter what.

And it is this love and commitment of her parents to each other that has helped the Bride to become the person she is today.'


Bride and Groom December 2015


Mum and Dad 28 years since their Wedding Day.

I'm already booked for December 2017 when I hope to conduct a ceremony of Renewal of Vows for the Bride's parents' 30th Wedding Anniversary.

Check out the different ways you can Celebrate your Wedding and how to begin planning your Wedding Day.

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Saturday, November 28, 2015

St. Valentine's Day in November?

As couples begin to think about the date  for their wedding day, they might choose a day that is particularly significant for them.

There have been those couples who've married exactly twelve months since they met, or on which they declared their love for each other, or on their parent's wedding date, or on such a day as St. Valentine's Day, a day dedicated to lovers on 14th February. For more on choosing a memorable day for your wedding day check my book 1,000+ Answers to Your Wedding Questions. And if you want to know the  many ways you  can celebrate St. Valentine's Day, check my book Celebrating Love's Special Moments.

So why talk about St. Valentine's Day in November? 14th February is particularly popular for celebrating weddings - especially when 14th February falls on Saturday - as it will in 2016.

If you live in Australia, and thinking of getting married on 14th February, remember you need to lodge your form with your celebrant at least one month before the wedding day.

Years ago, on St. Valentine's Day, I conducted a Commitment Ceremony for a couple where one partner was going overseas for couple of years, and they used their Commitment Ceremony as a way of cementing their love. The ceremony was held in one of Brisbane's Botanical Gardens, and the only witnesses we had were the birds and the bees - and perhaps a few passing-by tourists.

Years later, back in Australia, I was pleasantly surprised to be asked to conduct the couple's wedding ceremony on St. Valentine's Day. Here is the text of the Commitment Ceremony.


Commitment Ceremony

 Andrew and Mary, today you are about to make a very special promise to one another.

These vows are beautiful words that represent your commitment to each other now and for the rest of your lives.

But you will find that as you live these vows over the years, investing your time, your love and your commitment to one another, the happy times of your life will be twice as joyous, because there will be someone to share those joys with.

When life gets tough, it will only be half as bad, because there will be someone by your side to help carry the burden. For those times when life presents all of us with challenges, remember that prayer for serenity – God grant me the serenity to accept the things that I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.


Love is not just looking at each other.

Love is looking out in the same direction

It is linking our strength to pull a common load.

It is pushing together towards the horizons.

Hand in hand.

Love is knowing that when our strength falters,

We can borrow the strength of someone who cares.

Love is a strange awareness that our sorrows will be shared

And made lighter by sharing.

Those joys will be enriched and multiplied by the joy of another.

Love knows someone else cares that we are not alone in life.


Exchanging Vows

Andrew:          I commit myself to you joyfully and without reservation. I pledge to share my life openly with you, so that we may grow and laugh together. I cherish all that you are, and I trust in your love for me. I promise to be with you through all the changes of our lives.

Mary:              I commit myself to you joyfully and without reservation. I pledge to share my life openly with you, so that we may grow and laugh together. I cherish all that you are, and I trust in your love for me. I promise to be with you through all the changes of our lives.


Exchanging Rings

Vlady:           May these rings be a symbol of your love, respect and commitment to each other, for now and into the future.

Andrew:         Mary, I ask that you receive this ring as a symbol of my love, respect and commitment to you. Please wear it as a constant reminder that I have chosen you above all others to be the one I wish to share my life with.

Mary:              I accept this ring as a symbol of our love, respect and commitment to each other.

Mary:            Andrew, I ask that you receive this ring as a symbol of my love, respect and commitment to you. Please wear it as a constant reminder that I have chosen you above all others to be the one I wish to share my life with.

Andrew:    I accept this ring as a symbol of our love, respect and commitment to each other.

Andrew and Mary, you have made your vows, a commitment which you have made as two individuals, but in which you hope to achieve a bonding of your inner selves to the other.

This bonding of the spirit will enhance your individuality, creating an atmosphere of such absolute trust, that your self-revelation and disclosures will add a new dimension to your knowledge of each other, and understanding of each others’ needs.

You have come here today prepared to give up the lifestyle you have enjoyed, in order to start a new lifestyle together, that of a couple.

You have come to give up not what you are, but to increase the possibility of what you can become. For real love is neither possessive nor enslaving.

Real love nourishes the union of two people in a sense that each partner upholds and confirms the other in what they are, and what they want to be.

Today, on St. Valentine’s Day, a day when lovers throughout the world dedicate themselves to each other, your commitment stands a landmark in your relationship with each other.

Let every St Valentine’s Day that you enjoy in the future, be a reminder that on the 14th February 2007, you chose to commit yourselves to each other, by joining of hands, exchanging of vows, and exchanging of rings.

And let today be the day you look back at and say to each other, ‘I loved you before the commitment ceremony, I love you more because of it’.
Commitment Certificates

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Saturday, November 21, 2015

Someone’s Father Someone’s Son – A Woman’s Journey by Thea Fietje

From birth, Thea’s journey through life has never been dull. Having left home at sixteen to escape the chaos that represented her family life, she was determined not to repeat their pattern. Yet, the three relationships she formed were with men either with abusive tendencies or with unresolved issues that doomed any hope she had of a happy life.

Like many women in abusive relationships, she believed that by the power of her love she could transform the man. Since then she’s realised that irresponsible and troubled men cannot get rescued and that they often resent the rescuer for making them feel even weaker.

Having been in those situations herself, she knows that there are a myriad of reasons why women don’t leave their abusive partners. Through extensive research she also learned that regardless of race, creed or status, domestic violence isn’t just a problem of the uneducated, poor and unassertive.

Looking for a solution, she found thousands of books on the subject, the majority written by psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers; few by the victims themselves.

It is Thea’s belief that the ultimate solution is for women to share their stories of abuse and recovery to help others in those situations. And it is with the idea that her own experiences may help others that Thea has written her book, ‘Someone’s Father Someone’s Son – A Woman’s Journey’.

In her own words, she explains how she began to change her life, by changing her own response to it.

‘I had held my partners responsible for most of the failure in the relationship. But as I continued on my journey of self-discovery I became more aware of the role that I too had played. I also realized that holding onto resentment and blame were negative emotions and so I practised sending love to those, dead and alive, who had hurt me. Forgiveness is a wonderful healer and in time the wounds from my past began to heal. It took much longer though to come to the realization that each partner came into my life to move me into the next phase of my spiritual growth. They were all my teachers; just as my children are − each one to some degree a reflection of myself.’

This book, based on Thea’s three significant partners led her to write her story in which she encourages other women, in similar circumstances to release themselves from the role of victim.

In her opinion, the mistakes we make don’t define us − it’s what we learn from them that does.
Coming soon to Amazon
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