Saturday, December 31, 2016

Friday, December 30, 2016

Wedding Planning – Never Plain-Sailing

You would think being a Queen planning a wedding would be a breeze; especially if you had nine children and had married off quite a number of them already. However, despite the royal power and the experience, Queen Victoria, like the lowest of her subjects, had her own wedding-planning irritations.
It started when her favourite daughter Princess Beatrice decided to marry His Serene Highness Henry of Battenberg. Probably no one was more aware than Queen Victoria that it was a bit of a come-down for an English Royal Princess to marry a Highness of some tiny, unrecognisable principality in Germany. To quiet the many voices of outrage, she decided to keep this wedding small and simple; with only relatives and the closest of friends attending.
Then came a note from one of her other married daughters, announcing that as a Crown Princess of Germany, she could not lower herself to such level as to attend a wedding that included a nobody.
Well, that did it!
Dispensing with small and simple, the Queen invited as many wedding guests as she could accommodate.
On the Wedding Day, to the sound of Wagner’s Bridal March, Princess Beatrice walked down the aisle with ten bridesmaids, supported by her mother, Queen Victoria on one arm, and her none-too-happy brother Prince of Wales, on the other.
At the reception, the guests were served a Royal Wedding Breakfast of twenty-two courses, ending with the Wedding Cake. A three-tiered concoction, the Wedding Cake was topped with cupids and a vase filled with sugar and marzipan bouquet of flowers.
And to top it off the German Serene Highness was made into a British Royal Highness for the rest of his life.





Thursday, December 29, 2016

Wedding Ceremony Resource Book

For Australian Celebrants -
Wedding Ceremony Resource Book

Over 500 wedding ceremony samples to help the bride and groom craft a personalised wedding ceremony. 
Wedding Ceremony Resource Book includes:-
Wedding ceremony samples with a variety of wedding themes
Wedding vows, both traditional, contemporary and wedding vows with beach wedding vows, wedding vows for the older couple, couples previously married, couples with children etc,
  • Wedding Vows of support from family and friends
All symbolic rituals include text and include:

  • Candle Lighting as a unity ceremony for the bride, family blending ceremony with children or as a memorial wedding ceremony for deceased or absent friends
  • Rose Ceremony for the bride and groom
  • Seven Steps and Seven Blessing for the couple
  • Handfasting Ceremony for the couple, and maid of honour and the best man
  • Sharing a Drink
  • Releasing of Doves or Butterflies
  • Blessing of Hands
  • Blending of Sand by couple or as a family ceremony
Wedding ceremony samples include readings, love poems, marriage poems and rituals for:

  • Bride and Groom
  • Bride and groom's children
  • Bride and groom's parents 
  • Bride and Groom's attendants
  • Support for the bride and groom by parents and friends
All sections are divided into accessible subject matter to make the compilation of your wedding ceremony easier than you can imagine.   For all Books and Certificates



Tuesday, December 27, 2016

2017 Freebies

In 2017 you'll be getting all sorts of hints, tips and free thingies to download.

Today I'm anticipating New Year's Eve. Over the years I've conducted weddings on every type of occasion, with some couples using the opportunity to create personal wedding vows. Some might choose to match the vows to their own situation, to the place where the ceremony is taking place or even to the time.

When first deciding to write their own vows, some couples find that by substituting a more familiar phraseology for the traditional wording the vow becomes more acceptable to them.

Creating a Wedding Vow Step by Step
Compiling the original vow step by step may take the following form.

Defining the relationship
1. We are friends
2. We enjoy each other’s company
3. You make me feel good about myself
4. When I’m sad having you by my side makes me happier

Hopes for the future
1. We hope to become a family
2. We hope to grow as a family
3. We hope to help each other in our ambitions
4. We hope to help each other to be at peace

Promises for the future
1. We will be faithful to each other
2. We will be honest with each other
3. We will share our problems
4. We will place our relationship before other considerations

And here's a sample of the actual wording for a New Year's Eve Wedding Vows.

A New Year
and a new beginning for us.
Today, as the world makes a promise
for the future,
I promise to love you
from this day forward,

Saturday, December 17, 2016

What Kind of Honeymoon

In my book ‘Honeymoon! A Sizzle or a Fizzle?’ I mention the many types of honeymoon that couples have taken – from the highly romantic, to the most prosaic.

Unusual though it may seem, some honeymoons have been a mixture of business and pleasure. There's the case of Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMagio. After a proposal which took place at Christmas 1953, the couple married in 1954 and decided on  Japan as their honeymoon destination. It was a bit of a start and stop affair.

After spending their wedding night at a hotel, Joe took his new wife to his family home where they stayed as guests rather than family and then off to Japan accompanied by their best man O’Doul and his wife Jean.

However, while there. Monroe, at that time very much in demand as an entertainer, was asked to travel to Korea and perform for the American soldiers there. She complied, leaving her new husband in Japan, his companions his best man and his best man’s wife.

While DiMaggio, needless to say, was not happy to be left alone on his honeymoon, he himself had decided to mix business with pleasure by accepting to go to Japan in order to demonstrate his baseball s.kills.

Marilyn returned to Japan from her four-day trip to Korea with a slight case of pneumonia. Upon recovery the couple continued their honeymoon, touring some of Japan's smaller villages.

Then I’ve read somewhere recently that a rose grower spend his honeymoon visiting other rose-growers to find out what worked and what didn’t.

Apparently while he was chatting away about the pros and cons of this or that rose, his newly-wedded wife sat in the car tapping her toes; her temper not improved by the fact that her husband never came out with some decent roses for her edification, but with the ailing breeds which he hoped to improve.

We know that Marilyn’s marriage didn't last long: and there’s no information about the rose-grower and his wife.

Business and pleasure might be good sometimes, but whether it works for a honeymoon?........

Planning a wedding and a Honeymoon?
Check out 






Tuesday, December 13, 2016

Avoid that Christmas Party


While Kelvyn and I stopped for a coffee and toasted sandwiches at Kippa Ring Shopping CentreI glanced through the free copy of Courier Mail where Renard Peters works. 

There I caught sight of a column written by Rod Chester. Apparently, in the name of common sense, he wants to see the end of office Christmas parties as they're organised these days. 

He harkens to the old days when office Christmas parties where time for the gathering of families - often picnics or barbeques held in the open with games and races as part of the day. You know the kind of thing the sack races, the three-legged races, the egg and spoon racers, employees not only getting to know each other better, but getting to know the spouses and the children. A little bit like the Pyjama Game 'Once a Year Day'. 

Now, it seems, the Christmas office party is a time to go 'blotto', 'legless', and seriously, 'over the limit'. 

So, says, Rod Chester, in the name of true Christmas spirit, boycott that office do and the 'one for the road'. 

Adjacent to this column, by accident or design, was an article on domestic violence. And just incidentally ‘alcohol is estimated to be involved in up to half of partner violence in Australia and 73% of partner physical assaults’, and  as for traffic deaths almost 1 in 8 deaths of people aged under 25 is due to alcohol’. 

So to rephrase that song by Johnny Cash, stay away from that office Christmas party, girls and boys. Your family or that other motorist on the road might have reason to thank you, even if they don't know it. 



Sunday, December 11, 2016

Marriage Celebrant OPD 2016 Brisbane.

Attended with Tania Robinson Ongoing Professional Development course conducted by Cheryl Landsberry of AssentTech.  It was held at Brisbane International Hotel at Virginia where years ago I conducted my very first Handfasting Wedding Ceremony. (Incidentally, whatever happened to this one-time popular ritual?)

As usual there were three topics, including Marriage Documents, Networking using Social Media, and Reaffirmation Ceremonies.

The group of fifty or so Marriage Celebrants attending the course from as far as Cairns showed creativity and insights into the celebrancy business.

At the break we enjoyed a varied menu of curries, vegetables, rice, noodles, salads and fresh fruit.

It was a very pleasant way to end the Marriage Celebrant Year.