Blog

As a full-time celebrant who’s worked across Australia and internationally, I know the tension so many of us live in: we want to keep bookings (with couples that get us) steady, but we’re also flat out with ceremonies, admin, and travel. So how do we invest our time...

We’ve all been there. A couple enquires about your celebrant services. You exchange emails, maybe have a phone call or even meet for coffee. The connection seems genuine, the conversation flows, and you’re mentally slotting them into your calendar. Then comes the...

A sharp look at why traditional wedding directories are facing their “Yahoo moment” as couples’ search habits evolve, plus what makes a truly valuable directory in 2025 – including free listing opportunities for Australian wedding vendors.

The digital landscape is shifting beneath our feet, and as wedding celebrants, we need to adapt or risk becoming invisible. Coming back to Australia from living in Mexico I put a lot of money into old school marketing and advertising and it all fell flat. And gone are...

I'll hazard a guess that Celebrant Institute members and other celebrant colleagues have been battered with marketing and emails from Bark.com over the past month as I have been. I wanted to explain what they do, so you can make an informed decision about joining them...

In an exciting development for Aussie marriage celebrants, Apple has announced new features that could help make your business more professional and trustworthy in the eyes of potential clients using Apple devices like iPhones. The expansion of Apple Business Connect,...

When you're building your celebrant website, you’re crafting the digital front door to your business, the handshake before you meet your couple. And like any good intro, it needs to do more than look good—it needs to work for you. Let’s break it down using these five...

The best marketing in the world meets the target market where they're at. Whether that's in placement, or in creative. Have you ever considered where people are "at" when they get engaged? And more importantly, have you considered how the at changes over time? I'm...

If you're a wedding celebrant looking to improve your online presence and attract more couples, here’s a straightforward SEO content strategy you can use to make your website more visible on Google and Bing. If things are quiet through winter, this is a great strategy...

This week members can rewatch the webinar recording of Josh Withers and Edwin from The Social Sandwich with their 90 minute Instagram Mythbusters webinar on organic growth and attracting couples through Instagram. https://vimeo.com/975155523  

Are you ready to take your Instagram game to the next level? Join us for an exclusive online event, the Instagram Mythbusters event, featuring the incredible Edwin Smith from The Social Sandwich and hosted by me (Josh Withers).

Come dive into Sharon and Adam's wedding in the picturesque Douglas Vale Historic Vineyard and Homestead in Port Macquarie, New South Wales. Sharon's wedding was not just a lovely occasion but also a masterclass in thoughtful planning and celebrant selection in Tam...

The wedding industry in Australia is vibrant and evolving, despite the shifting societal views on marriage. As a celebrant deeply embedded in this industry through both personal and industry-wide lenses, I've distilled some insights from recent discussions on SBS...

This week saw the 28th user of Instagram - that's right, he's been using Instagram for longer than everyone except for 27 other people - get locked out of his Instagram because an automatic content checker deemed that he had shared one of the worst and most criminal...

This Insights podcast episode is with Josh and Sarah-Louise Anderson, who is planning her wedding on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland for the 1st of October. They discuss the process of choosing a wedding date around her partner's FIFO work schedule, her brother's...

Kim and Zac married in Cronulla and they always knew that Tania Marsh was going to be their celebrant. The couple got married in Cronulla and flew Tania down to Sydney for their wedding. [audio...

Silvia asks: I really want to find out how to start a website when you haven't done any weddings yet. I've looked at many celebrant's websites and find myself overwhelmed. Starting out can be hard, but rest assured, everyone started at zero so it's a journey worth...

A new study finds that the later we meet someone in a sequence, the more negatively we describe them. The research finds that unconscious bias could disadvantage people who happen to be evaluated later in a sequence, whether it's job applicants, contestants on a...

The Easy Weddings 2024 Australian Wedding Industry Report provides an overview of the state of the wedding industry from the point of view of Easy Weddings and its 4,200 engaged and newlywed couples that completed the survey, input from nearly 600 wedding businesses,...

The 2023 WeddingPro Benchmarking Report offers a comprehensive look into the current state of the American wedding industry, focusing on the challenges and strategies wedding professionals use to grow their businesses. It's important to note that this report is...

In this episode of the Insights podcast episode -  can - Josh interviews...

Coming back into full-time celebrancy in 2023 I knew that the industry had changed, the celebrant population had changed, and the couples booking weddings were not just different but they had different means and ways of identifying which celebrant was the best for them, so I spent $20,000 on marketing.

Create a rabbit hole for your couples to fall down so they fall in love with you!

The digital era is witnessing a significant transformation in how we connect, communicate, and consume content. In the realm of social networking and media, a paradigm shift is underway. Traditional social networking is increasingly migrating to more intimate spaces...

In 1997 the term “web log” was shortened to blog and ever since common people like you and I have had the power to write and publish on the internet. For the longest time it was the only way you shared your mission, your life, your opinion, your story.

Luke emailed me yesterday as I was about to solve for myself the problem he identified: What software would you recommend to use for a marketing list? Again are there any zaps or workflows in setting up the marketing list?

Great question Luke! I’ve been toying around in this realm for a while and have regrettably landed on the most expensive solution around: Active Campaign. I’m going to show you how I created a Zapier zap to collect email addresses at a wedding fair and get ChatGPT to send each person an email instantly after they scanned the QR code and entered their email address. It was such a smooth and professional workflow, I’m really happy with it. But before I show you how I created that I want to talk about email marketing for a moment. Email marketing is amazing and horrible. It’s amazing because people who identify with you and how you roll can and will give you their email address, and you have the opportunity to bring value back to their inbox via marketing emails. It’s horrible because trying to land in someone’s actual email inbox and not their spam folder is an arduous exercise that even yours truly finds hard, and tiring, and annoying. So you’ll try the cheaper products, then you’ll try MailChimp, and the rest of them, and marketing folklore tells us that if you are serious about this you end up on Active Campaign. so that’s where I am. Whenever someone enquires with me, books with me, or if I interact with them at an open day or wedding fair, that email address heads into my Active Campaign contacts list and I try my hardest to bring them immense value and joy. Not spam. So let’s have a look at this zap to collect emails at a wedding fair.