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How to perform a commitment ceremony without breaking the law in Australia

How to perform a commitment ceremony without breaking the law in Australia

A commitment ceremony can be an important and simple way to celebrate a marriage-like-love when the legal formalities of marriage according to the law in Australia aren’t possible, as in one of our member’s cases today where her couple won’t have their divorce papers ready in time. While not legally binding, these ceremonies can be as meaningful and special as a wedding, maintaining a fun, honest, and legal approach without stepping into the realm of marriage solemnisation under Australian law.

Josh on the Wed.co podcast

Josh on the Wed.co podcast

This week, I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Steve and Joel on the Wed.Co Podcast, recorded at the picturesque Gabbinbar Homestead in Toowoomba. It was such a great chat about all things celebrancy, storytelling, and the magic of creating wedding ceremonies...

A decade of Aird and Withers

A decade of Aird and Withers

Over a decade ago (a decade and two months actually) everyone's favourite celebrant-shaped human and oracle - Sarah Aird - reached out to me with a software/technology question and that was the beginning of a decade long text-message-thread/phone-call-marathon/email...

Marriage statistics 2023

Marriage statistics 2023

It's marriage statistics release day, somehow three and a half months ahead of schedule! For as many years as I've been paying attention to them, the marriage statistics have been released at the end of November or early December. I got my usual daily email from the...

Decrypted Australian PDF Marriage Forms

Decrypted Australian PDF Marriage Forms

We understand that accessibility is key in providing seamless services as a marriage celebrant, and we also understand that the Notice of Intended Marriage and Official Certificate of Marriage being provided from the AGD as protected PDFs is not just annoying but an impediment to a digital and modern paperwork workflow.

That’s why we’ve taken the initiative to make your life a little easier by decrypting the PDFs provided by the Marriage Law and Celebrants Section of the Attorney-General’s Department and making them available to members use. Here, you’ll find all the essential documents you need, free from the cumbersome password protections that can slow you down – or in my case recently, stop a marriage being registered by the BDM.

Our aim is to ensure that you, as a celebrant, have quick and effortless access to these important resources, allowing you to focus more on crafting memorable ceremonies for your couples. Whether you’re conducting legal paperwork or looking for guidance on the latest in marriage regulations, our unlocked PDFs are readily available for your convenience.

Dive into our collection today and experience hassle-free access to all the documents you need at your fingertips:

Just a bunch of gibberish + legislation + quiet wedding industry times

Just a bunch of gibberish + legislation + quiet wedding industry times

In this episode of The Celebrant Talk Show, hosts Josh Withers and Sarah Aird discuss the current state of the wedding industry and the impact of COVID-19, inflation, and the “engagement gap” on wedding businesses. They also provide an update on the Attorney-General’s Portfolio Miscellaneous Measures Bill 2023, which includes amendments that would allow for remote witnessing of notices of intended marriage. However, the bill has been delayed in the Senate due to controversy over unrelated amendments to the Native Title Act.

Card Buddy, your new ceremony writing app

Card Buddy, your new ceremony writing app

I've described my ceremony preparation and writing style before as a series of "bits", much like how a comedian will assemble a show from their jokes and bits, I'll assemble a ceremony together much the same. So when I saw Card Buddy being reviewed in issue 110 of...

Be exceptional

Be exceptional

If your celebrant offering, your service, the thing you're selling, is the same as everyone else's, or appears the same, or you portray it as the same, then potential clients will look for the lowest price. Raise your rates. Create demand. Separate yourself from the...

Red-team your celebrant business

Red-team your celebrant business

With new celebrants entering the market every month, your marketing, sales, enquiry, and booking process need as much attention as your ceremony production and delivery do. I want to introduce the concept of red-teaming to your business. You've probably heard of...

Blogging is coming back!

Blogging is coming back!

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.

Marriage statistics 2022

Marriage statistics 2022

It's marriage statistics release day, which as many of you know is my favourite nerdy day of the year! So here's my annual rundown of the marriage statistics for 2022. You know how in Victoria in particular we were all run off our feet catching up with all the COVID...

Embracing DMARC: A Must-Do for Celebrants

Embracing DMARC: A Must-Do for Celebrants

With the digital sphere becoming more integral to our work, it’s crucial we stay abreast of changes that impact how we connect with our couples and our industry. Today, I want to demystify a term that’s been floating around and is about to become even more significant: DMARC.

How to get featured in the media

How to get featured in the media

If you've ever heard my story of going full-time as a wedding celebrant you can skip the next three paragraphs. I'd already been plugging away at celebrancy, not getting quite as much traction as one would like, for four years. One year earlier I'd done my first...

Collecting email addresses at a wedding fair with a QR code and ChatGPT

Collecting email addresses at a wedding fair with a QR code and ChatGPT

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.

Start playing with generative AI

Start playing with generative AI

The best way to understand computers forever is that they work on a GIGO system. Garbage in, garbage out. Whatever you put in gets computed and is spat back out at you. If it’s garbage in, you get garbage out. So here are a few things you can try to get your hands dirty this week, some ways to put some garbage in and see what comes out.

How to become a celebrant

How to become a celebrant

How many times do we all hear it from a friend, a wedding industry colleague, or someone at a wedding, that they think they'd make a great celebrant and they want more information on it. After being asked the question a thousand times ourselves, Sarah and I developed...

Chat and AI is going to change your entire business

Chat and AI is going to change your entire business

Four points that you should take away from this article: 1) The power of the first-mover and the advantages you can take from being one. 2) Social media is both broadening and shrinking. Broadening into wider broadcast-style models like we used to know as TV and radio, and shrinking into smaller group chats like Wavelength or even iMessage/WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal groups. 3) Generative AI is a new tool for you to use to do your work. 4) AI chat is going to replace the traditional search engine.

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