On The Blog

Your wedding planning shouldn’t be a nightmare. It’s supposed to be fun and should I dare say… done together. But here’s the lowdown. Here’s how to plan your wedding in one easy swoop.

1. Work out what’s important.

This list could be long or short. It can be really short. It could consist of “We will be married at the end of the day.” If that’s it, then your wedding planning will be a piece of cake. A good one, not a $4 mudcake from Woolies. If you can remember that getting married is the only thing that matters then when you get to the florist on your wedding day and they say… We’ve only got four of those flowers today so we had to substitute. You’ll be fine.

When you get to the reception and the cake has a pale blue tinge when asked for turquoise. It’s ok. You’ve already won. You’re married.

When that list gets longer, the complications arise and the expectations soar and sometimes the reality can plummet. It’s ok to want nice things. It’s ok to want a lot of things. But make the list and work out what you can control and the rest… you just have to be like Elsa and let it go.

You can of course refuse to pay your bills and fuck off to the Maldives on your honeymoon, but you’ll be coming home eventually. Be clear about what you want. You’re much more likely to get it.

2. Be present!

Your wedding day is hopefully the only one you’ll get. If you can get there and spend three minutes looking at the love of your life at least a couple of times during the day – it will help.

I factor that into your ceremony space so you get micro minutes to breathe but for the sake of all of us – who haven’t worn that pretty dress – do a spin or two and make sure you breathe it all in.

Are you one of my couples?? Got some wedding questions?? Check out our interactive space!

https://padlet.com/celebrantanna/yourwedding

My job is about love.  It’s my job, my hobby, my source of shoe funds and the never-ending opportunity to make champagne toasts with strangers – everything I do (get it??) celebrates the love that you have for each other and your chosen people have for you.  Recently I watched a TED talk about a woman who has a problem with the way we talk about love.  She suggests that ‘falling in love’ suggests we have little choice or control in love and that if we continue to think of it in this way then we can do nothing but fall subject to its whims and demands.

She suggests that if we ‘step into love’ that we gain control, perspective and choice in the relationship that we are part of.  That love becomes a collaborative work of art where the people involved construct and create a vision, a shared goal and relationship based on – yep you guessed it – a collaborative idea.

The reconstruction and reimagining of the idea of love is brilliant.  And there is no doubt that the words we choose have a huge impact on the way we think about and interact with the world. There is only one small problem with this re-visioning of romantic love and that is that it requires equal buy in, equal effort and commitment from all parties involved.  

Too often in our single lives, my still single life, our experiences of love are far from a collaborative effort.  A lifetime of wrong choices, unrequited life, painful breakups, heart breaking lusting and sometimes a faintly bridled veil of contempt taint our experiences of love. Before you met the one, before you got here, to this point of messaging a perfect stranger to tie you together forever, our experiences of love are rarely collaborative, fair or equal.

This hangover of emotions from past love is never truly forgotten.  (Unless you are those sickening people who married your first loves – for you the hangover is non existent and just for that, the rest of us hate you just a little bit.)  When we are lucky enough to find that human that makes the previous pains ache less, dull slightly and push far away into our subconscious depths, we do fall.  We fall uncontrollably and completely out of control in love with these beautiful strangers.  Sometimes even when we don’t want to, sometimes it’s a slow burn, sometimes it hits your chest and you feel like you can’t breathe at all and sometimes the other person doesn’t even know about it.  But here is where it gets good, that kind of love is short.

I believe we fall, uncontrollably, maddeningly, in love.  But it’s a choice to stay there.  We may fall into romantic love, but we step into true love.   That active choice of collaboration and the building of a life is the love we look for, is the love we spend our lives putting ourselves on reality television for, dancing with  drunken boys on dance floors across the globe for and trolling hours swiping left and right just for the faint chance of a love we choose and that chooses us back with equal force.

That’s when we marry them.  When we step so far into love that the mud is seeping over the top and into your rubber boots.  When that human has squished your heart like a bug and hurt you like no other and the thought of running still hasn’t crossed your mind.  That’s when the art begins and the real adventures starts.  When you get there, make sure you give me a call.  There’s nothing that feeds the soul more than watching two people, boots filled with mud, start that adventure together.

Thanks for the TED Talk Rhonda Lee, I loved it.  For those interested check out Mandy Len Catron below.

And just because I think this woman is the bomb, check her out too.  It’s her fault I can do this job at all.  Before her love was only meant for beauty queens.

I often think that the reason I became a celebrant is purely for the shoes and dresses. Never before in my entire life have I been able to justify the amount of floral I have purchased since I started my career as a wedding celebrant.  There are dresses in pastels, bolds, brights, florals, stripes and everything in-between and I purchase each one with the line, ‘that’ll be good for a wedding.’

That line has absolutely ruined my wardrobe.  And when I say ruined, I mean broken because it’s busting at the seams with overflowing fabric and sparkles that I have absolutely no chance of ever making it through.  I am one of those women that hates wearing things twice.  I associate my clothes and shoes with moments of sentimentality of whichever special occasion I wore it at.

The lace, royal blue dress – that’s the first dress I ever bought to do a wedding in.  That long, white, floral dress – I married my best friend in that one.  That navy and orange floral one – I married my baby sister in that one.  That one with the birds on – that was the first wedding I shed a tear in when they weren’t even related.

The list is endless and ongoing.  And it brings me to this.  When there is a ‘big thing’ or a ‘special event’ that is going to change the way you live your life, you need to wear something you love.  A wedding dress, a blue sparkle dress, a flowery dress, a halter dress with hearts on – it doesn’t matter what it is but if it’s something special than make sure you wear something that makes your heart soar.  Because every time you open that overflowing wardrobe of financial regret you’ll take a closer look and remember every feeling you felt in that dress.  And that is priceless.  (Well, that’s what I tell myself.)