The SMH

Recent Posts

• ■ My take on the Sora app - Week One Oct 10, 2025
  The app that you either love or hate, from ChatGPT. My thoughts after using it a week.
• ■ Do backlinks positively affect AI search? Oct 2, 2025
  Of course the answer is yes, but how the affect AI search is so much more interesting.
• ■ Wake surfing the Betoota Advocate's wedding waves Sep 29, 2025
  The Betoota Advocate satires Australian life, but can Australians just trying to live their life benefit too?
• ■ How I Built My Own Link-In-Bio Site Jun 10, 2025
  Build your own fast, customisable, and tracking-free link in bio website using Astro — no coding experience needed. Step-by-step setup, GitHub sync, and free deployment via Netlify, Vercel, or Cloudflare Pages.
• ■ My weekly habits Jun 8, 2025
  These 15 items are on my to-do list every week. It might take 30--60 minutes but I think they're important.
• ■ A new website for Jeff's collective Apr 21, 2025
  The story of building The Togetherness Collective website for my friend Jeff, showcasing how personal connections can lead to successful client relationships.
• ■ Guide To Being Found by AI Engines Apr 20, 2025
  Discover how to optimise your business website for AI search and answer engines like ChatGPT and Perplexity
• ■ It's a good website, Brent Apr 14, 2025
  How do you know if it's a good website? Explore comprehensive website quality metrics from Ahrefs, Moz, PageSpeed Insights, Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools.
• ■ The anatomy of a good (back)link Apr 12, 2025
  Discover how to effectively link out from your website with our comprehensive guide to outbound linking strategies.
• ■ Spam Signals: A Guide to Improving Your Website's Credibility Apr 6, 2025
  When website owners first encounter Moz's Spam Score, it can trigger immediate anxiety. After all, nobody wants their legitimate business website associated with spam! However, this metric isn't meant to label your site as spam but rather to highlight characteristics that correlate with penalised domains.
• ■ Markdown And The Slow Fade Of The Formatting Fetish Apr 5, 2025
  Year after year, document formats like .docx, .ppt, and pdf lose a little bit of steam. You might not have noticed… But Markdown is growing over and into the old formats, slowly, and nicely, like moss on a stranded star destroyer. Notes on a revolution in slow motion.
• ■ How to figure out why emails we send end up in spam Apr 4, 2025
  A guide on howto use Mail-Tester to improve your email deliverability.
• ■ How Linking Out From Your Website Actually Helps Apr 3, 2025
  Discover why linking out from your celebrant website to other quality resources actually improves your SEO, builds industry relationships, and helps potential clients see you as a trusted wedding expert. Learn practical linking strategies that can boost your online presence and attract more bookings.
• ■ The Coyote vs ACME movie is finally happening Apr 1, 2025
  Deadset forgot this was even on the cards, but I'm absolutely chuffed now because Warner Brothers has finally found a buyer to distribute the legal comedy, Coyote v ACME.
• ■ Doing what the engines want is an easy way to win Apr 1, 2025
  There's an easy way to win online today if you optimise your website for the search- and answer-engines.
• ■ Example SEO audit Mar 24, 2025
  I just prepared this audit for someone else and through it might be helpful to you.
• ■ A first look at Napkin AI: corporate graphics by AI Mar 24, 2025
  Napkin describes itself as a product that gets visuals from your text
• ■ Six weeks of a new domain name with a well-built website Mar 23, 2025
  Six weeks ago I built a website on a new domain name and got these awesome results early on.
• ■ The purpose of online business directories have changed Mar 21, 2025
  The times, they are a changing.
• ■ What is a backlink? Mar 20, 2025
  A quick explainer on what a backlink is.
• ■ Failing the basics Mar 20, 2025
  Is it just me who searches Wikipedia for a company name because their web site completely fails to tell me what they do?
• ■ The basics of SEO and GEO today Mar 19, 2025
  It turns out that SEO - search engine optimisation - and GEO - geerative engine optimisation - isn't some big scary black box, they actually publish how to win on their own websites.
• ■ Air France let's us choose which fuel Mar 18, 2025
  This is nice
• ■ Prompting you to prompt Mar 1, 2025
  If you find the entire process of prompting AI chatbots for your business bewildering, here's 132 ways to get started
• ■ Obsessed Nov 18, 2024
  > The lazy lose to the average.<br /> > The average lose to the focused.<br /> > The focused lose to the obsessed.<br />
• ■ I'm not here to swipe right on bees Nov 2, 2024
  A barbershop in Canberra I visited once—when I was flying in and needed a cut before a wedding—emailed me this week.
• ■ Labour of love Oct 22, 2024
  An industry body just emailed me a PDF magazine showcasing wedding vendors and weddings from the region. The email sold it as a "labour of love", and as much as...
• ■ Plants Oct 21, 2024
  Robert Pirsig the author of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance in this interview in 1974:
• ■ Fruit Oct 20, 2024
  Some would call it picky perfectionism, others see the pursuit of excellence, I guess the difference is the fruit.
• ■ Join the POSSE Oct 19, 2024
  In 20 years you'll be thankful that from today onwards you Post on Own Site and Syndicate Elsewhere.
• ■ Schedule 19 minutes for this email Oct 18, 2024
  Don't click this YouTube link until you have 19 minutes spare to have your life changed.
• ■ Trust Oct 17, 2024
  Eric Hoffer knows where it’s at:
• ■ Other people aren't having a win Oct 16, 2024
  Someone I respect and admire - and have done for twenty years - launched a new project recently. I clicked through to it about 4 hours after they'd emailed thin...
• ■ Notes, Markdown, and a 'folder of files' Oct 15, 2024
  Do you ever think about your notes, articles, documents, thoughts, and files? No? Feel free to archive this email and we'll talk again soon.
• ■ Preventing disease Oct 14, 2024
  In Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters, Meg Meeker writes about preventing the psychological disease anorexia nervosa.
• ■ How to improve Oct 13, 2024
  James Clear writes,
• ■ Everything is hard Oct 12, 2024
  Seth Godin wrote recently that everything costs and it reminded me of my personal philosophy that everything is hard...
• ■ Precision is a job for computers Oct 11, 2024
  The collective freakout that computers, robots, AI, will take all our jobs and ruin everything is somewhat founded in a misunderstanding of what computers are g...
• ■ Enjoyment and satisfaction Oct 10, 2024
  You might have noticed I'm back and publishing. There has been no great change apart from the simple fact that I missed writing every day, and I guess the frame...
• ■ What if the hurricane wasn't that bad? Oct 9, 2024
  What if the storms in life weren't that bad, you just needed to step outside of them and take a wider view
• ■ When thy well is dry Aug 20, 2024
  A few years back, our family spent six months living in a fishing village in Baja California Sur. So many experiences from that time still define us, but there’...
• ■ Friends on Friday: Jimmie Berguin Aug 2, 2024
  I've got to be honest about Jimmie before I share his message. His burst onto the wedding scene was the first time I f...
• ■ Relay Aug 1, 2024
  Some of my favourite podcasts come from a podcast network named Relay
• ■ Cycles of life Jul 29, 2024
  My friends at WedShed surveyed 600 different wedding venues and vendors and crafted together some narrative and understanding
• ■ Friends on Friday: Jeff Maeck (again) Jul 26, 2024
  I couldn't help but get Jeff back on the letter again:
• ■ Listen and join my bubble Jul 20, 2024
  We do not exist in a vacuum. It's impossible to not be affected and influenced by all around us.
• ■ Friends on Friday: Kiera Ryan Jul 19, 2024
  Kiera is the girl that made me respect the art and craft of wedding planning. In my career, before meeting her, wedding planners had been stylists given control...
• ■ Why people stay Jul 18, 2024
  The guy behind the software I use to send this letter, Buttondown was asked
• ■ Inspiration is for amateurs Jul 17, 2024
  Painter and visual artist Chuck Close on inspiration:
• ■ Chikas, blokes & miscellaneous folks Jul 16, 2024
  Our clients'/couples' families and family-dynamics are changing, as this CBC article documents on...
• ■ Twice Jul 15, 2024
  Joseph Joubert:
• ■ This text will appear in the inbox preview, but not the email body. Jul 14, 2024
  The problem with automations is that if you don't set them up with care, it will become blatantly obvious that you don't care.
• ■ SEO, but for AI Jul 13, 2024
  My current obsession is figuring out how the different AI systems know what they know, then working that to my advantage.
• ■ Friends on Friday: Jake Smith Jul 12, 2024
  The nicest guy in the wedding industry for a decade running is Jake Smith If you ever manage to tie him down for a coffee or a meal, y...
• ■ Footwork Jul 11, 2024
  From a World Without Time
• ■ The basics Jul 10, 2024
  A celebrant just emailed me and all the links in her email signature don't work. They're mistyped.
• ■ Love the process Jul 9, 2024
  Jimmy Carr, one of the greatest comedic minds in the world today, said in an interview:
• ■ Perfection Jul 8, 2024
  !Don't strive for perfection, strive for authenticity
• ■ The one with Christopher Nolan Jul 7, 2024
  The most common question I receive from celebrants is about what to say in a ceremony? Where do we get inspiration and words from?
• ■ Enough Jul 6, 2024
  Kurt Vonnegut told a story about his friend Joe,
• ■ Friends on Friday: Glenn Mackay Jul 5, 2024
  Glenn was one of the first people I ever met in the wedding industry who ran the kind of operation I could aspire to run. Not in size...
• ■ Daily practice Jul 4, 2024
  Josh Knox's dad has been retired for almost 20 years but everyday he consults a notecard with five activities.
• ■ Choose one of these two Jul 3, 2024
  There are two movements you can take in growing your business today: floor raising and ceiling raising.
• ■ Biggest ever that I have never heard of Jul 2, 2024
  A guy named George Strait who apparently is a country music star has broken the record for the largest-ever ticketed concert in the U.S. with 110,905 people in ...
• ■ Happy EOFYS 🎉 Jun 30, 2024
  My least favourite time of year in Australia are the final days of June. Advertisers are celebrating with EOFYS end of financial year sales and small businesses...
• ■ Happiness shared Jun 29, 2024
  My goal at a wedding is to take the individual happiness of each guest and get them to share it with the rest of the audience and the couples.
• ■ Friends on Friday: Jeff Maeck Jun 28, 2024
  The people I want to listen to most are the people who want to listen to other people the most. It's an admirable trait. That's why I could listen to my friend ...
• ■ Was it stolen or did you drop the ball? Jun 27, 2024
  Friends of mine recently lost their website because the domain name expired. They claimed it was stolen. I would claim they didn't take the responsibility requi...
• ■ Where are you needed? Jun 26, 2024
  Naval Ravikant writes:
• ■ Working out how Meta social networks work now Jun 25, 2024
  If you've been on Facebook, Threads, Instagram for more than a week then you might have no idea how the platforms work today.
• ■ The maths, again Jun 24, 2024
  You can't start on step ten, you've got to start on step one.
• ■ Learn to sell Jun 23, 2024
  The curse of self-employment is having to wear all the hats: bookkeeper, janitor, salesperson, tech support, CEO, delivery person, and be the product.
• ■ Take out everything that isn't the story Jun 22, 2024
  Writing a marriage ceremony is like any other form of writing, with one big difference: in a few weeks, you'll present it publicly just once, never to be repeat...
• ■ Friends on Friday: Shaun Tolhoek Jun 21, 2024
  Shaun Tolhoek from Lemon Tree Film House on building heritage in the we...
• ■ The days can be easy Jun 20, 2024
  "The days can be easy if the years are consistent," writes James Clear.
• ■ I made a mistake Jun 19, 2024
  I felt sick when I saw my brother's wedding photo, the two of them are the middle of their first kiss and there's my big fat head right in the middle.
• ■ Wealth Jun 18, 2024
  Enjoying the work is a form of wealth.
• ■ When do you make money? Jun 17, 2024
  In an interview, Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos said of a letter received from a client, “When I read that letter, I thought, we don’t make money when we sell thing...
• ■ System of a frown Jun 16, 2024
  James Clear wrote:
• ■ Wealth Jun 15, 2024
  Nassim Taleb believes that the following list is true wealth:
• ■ Friends on Friday: Josh Mikhaiel Jun 14, 2024
  Josh Mikhaiel on being human and also being a wedding business person:
• ■ Signals never sleep Jun 14, 2024
  Twelve years ago this week I shared this infographic about the data being transferred
• ■ Sermon on the count Jun 13, 2024
  Kevin Simler's essay 'Here Be Sermons' reminded me of where I received my training to be a celebrant, in a Christian ...
• ■ Keep the magic Jun 12, 2024
  Our everyday jobs wedding-creating and magic-delivering can become rather "every day" pretty quickly.
• ■ WWDC 2024: So shareable Jun 11, 2024
  There's a large chance that most people don't know about the 2024 Apple Worldwide Developers Conference - WWDC for short - that occurred today, and rightly so, ...
• ■ Not a bad theory Jun 10, 2024
  A unified theory of fucks
• ■ The maths will always math Jun 9, 2024
  In my breakfast radio career a local band asked me for advice in getting into the music industry. My advice to them is the same advice to anyone starting anythi...
• ■ But I don’t know your new address Jun 8, 2024
  Reading Richard Feynman's letter to his late wife moved me, because it's hard to be in the w...
• ■ Pants Off Fridays/Friends On Fridays/Nico Raineau Jun 7, 2024
  Hamish &amp; Andy took Casual Fridays to another level, Pants Off Fridays (they even got U2 in on it), and it's a bit of a stretch but I want to take this daily letter to the world's best wedding creators to another level, so I'm going to start asking my friends to write to you too.
• ■ You're so busy Jun 6, 2024
  Friends comment on my volume of professional output, "you're so busy" and "how do you do it?!"
• ■ Mastery Jun 5, 2024
  I'm a sucker for interviews with masters so when David Remnick asked Seinfeld why he kept on showing up despite his wealth, age and “the extreme left and PC cr...
• ■ Wealth Jun 4, 2024
  Reputation is a form of wealth.
• ■ Best hashtags wedding creators should use to increase their reach Jun 3, 2024
  What are the best hashtags wedding creators should use to increase their reach? None
• ■ You're not a hacker Jun 2, 2024
  I've just viewed a wedding photographer's Instagram post that was cross-posted to Threads but with all the "Instagram hacks" attached.
• ■ Build your own AI Jun 1, 2024
  Want to take a dive in the deep end and run your own artificial intelligence AI large language model LLM?
• ■ I'm better than you May 30, 2024
  I'm better than you seriously, so much better than you at being me, than you could ever try to be,
• ■ The luxury wedding creator and long-term thinking May 29, 2024
  Long-term thinking, playing the long game. This is the most expensive but the most advantageous game to play, but almost no-one is doing it.
• ■ The luxury wedding creator and heritage May 28, 2024
  Heritage can't be created, but it can be celebrated. For a while there it was very cool to be the new kid on the block, but their heritage is close to zero.
• ■ The luxury wedding creator and craftsmanship May 27, 2024
  Craftsmanship is easy for wedding creators. All we do is craft and create, albeit we create ephemeral moments but those are the best things to craft because all...
• ■ The luxury wedding creator May 26, 2024
  The luxury wedding creator can take inspiration from the luxury makers of the world, like Hermes or Dior.
• ■ Why couples are price-shopping May 25, 2024
  If your service 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.
• ■ Too many celebrants May 24, 2024
  Twice a year I sit in an important government meeting about marriage law and another attendee brings up the idea that there are, apparently, too many celebrants...
• ■ That's expensive May 23, 2024
  Sir Claus Moser:
• ■ Fascinating May 22, 2024
  Jerry Seinfeld's Duke commencement speech stopped me in my tracks when he said
• ■ What inspires you May 21, 2024
  If you're a smart and intelligent person like me, you'll also say that the Star Wars franchise is one of the best series of movies and movie franchise ever made...
• ■ Tribal marketing May 20, 2024
  40 years ago earlier this year the Apple Macintosh was revealed and launched into homes and offices around the world. I'm typing this on a remarkably newer, fas...
• ■ Gift them time May 19, 2024
  Simone Davies writes in The Montessori Toddler
• ■ Skill of separation May 18, 2024
  For the self-employed, the solo-celebrant or officiant a valuable skill you should have is the ability to separate one thing from another. To "prevent the small...
• ■ Be Wally May 17, 2024
  Any given day on social media there's an outrage. Whether Apple published an advertisement that upset trumpet players, or the politician made a call your aunty ...
• ■ On brand May 16, 2024
  Who knows you is more important than who you know. That's why we build:
• ■ You've trapped yourself May 15, 2024
  Bridget Ann Henisch in Fast and Feast wrote:
• ■ 15 years May 14, 2024
  15 years ago a letter arrived in the mail letting me know that as of 15 years ago today, the 14th of May, I had been appointed a Commonwealth Authorised Marriag...
• ■ It's ok to make a dollar May 13, 2024
  Reading this morning about FTX - the crypto exchange that went bankrupt and who's founder was convicted of fraud - is actually now solvent, which means the comp...
• ■ I isn't everyone May 12, 2024
  Viewing a Friend A's business website with Friend B, Friend B thought there was a lot of text.
• ■ Love thy neighbour May 11, 2024
  My favourite biblical commandment is "Love your neighbour as yourself" because it predicates knowing your neighbour well enough to love and care for them on kno...
• ■ Next steps with ChatGPT May 10, 2024
  Ben has been using ChatGPT to help provide ideation and structure for emails, blogs, and social media content and he's asking about next steps, what's the next ...
• ■ Imagine your followers are the stupidest people alive May 9, 2024
  The man who taught me radio and communication passed away this week, Stan Hillard is his name, so to h...
• ■ Imbue value May 8, 2024
  If you want to be valued, which is to say, if you want couples to pay that big fancy price you charge, you need to value yourself, value your clients, and value...
• ■ Two ears, one mouth May 7, 2024
  I completely rewrote todays marriage ceremony just before I delivered it — I’m in Queenstown, New Zealand for a few couples this week — after spending the tw...
• ■ Serve the selfish May 6, 2024
  Seneca wrote
• ■ What and why do you do that ceremony? May 5, 2024
  Your style of presenting a ceremony is different to mine, and most likely different to everyone else's.
• ■ What an advantage May 4, 2024
  Mark Twain wrote “the man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read” which is not only true for reading, but for all exercises of intellec...
• ■ Cruising speed May 3, 2024
  Any fool with a Squarespace website and a Google Ads account can start a business. Our society puts so much value on starting, and perhaps its rightly so.
• ■ Make a life for yourself May 2, 2024
  The beautiful thing about being a wedding officiant or celebrant is that we get to craft a life for ourselves. What kind of celebrant we are, what product we pr...
• ■ Seeing things as they are May 1, 2024
  Our dreams and our hopes are not grounded in reality, instead they originate from only what we have seen and known.
• ■ My number one strategy for becoming a six-figure wedding celebrant Apr 29, 2024
  Are you ready to earn more money and make it big as a wedding celebrant or officiant?
• ■ Desperate for community and leadership Apr 28, 2024
  You have a unique opportunity to create community and provide leadership in your local wedding industry. Celebrants and officiants are independent, often solo, ...
• ■ I can't help you Apr 27, 2024
  Unless you actually employed me to come into your business and handed me the keyboard, trackpad, the keys to your office, I can't actually help you.
• ■ The billion dollar celebrant Apr 23, 2024
  In a recent interview, OpenAI cofounder Sam Altman said:
• ■ Create for you Apr 21, 2024
  Author and podcaster Glennon Doyle spoke on the courage to be yourself:
• ■ Try, try, and try again Apr 19, 2024
  I'm inspired and encouraged watching Taylor Tomlinson
• ■ Here's to the crazy ones Apr 18, 2024
  Steve Jobs voice from late nineties Apple advertising campaign read
• ■ Local knowledge for a wedding ceremony Apr 17, 2024
  I like to work in local knowledge and context to my ceremonies, and NearbyWiki helps me do that. It shows me Wikipedia articles near a...
• ■ The only way forward is your way Apr 16, 2024
  Visiting my friend Annie today I was reminded of her unique and awesome business which has been uniquely shaped by her personality,...
• ■ Talking instead of questionnaires Apr 15, 2024
  It's so common for celebrants and officiants to send a questionnaire to help them create a ceremony for couples.
• ■ The hard thing about buying a printer Apr 13, 2024
  All the printers are lined up on a shelf so we can choose one based on aesthetics, but truth be told we don't care what the printer looks like, we need it print...
• ■ Drummer seeks band Apr 12, 2024
  “Drummer seeks musicians to form band.” That sign hung up on the wall of a high school in Dublin in 1978. It changed the course of music history. This is the...
• ■ Ditch the breakfast buffet Apr 11, 2024
  I've stayed in enough hotels around the globe to know that the hotel buffet breakfast is a global institution. You also don't need to be a published food critic...
• ■ Put a ring on it Apr 10, 2024
  Here's a free thing to say in your next wedding ceremony.
• ■ The one secret to engaging online content Apr 9, 2024
  Care. Care and empathy are the currencies of the post-AI world.
• ■ Inspired by a restaurant menu Apr 8, 2024
  The New York Times reviewed 121 rest...
• ■ Perfection in ceremony Apr 7, 2024
  The French writer, poet, and aviator Antoine de Saint Exupéry said,
• ■ Accountability Apr 6, 2024
  The curse and blessing of my business as a celebrant is my independence. I know my North American brethern often work in larger studios of officiants, one frien...
• ■ Get out of your head Apr 5, 2024
  It is so hard to fight an enemy who has outposts in your head. I'm not going to lie, the way the government response to covid ruined our family business and fin...
• ■ Sealed with a K.I.S.S. Apr 4, 2024
  "One of the greatest ways to avoid trouble is to keep it simple" was Charlie Munger's catch cry.
• ■ All prayer in pursuit Apr 3, 2024
  Timothy Keller wrote that "all prayer, pursued far enough, becomes praise" and I'd encourage you to replace or further the word 'prayer' with the deepest groans...
• ■ Write so you may be judged Apr 2, 2024
  An author I adore, Adam Grant, once tweeted
• ■ A good website is no joke Apr 1, 2024
  A comedian I follow on Threads recently posted
• ■ Running out of new ideas? Mar 31, 2024
  Adam Grant wrote in Originals:
• ■ How to accept international payments Mar 30, 2024
  Tim asks how I accept payments across borders?
• ■ Do you know what you want? Mar 29, 2024
  We often consider ourselves - celebrants, people who create ceremony - to be people that are only giving to a wedding.
• ■ Spend a year deciding Mar 28, 2024
  We waste so much of our precious time with short-term thinking and value-less work that keeps us busy. Warren Buffett spends a year deciding and a day acting...
• ■ Invent a new ceremony Mar 27, 2024
  To invent you have to experiment, and if you know in advance that it’s going to work, it’s not an experiment. Invent and experiment in your ceremony
• ■ Buying Mar 26, 2024
  In Oprah Winfrey</em> by George Ilian, what people actually buy is detailed like this: People don't buy products, they buy emotions. Wh...
• ■ AI is a forklift Mar 25, 2024
  Most of the talk about artificial intelligence, large language models, ChatGPT and its competitors, is about it taking over creative work.
• ■ Schedule a day off and a holiday Mar 24, 2024
  When someone books you to be their wedding celebrant they're expecting you at full energy, full-on, 100% of you, on that day. It's impossible for you to deli...
• ■ Sorry for the family Mar 23, 2024
  "Friends are God's way of apologising for your relatives" is the old saying. Friends are also how marketing should work, and how it did work before the indus...
• ■ This is one in over one billion pieces of content created today Mar 22, 2024
  Over one billion new pieces of content were created today. Videos, blogs, posts, photos, emails. It&39;s overwhelming being a creator in this economy....
• ■ Two of my heroes Mar 21, 2024
  I - and you - do not exist in a vacuum. It's impossible to not be affected and influenced by all around us.
• ■ What I want to do vs. what I can do Mar 20, 2024
  A friend asked me today why I did weddings and not all the other things I'm passionate about and talk about all day, like technology, business systems workflows...
• ■ Are you all talk or do you like to do things too? Mar 19, 2024
  There's been some really good advice shared in these emails, and there's still more, I've got more notes than you could imagine on topics or aspects of weddings...
• ■ The 20 year fashion cycle Mar 18, 2024
  The cyclical rule about trends and fashion says
• ■ Have you received one of your invoices? Mar 17, 2024
  In my dual role as celebrant and also bookkeeper for my wife's business The Elopement Collective I receive and pay invoices for t...
• ■ Good strategy Mar 16, 2024
  Your best strategy should be simple and powerful. Easy enough to explain to a friend, honest enough to explain to a client.
• ■ Are you better yet? Mar 15, 2024
  I'm thinking about a quote from someone famous that I can't exactly recall about how 'a man who thinks the same thing at 25 and 35 is a foolish man' as I watch ...
• ■ Are your emails even being delivered? Mar 14, 2024
  In February 2024 Google and Yahoo's email divisions implemented big changes to how emails could be delivered and if they would be deemed spam or junk mail.
• ■ Are you telling people information, or answering questions on your blog? Mar 13, 2024
  Of the 8.5 billion searches a day on Google, 680 million of them, eight percent, are questions.
• ■ Which customer relationship management software is the right one? Mar 12, 2024
  From the list of Honeybook 17Hats Dubsado ClickUp Monday
• ■ Annie Leibovitz Mar 10, 2024
  A friend refused to use his own name as the name of his wedding business because he was worried people wouldn't spell it properly so I asked him to spell Annie ...
• ■ The thing about being remarkable Mar 9, 2024
  There's a spectacular mountain range surrounding Queenstown in New Zealand named "The Remarkables".
• ■ "Why would they take you to Iceland?" Mar 8, 2024
  Sitting down for a coffee with my grandma a week after I returned from Iceland in 2016 I was excited to show her photos of the marriage ceremonies I'd made ther...
• ■ "Celebrants near me" doesn't work anymore Mar 7, 2024
  Being the best local wedding celebrant near me today doesn't mean as much as it used to in the days of the Yellowpages.
• ■ Your website is where you make your first real impression Mar 6, 2024
  I woke up this morning to a flurry of text messages from friends about how Instagram and Facebook was down. One of the friends is someone I've been telling for ...
• ■ Empathy. Focus. Impute. Mar 5, 2024
  In Walter Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs he detailed the Apple marketing philosophy that I still witness in the company today:
• ■ Changing your tools Mar 4, 2024
  I'm always looking for opportunities to change up my tools. It's the easiest way for me to assess what I have been doing and using, and to find out whether ther...
• ■ On the internet, nobody knows you're a dog Mar 3, 2024
  It can be a bit lonely here in self-employment and solo-employment land, that's why I created the Campfire link in email footer, but I also love your email repl...
• ■ Privacy is a major concern of mine for celebrants Mar 2, 2024
  As wedding celebrants we collect a mountain of data about our clients, some is strict stuff like names and dates of birth, but the most interesting data to a ha...
• ■ So, so, so rare Feb 29, 2024
  The chances that someone is born on February 29 is one in 1,461.
• ■ Religious ceremony or civil? Feb 27, 2024
  Right now, 28% of U.S. adults are religiously unaffiliated, and they’re one of the fastest-growing religious — or nonreligious — groups in America. An even larg...
• ■ Be or pretend Feb 26, 2024
  At a time when his fate was being decided by TV executives, and his agent was trying to convince him to talk to another TV network, David Letterman decided you ...
• ■ Automating a common email reply Feb 25, 2024
  Earlier this week I wrote how we had to write basically the same reply every time someone didn't read a page on our website.
• ■ Money for nothing and the points are free Feb 24, 2024
  I've just taken a quick trip to Noosa for an elopement and I flew the same airline I always fly.
• ■ Attention is the goal Feb 23, 2024
  Only 20 years ago the common person had one source of information, if any — the local newspaper.
• ■ Turn your email replies into content Feb 22, 2024
  At the Celebrant Institute we offer a few different services, one of which is the Certificate IV in Celebrancy. People wanting to bec...
• ■ Look for trend lines Feb 21, 2024
  We're in the business of connecting with, selling to, and marrying real humans who live in the real world - not the wedding industry world.
• ■ The social media we knew is dead, long live the social media Feb 20, 2024
  The Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, Twitter, Myspace, MSN Messenger, social network we connected with each other on years ago is dead. Those places have either gon...
• ■ The reason you won't increase your fee today Feb 19, 2024
  The reason you won't increase your fee is because of the accountability that comes with a price.
• ■ Celebrant > Officiant Feb 18, 2024
  Why do I call our job celebrant and not officiant like everyone outside of Australia does? As one is apt to do at a wedding, allow me to quote the dictionary...
• ■ Google's computer is the real SEO expert Feb 16, 2024
  Many of us still get SEO confused, so Neil Patel&39;s advice on using Google&39;s LLM chatb...
• ■ How can I help you? Feb 15, 2024
  One of the most viral, most effective, and most legacy building Facebook statuses I've ever posted was five words long: "How can I help you?"
• ■ Sacred Awe #7: The script is dead, long live the script Feb 14, 2024
  I believe that a wedding should feel and sound better than it looks and there's something about reading word for word from a page that taints that. The truth...
• ■ Sacred Awe #6: Be fun, not funny Feb 13, 2024
  Hamish and Andy make one of the best and longest running radio shows and podcasts in Australia, and everyone would describe them as funny.
• ■ Sacred Awe #5: Know the direction Feb 12, 2024
  The marriage ceremony isn't the closing ceremony. It's not a funeral for their single, dating, courting life. The wedding isn't a participation certificate for ...
• ■ Sacred Awe #4: What is actually happening? Feb 11, 2024
  This isn't rocket surgery, and it's not a walk in the park. This is a marriage ceremony. With or without all the trimmings, flowers, photographer, champagne, ni...
• ■ Sacred Awe #3: Relish the moment Feb 10, 2024
  I witnessed a celebrant performing a marriage ceremony from a display book, one of those books with plastic envelopes in it that you insert your printed paper i...
• ■ Sacred Awe #2: Create, don't recreate Feb 9, 2024
  If you believed the hype you'd believe the world wants mass-produced goods, manufactured for the millions.
• ■ Sacred Awe #1: Listen but not to synecdoches Feb 8, 2024
  A redeeming feature of people who actually are authorities, experts, gurus, specialists, is that you would never hear them say so - because they listen more tha...
• ■ The greatest ceremony ever Feb 7, 2024
  I often find myself by the concept of award ceremonies for creatives - especially for wedding celebrants - because I simply don't think we're in a race and I co...
• ■ Sacred Awe Feb 6, 2024
  We're all trying to do different things when we create a marriage ceremony. Me, I don't merely want to create a wedding that is just fine and ok.
• ■ Domesticate your email inbox Feb 5, 2024
  For 11 years I have made a full-time living through email. People email me, I reply, they reply, I reply, money turns up in my bank account.
• ■ If I visit your website Feb 4, 2024
  If I visit your wedding officiant website, in the first moments can I determine:
• ■ 18 minutes is the perfect ceremony length Feb 3, 2024
  Whenever a couple ask me how long my wedding ceremonies are I can always give the same easy answer: about 18 minutes.
• ■ Gen Z is the queerest adult generation to date Feb 2, 2024
  Nearly 30% of Gen Z American adults identify as LGBTQ
• ■ Considering the five senses Feb 1, 2024
  As the person creating and leading a wedding ceremony consider the five senses in ceremony creation.