Brisbane City Celebrants Archives - Brisbane City Celebrants

With Celebrant Cara Hodge of Jamie + Cara – Brisbane City Celebrants

What an incredible day it was celebrating Gemma and Chris’s colour filled wedding at Cupo Venue.

5 STARS “Thank you so much for everything leading up to and on the day! Definitely 5 out of 5 from us. We had so much fun, thank you again” Gemma + Chris

When I first met with Gemma and Chris to start planning and designing their wedding ceremony, I remember how excited they were as they shared all the details of their upcoming wedding at Cupo Venue, a funky function space in Fortitude Valley.

At the time Cupo Venue was a new venue to the Brisbane wedding scene and this was my first wedding at this venue which added to my excitement of the day.

Gemma told me how the venue was very much a blank canvas that they could decorate and set up however they wished. In keeping with the ceremony vibe of a happy celebratory day, the flower brief to her Florist was for bright and colourful seasonal arrangements. They also created low chill out seating and picnic areas, for guests to gather and chill in a relaxed way.

The venues pallet backdrop wall was beautifully decorated with flowers by Garden Graffiti and twinkling lights.

While there weren’t too many surprises with this modern wedding, with Chris having seen the dress and pink shoes Gemma had picked to wear, long before the day, the happy couple did decide to share surprise vows with each other which they shared for the first time during the ceremony.

It always amazes me when I see the similarities couples include in their surprise vows to each other. Amongst their beautiful heartfelt words to each other, Chris said:

“I look forward to all the memories we are going to make together, the Sundays spent on the couch and the trips to Kmart for “just one thing”.

And alluding to the same thing, Gemma said to Chris:

“I can’t promise that I won’t buy all the cushions from Kmart, but I can promise to support you in your never-ending quest to own all the sneakers.”

Needless to say their words were a huge hit to each other!

Their wedding was captured by Terry from Soul Bridge Media, a long term friend of Chris which added to the relaxed enjoyable vibe of the day. They laughed and cried happy tears and their ceremony was truly perfect in every way.

After they exchanged rings they were introduced as husband and wife and their guests cheered loudly!

After the ceremony drinks circulated and while the group photo took place, the venue speedily turned the room around converting the ceremony area, to a long wedding reception table, filled with beautiful bright florals.

Congratulations to the happy newlyweds and thank you for choosing me as your Celebrant for your wedding at Cupo Venue.

Cara Hodge – Jamie + Cara – Brisbane City Celebrants

Photography: Soulbridge Media

Venue: Cupo Concept Venue Brisbane

Florist Garden Graffiti

If you enjoyed this post and you are looking for a Celebrant for your wedding at Cupo Venue or elsewhere in Brisbane, Cara would love to hear from you. Contact Cara now for more information and to start planning your special ceremony.

Tips to ensure a professional Celebrant experience

With Brisbane City Celebrants

We are genuinely passionate about being professional Marriage Celebrants, so we have dedicating our very first blog submission to providing some helpful tips to assist couples with choosing the right Celebrant for them and some pointers on how to avoid some of the common issues couples experience with some Celebrants.

This could potentially be some of the best advice you will hear to ensure you dream wedding is exactly that.

Getting the Names right: One of the worst Celebrant horror stories we have heard about is Celebrants not getting the couples names correct, or using the wrong persons name in the ceremony. This is absolutely not acceptable and could potentially jepordise the legalities of a marriage. This is easily avoided if the couple simply requests to see (approve) a final draft of the ceremony that will be read on the day.

By viewing the final draft this also prevents the issue of the Celebrant reading the wrong ceremony which is what happened to one Brisbane bride. Her Celebrant read a completely different ceremony to the one they had chosen and didn’t include the reading the brides best friend was expecting to present (while I won’t disclose the Celebrants name I can assure you it was neither of us!). Before we became Celebrants, we happened to be present when Jamies brother and fiancée met with their Celebrant, the bride to be’s only request was that there were no ‘obeys’ in the ceremony, low and behold as the ceremony took place and the couple went to repeat their vows after the Celebrant, I couldn’t believe my ears when I heard her repeating that she will obey him etc. While the Celebrant in question may have needed to work on his listening skills (and perhaps his ceremony writing skills), again, this could have easily been avoided if a final ceremony had been proof read/ approved by the couple.

What we do: At Brisbane City Celebrants we LOVE being Celebrants and we would never jeopardise our clients special day, we provide couples with the initial draft of their ceremony (usually within days of the initial meeting), we encourage changes to be made and the couples own ‘love story’ to be included, several drafts of the ceremony my go back and fourth and we ensure couples ideas are incorporated. Finally, we always provide our couples with their finalised ceremony for them to confirm before the special day.

2. Dress code: If you haven’t already done so confirm the dress code with the Celebrant (e.g. let them know if it’s formal so they know to suit up)

What we do: Typically Jamie wears a freshly dry cleaned tailored business suit and Cara always wears a business suit or dress but more importantly we check with our clients what is appropriate, occasionally we dress it down a little at the couples request for example for surprise weddings when we are posing as guests.

3. The Kiss: The first kiss as a married couple is a moment in time that you will treasure and an image that the photographer will be keen to capture, most couples prefer not to have the Celebrant awkwardly floating in the middle of this special photo. Just in case they are unaware of this etiquette, we suggest you kindly check with (or ask) your Celebrant to step out of the way for when the kiss takes place.

What we do: If the couple have requested that we are stood with them for the ceremony, we simply step to the side out of the frame before the kiss takes place allowing the photographer to snap away as the guests applaud in excitement!

If you are looking for a professional Brisbane Celebrant for your wedding ceremony we would love to hear from you. Contact Brisbane City Celebrants for more information and to confirm availability for your special day.