Ideas for modern weddings

 

Why can’t weddings be fun for everyone, including for those who have to watch them ?

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About to marry ?  About to celebrate a big wedding anniversary ?  Married for a while, and thinking dark thoughts about your partner ?  Not sure about your feelings for your partner ?

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Have I got the book for you ! 

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Banish boring weddings and anniversaries !  Pep up your relationship !  Work out what to do with your partner !

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And all for just $A 14.95 ! (roughly $US 10.50)

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If you already know about the book, and would like to buy it:

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If you would like to learn more about the book, please read on:

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Who might want to read it

 

The book is an e-book primarily intended for those who are intending to have a non-religious wedding, and who might be after ideas as to how best to conduct the wedding. 

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However there are chunks of the book that might be useful to you if:

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-           you are going to publicly celebrate a wedding anniversary soon

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-           you have been married for a while, and your relationship might need a bit of a pep up

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-           you are unclear how you feel about your partner.

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What it’s about

 

Problem: Lots of weddings are too short, and too boring for those who have to watch them.

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Solution: Buy the book, and follow the advice it gives !

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Basically the book is based on the idea that it is a good thing to set the scene for a wedding by telling, immediately before the actual wedding, the story of how the partners got together.

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Doing that takes enough time to make the wedding a substantial event, and provides lots of opportunities to entertain your guests.

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Oh, and just incidentally, it makes the wedding yours – you and your partner are unique and your get-together story is like no one else’s, so making your story part of your wedding makes your wedding unique and yours – something that no one will ever see again.

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The book explores all the different ways that your story might be told, and provides lots of practical tips as to what to put into your story and how to go about telling it, and how to create things like readings to accompany it.

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If you have had the chance to read the transcript of my pre-wedding ceremony, and you liked the general idea behind it, this book will help you to come up with your own version of such a ceremony.  (The transcript is attached as an appendix to the book – that, and the origin story, is the only information on this website that is repeated in the book.)

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The book also encourages the use of meaningful cultural/religious rituals and traditions as part of non-religious weddings.

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The parts of the book that are designed to provide ideas for the stories and readings to be used at weddings (and which are quite hefty in themselves) are what might help people other than those about to marry. 

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I’m not Australian – does it matter ?

 

The book is written by an Australian, me.  Of course not being Australian matters in that you are not able to take advantage of all the things that Australians are able to take advantage of (like having ready access to sun, sand, kangaroos …), but in terms of buying this book, there is nothing in it that is particularly Australian-centric.

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However, the book won’t be terribly useful to anyone who lives in a place where civil marriage celebrants are not available, although the book has a workaround for even that situation (and for religious weddings).  So, wherever you are in the world, the book might be of some use to you.

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Cost and guarantee

 

Just in case you missed it, the cost of the book is A$14.95 (about US$10.50).

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If you buy the book, and then for any reason you are not happy with it, I will happily refund the purchase price of the book to you, so long as you ask for the refund within 90 days of the purchase.  All it takes is an email to the address shown under the contact tab.  And you can keep the book ! 

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And my apologies if you were hoping that I would guarantee that the book will make you laugh, or live happily ever afterwards once you wed in the way that I recommend.  I can’t.  The book has a serious purpose, and I am very much hoping that it will help many of those who read it.  But that’s not to say that everything in the book is serious, or that my attempts at being romantic in the book are as successful as I might have hoped.  

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Versions of the book, and your right to print it and use it

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The book exists in 3 versions: an A4 version, an A5 version and a B5 version. 

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The A4 version is about 250 pages long and is best read on a computer screen.

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The A5 version is about 510 pages long and is best read on a phone screen.

 

The B5 version is about 350 pages long, and is best read on a tablet screen.  

 

The book comes with a licence that allows you to print a hardcopy of its text for your own purposes.  There is also a licence in the book that allows you to use any material in the book for your own wedding, and there is no need to acknowledge that the material came from the book. 

 

If you buy the A5 or B4 copy, you can request by email a free copy of the A4 version for printing purposes.  Simply send the request to the address shown under the contact tab and state in the email the name in which the book was bought, and the date you bought the book.

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Warning:  It seems that some printers have formatting issues when an attempt is made to print the version of the book that you will receive if you buy it.  You would therefore be well advised to trial-print a couple of pages before attempting to print the whole book.  If the trial is unsuccessful, please ask for another copy of the book by following the instructions in the last paragraph.

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More about the other uses of the book

 

Although I wrote the book purely with those about to marry in mind, it occurred to me after I finished the book that there were things in the book that might be of interest or use to other people.  In particular:

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1.         Those who are going to publicly celebrate a wedding anniversary

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If you are going to have a public celebration of a wedding anniversary (be it your 10th, 20th, 25th, 30th, 40th, 50th, 60th or whatever), one thing you might like to consider doing is having the story of how the marriage came about told as part of the celebrations.  Appendix 2 of the book will help you do this in exactly the way that it tries to help those who are about to marry.  Even if you don’t want to tell the full story, Appendices 2 and 3 might give you ideas for what you might want to mention as part of your anniversary celebration.  (Just in case you are wondering, Appendix 2 is longer than the main part of the book, and Appendix 3 is no slouch either.)

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One or both of you might also want to consider doing a declaration of love for your partner at your celebration.  Section 8 of Appendix 3 of the book will help you do this in exactly the way that it tries to help those who are about to marry.

 

2.         Those who have been married for a while, and who might need a bit of a pep up

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If you have been married for a while, and feeling that things are perhaps a bit stale at the moment in terms of your relationship with your partner, you could pull out the wedding photos, and photos from your early days, and bring back happy memories of how it all got started.  That might help you to reset your frame of reference, and prompt you to look at things with fresher eyes.

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But lots of things that happened to you in the early days probably weren’t photographed.  But they are probably sitting as memories somewhere or other in your head.  It can be difficult to bring those memories to the front of your mind.

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Now there is a way to help you do this.  Grab the book, go to the relevant part of Appendix 2.  There are well over 100 questions about your early days.  Going through those questions should prompt an absolute flood of memories of those days.

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If you can do this with your partner, so much the better.

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You might also want to look at Section 8 of Appendix 3 of the book, which contains advice on how to write a declaration of love to your partner.  I am not suggesting that you write such a declaration, but going through all of the prompts in that Section is almost guaranteed to remind you of what attracted you to your partner, and why you are still attracted to your partner.  If you do actually go that further step and produce a declaration of love, presenting it to your partner in an appropriate setting is certainly not going to hurt your relationship.  In fact, hopefully it will put things fully back on track for both of you.

 

3.         Those who would like to try to gauge their feelings towards their partner.

 

If you are not sure about your feelings towards your partner, particularly if you have been with them for a while, you might like to look at Section 8 of Appendix 3 of the book.  As I just mentioned, it contains advice on how to write a declaration of love to your partner.  Again, I do not suggest that you need to write such a declaration, but I do recommend that you go through all of the prompts in that Section.  Having regard to those prompts, do you think you could you write a declaration of love to your partner ? 

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If you think that you could, that’s a pretty good indication that your partner is still someone you want to be with.

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If you don’t think that you could, did going through the prompts help confirm that you like and respect your partner ?  If so, depending on your circumstances, that might be all you need to confirm that your partner is still someone you want to be with.

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If you don’t think you could write a declaration of love to your partner, and if going through the book’s prompts didn’t confirm feelings of like or respect for your partner, you might need to consider doing some further soul searching as to whether your partner is the right partner for you.  (On that topic, I have a whole large Section on this website that might also be of use to you: Am I marrying the right person ? )

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Now, I hope it is clear that I am not suggesting that there is anything in the book that can definitively help you to decide how things stand with respect to your feelings for your partner, but I am confident that the prompts in Section 8 of Appendix 3 will give you positive assistance in your decision-making.  Basically, I am saying that someone who is in this position will be better placed to work through this issue if they have the prompts in hand as a guide than someone who doesn’t have those prompts in hand.  

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I note that some of these alternate uses of the book are explored in slightly greater detail in

Appendix 7 of the book.

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Anyway, what have you got to lose ?  Have a look for yourself, and if you don’t think the book can help you, you have 90 days to ask for your money back. 

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A sneak preview

 

If you would like a more detailed idea of what the book is all about, you might like to check out its table of contents, and its 1st Chapter: (there is an A4 version (for computer screens), an A5 version (for phone screens) and a B4 version (for tablet screens).