A huge shout out goes to Your Local Wedding Guide for offering Australian Wedding Suppliers FREE advertisinng with them on their website during this Coronavirus Pandemic.
And in return, all they ask is for us all to have a link back to their website to send some traffic their way! Easy done! CLICK HERE!
Couples are still getting engaged, still planning their Wedding Day, so they still need us! They might want to get married now with only the 5 people legally allowed to be there, or be planning their big day for 2021 when hopefully all this is behind us and we can hug and kiss one another like crazy!
I have advertised with Your Local Wedding Guide numerous times over the last 11 years – you can find my (free, thanks to Jeff) listing here!
Their website has a great variety of wedding suppliers from car hire, florists, photographers, to venues, make up artists and of course – CELEBRANTS!
So head on over to their website www.weddingguide.com.au and find everything you need to start planning your dream day!
Amongst this current world-wide shut down… Wedding Suppliers are still open for business!
One day (not sure when) but one day… weddings will look the way they use to – with over-flowing drinks on the dance floor, 100+ loved family and friends partying with you to celebrate your love for one another, kissing, hugging but still… keep your coughs and sneezes to yourself!
SO YES – I am still open for business.
However… dates are filling up fast with all my current couples having to postpone their dream day to later in 2020 or even early 2021…. so I suggest you get in touch quickly to make sure I am still available for your dream day!
Feel free to pop me an email at nicolepenning@gmail.com and let me know your big (or small) plans and I will check my diary for you.
Remember, all we need is love, and clean hands! Nicole. xxx
A HUGE thank you to all my 2018 couples who voted for me in the ABIA Awards last year. Thanks to all your votes I have been awarded the title of one of Melbourne’s BEST Celebrants! Ranked #4 out of the 17 listed to be exact.
I completely love what I do as a Celebrant and feel honoured every single time a couple ask me to marry them, let alone the moment I stand by their side as they exchange their vows with one another!
I feel so incredibly lucky and humbled that “I” get to do that!
This is my dream job that I get to live every single day and I truly never feel like I am working a day in my life.
I can not thank my couples, colleagues and my family & friends enough in supporting my Celebrant career over the last 10 years!
To see the ABIA list of The Top “17” Melbourne Marriage Celebrants click here!
I am super duper proud to be able to share with you all a new chapter of my career – I think personally and professionally this next step will be rewarding, challenging and life changing in ways that I clearly am not aware of just yet!
Here I was joined by some amazing business leaders in Geelong, where we will come together to inspire, motivate, challenge and lead our kids of today to be tomorrow’s leaders of our future!
The Upstart Challenge Program works through Geelong schools, mentoring secondary school kids to come up with ideas that will help change the world they and we live in, in a positive way!
WOW!!! (Didn’t have that when I was at school!)
So watch this space as I delve into the world of teenage high school kids and hopefully make a change for the better!
What brings eight celebrants, from all walks of life and with uniquely individual
personalities together? Each member of the Geelong Celebrant Collective is
dedicated and passionate about creating a truly incredible experience for their
couples. We are united in our belief that your ceremony is the start of your
celebrations, and should be crafted to reflect the people you are.
Geelong, the Bellarine and Surf Coast regions are filled with spectacular wedding
locations, and we believe couples celebrating their wedding here deserve a
premium, authentic and professional service. Our couples experience a journey with
us, full of excitement, fun and seamless support.
Let me introduce our amazingly talented, passionate, dedicated GCC Members –
As co-directors and founders of GCC, Chloe Jetson & myself hope to lead the way in the Geelong Wedding Industry, surrounded by our beautiful colleagues, in showing Geelong and it’s regions couple’s JUST HOW AMAZING their Wedding Ceremony can be!
I am very excited to continue my new career path as a Funeral Celebrant, alongside this brilliant organisation – NDAN – Natural Death Advocacy Network.
I was introduced to NDAN by my amazing mentor and Celebrant idol, Sally Cant
who is a proud advocate for natural death and dying and is strongly leading the movement for change in Victoria and Australia wide in educating families on WHAT IS POSSIBLE when you or a loved one dies.
Did you know – you can hold your Funeral Service on your favourite beach that you grew up visiting as a child on school holidays with your Grandparents?
Did you know – you can have your Funeral conducted in your backyard where you spent hours tenderly caring your beautiful flowers and vegetable patch which was your pride and joy!
Did you know – you can have your body at home, in your front lounge room where you always enjoyed a cup of tea, whilst reading your favourite novels – where your loved ones can come and visit you over a period of days…..saying their goodbyes, sharing with you their last words and holding your hand to pay their respects before your body leaves this world.
The possibilities around death, dying and funerals is endless – but the sad part is – most families DON’T KNOW THIS!
I will be proudly sharing these ideas and having these conversations with my family, my friends, my clients – and anyone that is willing to listen!
If you have any questions, or would like to know more – please feel free to ask me, or visit www.ndan.com.au for more information.
I proudly support #marriageequality and want what is right for all humans – the right to get married, the right to choose if they want to get married, the right to publically acknowledge their love for someone and have that legally recognised under our Australian Marriage Act Laws.
LGBTI+ couples rights in all other areas of Australian Law are recognised as being equal, except under the Marriage Act. As a Celebrant, reciting the Monitum {Section 46 (1) of the Marriage Act} can be a very difficult and emotional legal requirement, but by law we are obligated to do at every Wedding Ceremony we conduct.
But this is not just an issue about Marriage – this is an issue about LIFE & DEATH.
Defacto LGBTI+ partners have no rights to their deceased partner when it comes to their body, their death and their funeral!
If you can’t support #marriageequality can you support #deathequality?????
Shouldn’t all loved ones be able to make funeral arrangements for their soul mate who has passed away? This is a huge reason why I support #marriageequality and one that not many people stop to think about. Because no one does, until it it too late.
I’m #votingyes and I have lots of other reasons why. I hope you can help support the #voteyes campaign and steer Australian’s future in the right direction, one where we can proudly tell our children and our grandchildren that we helped make this world a better place, for all humans.
I was very lucky to stumble across, Bec, Lily and Barb at Autumn Lane Paperie in the United States and they came up with this pretty little number for me!
It has been over 8 years since my business had a face-lift….
so while Winter is here and every Wedding Supplier in town is working ON THEIR BUSINESS, rather than DOING their business, I thought it was time for a change!
This logo is definitely ME – gold and florals really are my thing.
I will miss my traditional black and white, but will pay tribute to my old logo every time I write a ceremony and put black font to white paper when I type!
A big thank you also to my amazing website team, Evolution Design Agency for helping me bring my new logo to life on my website! (And also taught me to do cool links like that – click on their business name!)
Designed by Evolution Design Agency
So here is to a new ME – a new LOGO and exciting times ahead at Nicole Penning Civil Celebrant!
Winter is no longer coming (thanks GOT) – it is HERE!
So to all the Brides and Grooms out there – now is your time to ACT!
(Gee, it sounds like I am selling you steak knives, but I am just passing on some words of wisdom I promise!)
It is this glorious time of year that all of us Wedding Suppliers get to sit back, relax, take a breath and STOP! Wedding Season is officially over until about September, so we don’t get long to catch up on free weekends, not having to put our make-up on or worrying if our P.A is charged or not!
But……….if you are a Bride or Groom – now is YOUR TIME to get busy!
Book in to see 2 or 3 Celebrants, go out and visit the 2 or 3 Wedding Venues you have been umming and ahhing over. You need to start researching, planning, meeting, deciding and LOCKING IN your Wedding Details – NOW!
Now is the perfect time as all of us Wedding Suppliers are FREE (not free as in our PRICE, but we have the free time to meet with you!)
In June alone this month I have seen 2-3 couples each week, because I can!
So start calling around, send those emails and make the time to meet with your florist, photographer, DJ/Band/Acoustic, venue, car hire, stylist, hair dresser, make-up artist, cake maker, dress maker……did I forget anyone? ……. CELEBRANT!
If you are getting married in Summer of 2018….it might actually already be too late – lots of the most popular Wedding Suppliers might very well already be BOOKED OUT for that time of year – so get in quick. If you are getting married in Spring or Summer of 2018 then now is your time to act! ACT NOW and we might even throw in a set of free steak knives!!! *we won’t, but I thought it would be funny to say that! 🙂
Please bare in mind, legally, you must complete the Notice of Intended Marriage and have it lodged with your Celebrant at least 1 month before your Wedding Date, for you to legally get Married, but no more than 18 months before hand – so please don’t forget!
So get on the phone, start sending out those emails – don’t get lost in the world of Facebook and Instagram or Pinterest (even though they all offer AMAZING Wedding Inspo!!!) Talk- ask around, ask those you trust, the suppliers you might already have booked in or those people who have recently got married – for who they recommend, or what their experience was like and you will soon work out who is right for you.
And finally, have fun – trust in the professionals – that is what you are paying them for. They are an investment in ensuring your Wedding Day is the best it can be, and what you have always dreamt of it being!
Remember – “may the love in your life, create a life to love.”
If you read my last BLOG post – you will know I can be a very passionate person when I want to be! (My fellow Celebrants can attest to that I know!)
I am a firm believer in supporting what you care about and following that passion to where ever it may lead.
Last year I had the empowering experience of being a Funeral Celebrant for the very first time in my career. I had the honour of leading a dear family that I love, on the hardest journey of their life – saying goodbye to their beloved family member.
It was a heart-breaking experience for me professionally and personally – but it was also one of the most rewarding moments of my life.
Being an advocate for a family, suffering life’s cruelest blows, is a role I take with extreme PRIDE.
I knew my words would affect them, and be a lasting memory that they would take away from the day, as they said farewell for the very last time.
But I wanted my words and my being there, to be able to protect them as well.
Protect them, guide them, shelter them, comfort them
Last week I had the priveledge of hearing one of this countries greatest Celebrants speak on this topic – and it gave me a new lease on life.
I found a new passion.
I am looking forward to the day when I can confidently say, “I am a Funeral Celebrant” and I will be proud and honoured to walk another family through their most difficult day.
