How to write wedding vows

Jul 9, 2020

How to write a wedding ceremony: Charis White is a Melbourne wedding celebrant with an enormous amount of experience in weddings large and small all over greater Melbourne and Victoria, for every type of couple you can imagine. With all her experience in running brilliant ceremonies, Charis shares her thoughts on how to write a wedding ceremony, how to write your vows, and how to ensure that it’s a smooth experience – especially for the shy and introverted.

How to write a wedding ceremony: tips from Charis White

When you consider how to write a wedding ceremony, what are the perfect elements a great one, and how do you personally service them?  

How to write wedding vows


Getting to know the couple well means they will have a great ceremony. At a wedding I did recently, a guest asked if I was a friend of the couples. This is the best compliment ever as it shows I really know them and reflected their story in an awesome way. 

How to write wedding vows

Do you recommend a process for couples to think about their vows content? 


I ask them if they have an idea about what they want to talk about. If not, then I give them some vow inspiration to look over and guide them along. I also read over the vows and offer advice and guidance. 

What are your best tips for couples that are shy at the idea of being vulnerable in front of their community? 

how to write wedding vows


I tell them to face each other, that way they are only seeing the face of their bestie.  If you are nervous, a reassured look can calm you down. I am also up there with them to reassure them and guide them through the process. 

How do you take the inner vibes of your couples and translate that into an overall wedding ceremony that’s meaningful to them and congruent to their vows? 

Laura in the incredible Suzanne Harward songbird gown also featured here.


When I meet my couples, we have a chat about their day, their expectations and the overall vibe they want their ceremony to take. Once we have chatted through their story, I send them a questionnaire with more comprehensive questions. I also give my clients the draft to look over, it reassures them.

In terms of their vows (see Jake writing his wedding vows), I cast my eyes over them to make sure they are both semi aligned. EG, if one vow is very funny, then I will go to the other person and tell them to weave in a little humour.

That way they are both balanced. 

How do you ensure that aside from the couple, their family and community is entertained or spoken to by the ceremony?

Suzanne Harward Songbird Gala Gown


I talk about family and friends in the ceremony. I also love engaging with people prior to the ceremony, especially the oldies and kids.

If there is a way to weave a few friends into the ceremony story, I love to do this and love the relatability of it. 

I see a lot of vows written the morning of the wedding. Brave! What is your advice on writing the vows ahead of time or in the moment on the day? 

How to write wedding vows

Laura and Walker looking super cinematic. See why I shoot film.


My advice is totally against this. Actually, I bully them into giving them to me prior. JK. If the couple wants me to have their vows, so they do not need to carry anything on the day of their wedding. I ask for the vows prior to the ceremony. I then populate them into the final draft.

My timeline on this is at least two weeks prior to the ceremony. Sometimes I get them the morning of.

However, most couples are pretty good with getting them to me on time. I also look over their vows prior to the ceremony.  

Long story short – don’t leave your vows until the last minute!

Your top three parting tips for couples looking to hire a celebrant? 


Follow your gut, trust the process and believe in your team. 

Find Charis White online (and hire her for your Melbourne elopement):

Charis White Celebrant Website
Charis White Celebrant Instagram

See here for how to plan wedding music.

I DO Drive Thru wedding melbourne

Jul 8, 2020

I Do Drive Thru is a worldwide wedding startup, helping couples get hitched in the middle of Covid19 while adhering to the restrictions and saving the partying for later. Since launching in Melbourne as a drive through wedding service, it’s spread nationally, and has since popped up all over the USA. Melbourne wedding celebrant Mel (who also moonlights as The Ceremony Store) runs us through why it started and how it’s helped couples all over the world.

Who are you and what do you do at I Do Drive Thru?

I’ve been a Marriage and Funeral Celebrant for 15 years and own the companies, The Ceremony Store, The I Do Drive Thru and The Last Time.  I am also a Celebrant Trainer with Australian Celebrations Training, Furniture Maker, Writer, Mother and Wife but I have always wanted to be an Electrician.

I am obsessed with learning as much as I can in this lifetime, I am perpetually curious. I try one new task every year until I get good at it, then I move on: I have learnt lock-picking, languages, carpentry, metal-detecting, and written a book.

I Do Drive Thru

When COVID 19 became a part of our world I was given medical advice to isolate which meant I could no longer do weddings. The next day I gave away/rescheduled 17 weddings and it was, to say the least; devastating, not just for me, but for my couples. Not only that, I felt horribly guilty giving my weddings to other Celebrants who could possibly get COVID.

That night I lay awake thinking about how I could keep those Celebrants safe and keep working from home during COVID.

To digress, I have always been a bit obsessed with Vegas style weddings and in my early Celebrancy career, I used to ride my red postie motorbike to weddings dressed as Elvis. It just seemed pretty natural that Vegas-vibed drive thru weddings and getting couples to stay in their cars while getting married and keeping the Celebrant distanced was the answer to all of my problems.

The next morning I texted 3 of the most awesome Celes I know, said let’s start this business, and all of them said yes without hesitation and 8 days later, we had a business name, logo, website and a press release. On our launch day we had over 32 calls from the press, 10 enquiries and booked our very first wedding.

Just by chance, my co-founders Kate, Zena and Klara were the perfect combo to get everything going, and the main driver between all of us was the passion to continue working while this crisis was going on around us. 

We all love what we do and while we all kind of felt like sitting around grieving for what we had lost, we forced ourselves to build something new to fit with the changed times. Our catch cry became ‘we will work that out later’ as the business moved so incredibly quickly.

I honestly believe that anyone can do anything they set their mind to, impossible isn’t in my vocabulary. Any skill can be learned, any work can be completed no matter what limits there are, so we worked 19-20 hours days for that first week and we pulled it off.

The most rewarding thing about starting the business was the instant gratification we got with the media interest, we knew that our idea was good and the public interest confirmed that.

I Do Drive Thru seemed to grow incredibly quickly. How has it felt seeing it take off, and at such scale?

I Do Drive Thru
Klara McMurray celebrant in action for I Do Drive Thru.

My gorgeous co-founders put so much trust in me right from the get go. We organised everything via phone, zoom and email, we have only sat in the same space once since we started the business, which is pretty incredible. 

On launch day, seeing Klara on the 6pm news launching our business was such an achievement and then to replicate that model in each state over and over and then in the US has been amazing!

We now have 21 Celebrants working Aus wide with us and 2 in the US.  

How has I Do Drive Thru seamlessly melted into the industry as it exists currently?

Celebrants weren’t the only people affected by COVID, it’s also the photographers, venue owners, car hire companies, florists, everyone has been affected in our industry. We worked hard to create a model that could encompass as many of these suppliers in local communities as possible, so they could be involved too. 

A huge benefit to our business has been that we managed to snag some of the best photographers in Australia to work with us and these artists have provided some of the most epic photos of ceremonies. 

Having these professional images to share with potential couples so they can see that tiny weddings can be so intimate and beautiful and moving has been incredible, a professional picture really is worth a thousand words.

Bringing work to all types of wedding industry professionals, while they were feeling pretty down about losing their own work, has given us all the warm fuzzies.

Have there been any themes to the type stories and couples coming through I Do Drive Thru?

Our couples really range in age, we have had couple in their 20’s to couple’s in their 80’s. The similarity between them is that they really want to get married, but feel like they don’t fit into the white wedding dress/getting given away by Dad/first dance scenario. We have had couples that have stayed in their car for the ceremony, gotten out and married under trees, created convoys so family and friends can come and watch and couples have arrived via cars, helicopters, motorbikes and bicycles.

My fave couple so far is a couple where the Bride recently became paraplegic and she is still getting used to navigating new places and feels a little self-conscious. 

Her Fiancé just wanted to marry her, because in his words, ‘she is the most amazing woman in the world’.  When they heard about the Drive Thru and she saw that she didn’t have to get out of the car and worry about wheelchair logistics, she cried, because this was the only way she felt comfortable getting married. 

How do you see both the future of weddings and your place within it at I Do Drive Thru?

I Do Drive Thru

COVID is going to be here for a while. It’s not going to magically disappear, and I honestly think this will impact the wedding industry for years. 

In the short term we have the uncertainty of not knowing when we can go back to booking big celebrations and it makes planning pretty impossible.

Then when restrictions are lifted then yes, technically, we can go back to bigger celebrations, but is it a celebration if you can’t hug your Nan when you walk back down the aisle? Is it a celebration if you can’t share a shot glass or eat bread out of the same breadbasket? 

The effects of social distancing will continue to live on, especially when it comes to celebrating that way that we are used to.

Celebrant Zena Lythgow in action for I Do Drive Thru with the Covid wedding Melbourne of Adriana and Caleb.

A surprising side-effect to this whole COVID scenario, is that suddenly eloping isn’t taboo, eloping makes you responsible, kinda like a hero, you are protecting your community by having a small wedding and that shift in thinking has been kinda rad.

People have been eloping because there isn’t the stigma attached to it anymore, heck the government practically endorsed eloping when you were only allowed to have the marrying couple and two witnesses present.

Any key advice for couples considering getting married during or after Covid19?

I Do Drive Thru

My advice to couples during COVID has been to follow your heart and remember that there is a huge difference between a marriage and a wedding. (Check out Will and Jac for Melbourne wedding planning). 

If you wanna get married, get married, do it, commit to your lover, that’s so important, don’t let COVID stop you. There is literally no better time to love and be loved than right now, having companionship during a crisis is what will get you through it.

When people ask what you did during COVID how totally romantic is it to say that you married your honey and then shacked up in iso together? (Side note – like this Blue Mountains Elopement).

I Do Drive Thru

If your heart is set on a wedding that encompasses family and friends, then wait, but wait until COVID is dead and gone and we can hug again.  Have a huge wedding down the track, when you can handshake and dance, but you will have to be patient.  

And for those that want both, do it! Have the most romantic, sweet tiny ceremony now and make it all about each other, then have a huge wedding party later on-best of both worlds.

There’s so many polarising stances on dealing with this from a business perspective, especially when small-business in the events space is exposed to the extreme end of the risk dial. What’s your advice to businesses navigating this sustainably, while continuing to place their couples first?

Running a business during a pandemic is tough. Terms and conditions/your contract/Statement of Fees documents are everything. Mine was pretty broad but certainly never covered a killer virus!

I always say to other Celebrants be tough on paper, but soft in reality. You have to have your rules in place, but be flexible, don’t forget everyone is going through something and creating relationships, and word of mouth recommendations in this business is what it is all about. 

I always rule with my heart and not my head, so I certainly don’t set the best example for other business owners, but I find if you treat people with kindness then that’s what you will get back.

What’s been a personal joy you’ve gotten through this whirlwind?

I have always gotten more out of what I do for others, than what I do for myself, so to create a business that has helped so people feel good and have a bit of purpose during COVID has probably been one of the most rewarding things I have done for a long time.

Find I Do Drive Thru online

I Do Drive Thru

I Do Drive Thru website
I Do Drive Thru instagram

All photos on this page are from I Do Drive Thru weddings by Briars Atlas. Images may be re-posted with credit and a link to this site.

For more info on how to get married during Covid 19 away from a drive thru wedding, check out these small wedding venues in Melbourne, and this information piece on having a Melbourne City elopement during Covid 19.

To have your small Melbourne City elopement filmed by the best wedding videographers in town, check out Bottlebrush Films as they’re doing filming for overseas guests and relatives who can’t make it.

Melbourne Wedding Celebrant Anthony Cribbes

Jun 24, 2020

Anthony Cribbes – recipient of the most debonair hair-sweep, occasional farmer (only, or mostly during pandemics), wedding celebrant, founder of The Celebrant A List, and one part of the trio behind the iconic Collingwood Wedding chapel The Altar Electric.

Read on for all this and all the other things he does that didn’t fit in this sentence.

With Covid forcing us all indoors and all manner of brilliant doorstep portrait projects happening, I wanted to kickstart some convos with my local community and find out how the time and strange space is being used, as it’s never been more important to stay connected and sharing.

What changes did the percolation time of ISO make to your view of doing business generally?

Man what a time ISO LYF has been! I live in the country but for the last 5 years it feels like the road is more my home. Being able to stay closer to home has made me realised that I will be putting a priority on focussing my business in a more local sense.

It’s almost like I guess you could say that I am becoming a business cliched bourgeoisie and opting for a ’tree-change’ or ‘downsizing’… only I promise I am doing it in a non-pretentious way, not so I can start a new Insta account of: ‘My journey from big city life to self discovery’ kind of crap.

What role are you actively playing in the “new world” and how does Anthony Cribbes Celebrant see this benefiting couples?

Before ISO I was passionate about community and quality over quantity. I see weddings now moving from a ‘bigger and better’ world to one where people are placing a premium on the connection.

This means I can see a lot more smaller weddings happening. We actually made a change to the Altar Electric around 6 months ago for this very reason, we didn’t just want to be offering registry style weddings, we wanted people to be able to have a small wedding celebration.

One that was about creating great moments but didn’t bring with it the anxiety inducing costs.

The Altar Electric Melbourne Wedding Chapel
The Altar Electric wedding chapel

You were ahead of the curve with The Altar Electric. Was this always the vision, are you generally a wizard, and either way has the vision for the space changed after Covid?

Haha…I’ll leave the Wizardry stuff to my mates out at Hogwarts. Altar Electric is actually Dee and Sarah’s (my amazing business partners) original concept, I just helped give it the nudge.

Initially we were thinking it would be about Registry Weddings…but in the end we realised what we were actually tapping into was a whole new vein of thinking from pockets in the community. We didn’t realise just how under served the small wedding market was.

From our understanding that wasn’t due to a lack of desire but more a lack of supply from an industry that was focussed on large groups only essentially.-

With your work running the Celebrant A List and seeing a huge cross section of the industry, what advice do you have for melbourne wedding celebrants in generating a sustainable business?

The Altar Electric Melbourne Wedding Chapel
Briars Atlas – Altar Electric

Oh so many! I think the biggest thing anything Celebrant can do is to not get carried away with their own ego, I see it all over the place and could also be accused of being guilty of it myself.

I think once you start telling yourself you’ve made ‘it’, things will turn, because it’s at this stage when people stop evolving, adapting, learning and improving.

I am definitely a way different Celebrant in terms of my style now then I was 5 years ago when I first started. How I win my work is also drastically different.

We can always learn from anyone… right now the people I am learning the most from are the Celebrants who are only 1-2 years into the business but are completely slaying it…also avoid having a gimmick, it will run dry very quickly, just be genuine.

The Altar Electric Melbourne Wedding Chapel

Best general tips for couples in selecting a celebrant?

There’s 9,500 of us in Australia, so just know that there’s the right kind of Celebrant out there for you.

I always think it works best as a Celebrant when I work with couples who I can genuinely go and have a beer with down at the pub and talk about other things than weddings.

That’s the kind of fit you are hoping for, so make sure you try and find that kind of person for you.

Find Anthony Cribbes online

Anthony Cribbes Celebrant website
Anthony Cribbes Celebrant Instagram
The Altar Electric website
The Altar Electric instagram
The Celebrant A list website
The Celebrant A list instagram

A feature on Melbourne wedding celebrants is also here.