Wedding ceremony ideas with Josh Withers for 2027

A wedding ceremony can be far more personal than a choice between “formal” and “relaxed”. In this interview, celebrant Josh Withers talks about making deliberate choices, staying present and creating a ceremony that reflects the two of you.

The conversation below is an edited selection from our original interview, with spelling, grammar and punctuation tidied for readability. The answers reflect that conversation; the planning note is current guidance for couples preparing for 2027.

For current services and availability, visit Josh Withers’s website. His wedding planning writing is at The Rebels’ Guide.

Planning note: Your celebrant will guide you through the legal requirements, including notice, identity documents, witnesses and ceremony wording. The Attorney-General’s Department explains the current requirements. A personal ceremony still needs to meet them.

You’ve been a celebrant for around 300 years now. What have been the biggest developments in wedding ceremonies that you’ve noticed since the dark ages?

Back when I started, it was mainly just Jesus and me doing weddings. Things were simpler. You’d just say, “Hey Google, get me a wedding,” and everyone would get the same big wedding. White dresses, black tuxes, three-tier cakes and nice white chair covers.

From then to now, things have gotten crazy. People get married on days that don’t end in “aturday”. They wear clothes that aren’t straight off the cover of Brides Weekly. They want ceremonies that actually reflect who they are and what their worldviews are, and they are serving meals at receptions that have broken out of the options presented by a waiter asking, “The chicken or the beef?”

So things are good. Who would have ever thought that making the beginning of your marriage meaningful, intimate and personal would result in weddings being awesome? The more you know, ya know?

What’s your best tip for people planning their wedding ceremony who want to be brave and step outside some of the norms?

Editor’s note: the original answer used a humorous word count to describe the ceremony’s legal elements. That shorthand has been removed because it was not a complete account of the requirements. The following answer is about personal choices beyond those requirements.

So if you’re going to wear clothes, or have chair covers or a cake, let it all be with intent. Make decisions about all these things — especially in your ceremony — in the light of who you are as individuals and as a couple, not because previous generations are peer-pressuring you to do it.

The number one question you should be able to stand in front of a court and answer is, “How do people like us get married?” Because honestly, there are no norms. Nothing is normal. You are, and should proudly be, weird and strange, and that’s beautiful. Own that and let it shine throughout your entire marriage ceremony, wedding, marriage and life. Own your weirdness!

What are the biggest rookie mistakes you see when people are trying to plan a unique wedding ceremony?

The biggest mistake is that people open up Google and ask it questions. Or worse, they talk to Jenny at work about it — and Jenny’s basically just a human Google. Not that Jenny or Google are inherently bad or evil; they’re just not you.

In creating a wedding, you’re creating an intimately unique moment. And Google, or Jenny, knows nothing of intimately important moments like your marriage ceremony. They might know how “most people” do it, but you aren’t most people. You’re you.

If you could go back to one ceremony and say why it was the best, without naming names, what were the ingredients in that particular bagel (ceremony) that made it the most memorable?

I’ve thought about this for too long, but I haven’t had this yet. I’ve created ceremonies in some of the most amazing locations around Iceland, Europe, the USA, Asia, New Zealand and Australia. But then I’ve had the loveliest humans get married in places minutes from my house, in just fine wedding locations.

I’ve also worked weddings with some of the best wedding creators in the universe, but maybe the location wasn’t pinging, or the couple were distracted by the enormity of it all and couldn’t be present in that moment. It can be an epic moment on so many points, but if the couple aren’t present, that really takes away from it for me.

So, as I talk all this through, I would say I value intention and presence in the moment over location and team. If that’s the measure of the best ceremony, I can think of a bunch of couples who hit that note perfectly. It would just be super nice if those same couples got married with Joshua Mikhaiel and some of our mates in Iceland as well.

Does rain ruin a wedding ceremony?

“Sposa bagnata, sposa fortunata”, or, translated from Italian, “Wet bride, lucky bride.” Now, I don’t believe in luck as this magical force, but more as a blessing. The “right time, right place, you were prepared and resourced and ready for this thing” kind of luck.

So what makes a couple lucky that it rained on their wedding day? The fact that without rain, we wouldn’t have drinking water or household water. We couldn’t have fresh food or swimming areas. This whole rain thing is kind of important to us kinda existing on planet Earth.

So it rains when you get married. I understand it sucks, but it’s also just part of life. My tip is that you don’t have to get swimming caps or book an entirely separate venue for a wet-weather backup, but as you plan for a venue, have a wet-weather backup in mind. It might be that the barn on the farm could serve as a ceremony location if it rained, or that a balcony might be nice. Or, if you’re getting married in the “wet season”, like January in Queensland, let’s not tempt fate: book the whole thing inside, with air-conditioning. Let sanity prevail.

When couples are trying to choose a celebrant who’s the right fit for their wedding, what are some better questions to ask than just the price?

The main question you should ask would be, “Is your name Josh Withers?” If it isn’t, then you need to know that you’re not booking Josh Withers as your wedding celebrant. Other than that, have you considered Josh Withers as your wedding celebrant? I highly recommend him.

Apart from those obviously hilarious but also kind of serious answers, your marriage celebrant is the person breathing your marriage to life for you and with you. It’s a collab. So make sure you like the person, you like their vibe, they speak your lingo and hold similar worldviews and beliefs to yours.

Also, make sure they’re charging you enough that you know they’re actually going to make an effort to celebrate you, instead of just re-creating another template ceremony from their book of ceremony templates.

One more thing: because your celebrant is speaking, make sure they’ve actually got professional audio gear so everyone can hear them. If it’s a MiPro or some crappy karaoke system they bought at JB Hi-Fi, say no!

As someone who’s probably put his signature on millions of marriage certificates, do you have any thoughts on what makes marriages really last? Beyond the contractual elements you witness, what are the daily intangibles?

Marriages last because of two things that are the same thing: your word.

The first thing is the everyday word: that you would communicate. This sword cuts both ways: you would talk about everything, share your feelings and experiences, and listen to and hear each other. If you have expectations, you would communicate them. So many arguments arise from things one person thought the other person should have known.

The second thing is the word that you gave. You’re married. You said so. So as circumstances arise that might threaten that — either in actions you could take or actions the other person might take — before any consequences or reactions take place, you are married. That fact is not in question. Let your yes be yes. Let your word mean something. Otherwise, if you’re in the business of talking BS, why say anything or believe anything anyone says?

Any final words for couples in the midst of the storm that is wedding planning?

People love to throw around the word “bridezilla”, but honestly, I encounter more groomzillas and even more mother-of-the-groom-zillas. It stems from something really simple and stupid.

For many people, planning a wedding is one of the first times they, as a couple, have gathered this many people together and spent this much money. It’s common for one of the people getting married — if it’s a guy and girl, typically it’s the guy — to bow out and take a “whatever she wants” kind of attitude because they think that is really sweet and kind.

But it’s lazy and irresponsible because both of you are getting married. It’s not “her day”; it’s “their day”. When one of the two people who make up that “they” isn’t contributing or sharing their desires, they just bottle it all up until it gets released under pressure some time later.

So instead, before you start planning, start answering some questions about who you both are as individuals and as a couple, what matters to you and what doesn’t. What elements of weddings have you liked before? What do you have strong feelings about?

There are a hundred questions there. I talk about many of them in my book, The Rebel’s Guide to Getting Married. If you can set a firm foundation for your wedding, you can then easily go and spend the money and book the vendors because you’ve talked about it all beforehand. Talk before you spend.

Your ceremony is the reason everyone has gathered. Talk with your celebrant about what you value and what you want to say to each other. There is room for much more than choosing a familiar script.

Give yourselves the time and support to make the ceremony feel like your own. The flowers, music and venue can support that moment, but they do not have to define it.