I, for one, will eventually welcome our new remote witnessing overlords

Welcome to another episode of everyone's favourite Australian marriage celebrant newsletter, the Celebrant Institute Monthly, written today poolside in Legian while I wait for that dreadful red-eye flight home tonight.

I had a Bali wedding yesterday, which was lovely, but spending 48 hours in Bali has me thinking about lightning.

As the electricity traverses from the sky towards the earth, it looks for the path of least resistance. All energy does. At my hotel in Bali today, the path of least resistance today is in staff. They have plenty of them, and rather than invest in quality service, they invest in lots of average service. The path of least resistance.

Artificial intelligence, large-language models, generative AI, and computers in general will very quickly soon become the path of least resistance for many activities – and I find this so encouraging because it will liberate you and me to provide real and true value in the places that really matter. While AI does the boring work, you and I can do the real work.

What does that real work look like? That's for you and me to figure out individually, but here's some of the work I see AI taking.

That link above will showcase 132 ChatGPT prompts you can trial today.

And here are the results of one of the prompts that helps you create a buyer persona to help you with your marketing efforts.

I encourage you to explore, trial, have some fun, play around, and learn. It's a brave new world ahead of us.

– Josh

🦘 AGD Meeting

Sarah and I joined your associations and other networks at the biannual MLCS meeting this last week. There's lots on the cards over the next few months, but nothing rock solid to announce today. There will be a minutes blog post over the coming weeks we'll share on the Celebrant Institute website, and as "news" breaks, you'll hear it from us first.

💻 Remote Witnessing of NOIMs

The legislation required to re-allow the remote witnessing of NOIMs has passed the Senate and the House of Representatives. Now it just needs royal assent and a date. When we know, you'll know.

⏳ The History of the One Month's Notice

Did you know that the notice period in Australia hasn't always been one month? Sarah's compiled the nerdiest celebrant blog post you'll read this month on the blog right now.

🧾 Have You Got an Accountant?

It's that month of the year when we fret about money and accounting. On the blog this month is an encouragement for you to get an accountant if you don't already have one. Here's why...

💒 How Sharon and Adam chose Tim Maddren to be their Celebrant and MC

Find out how Sharon and Adam chose Tim to be their celebrant in this episode of the Celebrant Insights podcast.

🎅🏻 Weddings and the Wedding Grinch

SBS released an episode of Insights on weddings and the wedding grinch, and it was... insightful.

👎🏻 What if Facebook and Instagram Say No?

Are you prepared to lose access to your business Instagram and Facebook accounts? It could happen, and when it does, you should be prepared – and not surprised.

⚰️ Funerals on the Rise

Forecasts into the next 5-10 years see funerals increasing, and I wonder how many of us are well-prepared to be awesome funeral celebrants?

Discounted to $99, our funeral celebrant professional development on-demand course is the easiest and quickest way to get up to speed on the other end of the hatching, matching, dispatching business.

💍 How Did Sarah-Louise Make Her Wedding Plans with a Groom Working in South Africa?

This episode of the Insights podcast should alert many of us to our behaviour and efforts at wedding expos/fairs.

📱 Social Media Webinar

I recently did a 14-day social media challenge run by my friend Edwin, and the biggest insight I got was how quickly the standard and expectation of social media content changes. There are new features and post types every week. So I've been talking to Edwin about putting on a Zoom call for celebrants to participate in.

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