Maggi Barnard

Happily Ever After: Make Your Wedding A Day To Remember

Ultimately, your wedding day is about celebrating the love between you and the person you’re about to marry, but it’s important to remember your wedding unites not just the two of you, but your families as well. While it’s important to plan for your guests you don’t have to go bankrupt trying to throw the biggest and best wedding; remember it is the little things that count.

Make it Personal
Everyone loves a wedding, but it is more than being picture perfect. Work with your celebrant to create a meaningful ceremony that injects your personalities and your love story into the service. Some of your nearest and dearest will already know a lot of the details, but there will be extended family and friends who would be touched by the
opportunity to get to know the happy couple better through participating in this intimate and emotional moment.

Local marriage celebrant Laurel Hull has 14 years of experience, and offers customised services for every bride and groom. Let her help you shape your ceremony into a romantic and memorable event you will treasure for the
rest of your lives.

Say it with flowers
Flowers are a wonderful way to enhance the aesthetics of your day, and blooms can reflect your style and personality. Some brides might choose their favourite flower, or one that is meaningful to the relationship, whereas others select flowers to match the colour scheme. A bouquet doesn’t need to be big to be beautiful, an understated bouquet can be elegant in its simplicity. A single bloom can be used as a table decoration, or make a thoughtful alternative to
wedding favours. Be mindful of what will be in season during your wedding. The Pink Orchard’s florist will happily discuss your options and help you plan a breathtaking bouquet for any budget.

Get Professional
Planning a wedding shouldn’t be stressful, but it often is. Acacia Events is launching an exciting new service to give couples a wedding day that will be memorable for all the right reasons. Acacia Events offers a range of packages, from entry level involving on the day coordination to full service planning for your entire event. Hiring a wedding planner can actually save you money, with industry connections, knowledge and access to local vendors. Let someone else take care of the stress, allowing you and your partner to enjoy your special day and watch the magic unfold.

Location, location, location.
While destination weddings are all the rage, local weddings have their own charm. Not only do you save your guests
the expense and hassle of travelling to an exotic location, you also save yourself a lot of stress. Hosting your wedding at a hometown venue has some huge benefits, making it much easier to get everything right, and avoid any nasty surprises on the day.

The Parkes Services Club have dedicated staff to help you make your reception a memorable event. They can seat up to 300 guests, and their chef has created a diverse selection of menus for you to choose and can cater for all dietary needs. A complimentary tasting is available for the bride and groom, so you’re not leaving anything up to chance.

The Hart Bar provides an alternative venue choice for a more intimate reception. With its romantic name, stylish décor, and contemporary menu it’s an ideal option for a bespoke-style wedding without the stress of DIY.

Create a Well-Planned Seating Chart
It doesn’t matter if your reception dinner will be a buffet, plated meal, or family-style servings: a smart seating chart is vital to ensuring your guests have a good time. Try to group people together with similar backgrounds and interests, so they’ll have something to talk about even if they’ve never met before. While traditionally the bride and groom is seated with members of the bridal party, some couples opt to sit on an ‘orphans’ table. By sitting with single guests who don’t know any other guests the bride and groom can ensure no one feels alone at their wedding.

Consider the kids
Some couples opt for a child-free event while others see a wedding as an opportunity to bring the whole family together – young and old. An adult-only wedding is desirable to some who want to be free of the distractions that children can create, but for guests with children – particularly for those who have to travel with them, not being able to bring children along could be difficult, and might even mean they are unable to attend. An inter-generational guest list can bring an extra bit of zest to the reception. Throw in a few age appropriate pop songs, and watch the dance-floor come to life! Most venues will have a different pricing for children, so there’s added value. It’s a good
idea to cater for young guests in other ways too. Activity books and pencils keep little people occupied during the boring bits, such as speeches or ceremonies. You can use an RSVP to suggest appropriate behaviour guidelines or request a children’s curfew for the event.

Use a Wedding App or Hashtag
There are many great wedding apps to choose from for your big day. Some interactive apps allow guests to upload wedding photos into one curated place, while others keep your friends and family up on any wedding-related news. Want something even easier? Create a clever hashtag and ask guests to tag all of their photos using it. That way you get to see your wedding from different perspectives and your guests can capture candid moments that your photographer might have missed.

The morning after
Post-wedding breakfasts are a wonderful opportunity to spend more time with those who have travelled to be with you on your special day, and it’s a very personal way to say thanks. Plus, you get to relive the excitement and magic of your wedding one last time. Be sure to include details on your invitation or RSVP slip so your guests don’t make other plans.

Think global, act local; this is the ethos that saw Parkes join with a coalition of 35 councils from around Australia to sign on the Cities Power Partnership this week. The Climate Council created the program as a grass-roots approach to achieving a sustainable future. Councils and cities pledge to reduce carbon emissions and are encouraged to adopt a new approach to areas such as renewable energy, energy efficiency, and transport. Advocacy is also a feature of the initiative, with local governments sharing resources and ideas to achieve greener, more efficient communities.

Parkes already has a few success stories to share. While the Parkes Shire is soon to host a commercial solar farm, Parkes council boasts a range of renewable energy projects of its own. In 2011 the council’s Distributed Energy Plan was developed in response to both potential climate change impacts and rises in power costs. Shortly after the plan was released council installed 200kW of solar panels across its assets, and in 2013 council coordinated the Parkes Shire Solar Communities program, which saw more than 300 private households install rooftop solar.

In recent weeks Parkes has once again made headlines with the installation of a further 200kW solar systems installed across the Parkes Water Treatment Plant and the Sewage Treatment Plant allowing them to be powered by renewable energy.

Mayor Ken Keith travelled to Canberra for the official launch of the Cities Power Partnership on Wednesday. “Parkes Shire Council strives to be a leader in sustainability by developing initiatives and implementing measures into our operations that reduce our carbon footprint and impact on the environment,” he said.

Why Are Minutes Of Your Meeting Essential?
The answer is that they are required by Section 50 the Associations Incorporation Act, 2009 and must be kept by the Secretary. Similarly, corporations are required to keep minutes of meetings too. Members may at all reasonable times inspect the minutes, although shareholders of corporations have only limited ability to view minutes of Directors’ meetings.

There are no absolute rules about how minutes of meetings should be set out, other than they need to be in English and be reasonably understood. We suggest that minutes should include; a list of attendance, apologies, correspondence (including electronic) and a Treasurer’s report. The meeting date and location should be recorded, along with the meeting’s start and finish times.

Motions need to be accurately set out by the Secretary in the minutes and he or she should indicate if they were carried, lost, or amended and carried. The Chairperson might ask for a show of hands or may pass the motion on the voices. Too often the Chairperson fails to declare the motion as passed and that can lead to controversy. Some laws or rules require motions to have secret ballots, and these must be strictly observed.

There should always be a motion to confirm the previous minutes with or without amendments. The Chairperson should sign and date the minutes to certify they are correct. Circulating minutes via email eliminates the need to read out minutes at subsequent meetings, saving time.

All Chairpersons, the Executive, and members should read articles on the internet about meeting procedure. If you have questions on Minutes, Meeting Procedure or anything else, please contact any of our Solicitors at Matthews Williams.