Hi, I’m Deanna — an Authorised Marriage Celebrant.
I grew up in Adelaide. Then I left it — for a whirlwind decade in Perth and Melbourne, and a year in Italy that changed how I see love entirely.
It wasn't the Roman postcards or Florentine architecture that did it, though I'll never get tired of either. The Italians have a phrase, la dolce far niente — the sweetness of doing nothing — and once you've felt it, you can't unfeel it. I'd watch it everywhere: in the way a couple lingered over coffee with nowhere to be, the way strangers greeted each other like old friends, the way love showed up as a question: “are you hungry?” Love, I realised, isn't only the romantic kind, it's in how people choose to notice each other.
Image kindly provided by Dan Brannan.
I came home to Adelaide with that lesson stitched into me, and it's the same one I bring to every ceremony I write. Be present. Notice the small things. The rest — the bigger, more beautiful things — will follow.
These days I split my time between writing for clients as a copywriter and writing love stories as a celebrant, which turns out to be the same skill wearing two different outfits. Ten-plus years of choosing the right word for someone else's voice taught me how to listen for what makes a couple them — not the highlight reel, but the specific, slightly odd, completely theirs details that no one else would think to include.
I'm not precious about ceremonies being formal or traditional unless that's genuinely you. I am precious about them being true. My job is to spend enough time with you that I can hand your wedding day back to you in words — heartfelt where it should be, intimate always, and never once generic.
If we work together, you'll have a friend on your wedding day as much as a celebrant. I'll listen properly, write honestly, and stand beside you while you say the truest thing you'll ever say out loud.