I recently launched a low-tech weather balloon into the stratosphere, retrieving rare video of footage of a minion in space. Yes, the same minion from Despicable Me, and the upcoming feature film Minions.  We’ll get back to that. 

I have no history nor experience with the space industry. 10 years in the wedding industry and not one of them had anything to do with weather balloon launches. It’s a wonder I even got it off the ground. 

Launch day was June 2, 2015 from Halls Gap in the Grampians, Western VIC at 9am, a little past breakfast. As the balloon ascended far above the earth, I tracked it in real time via GPS using a luggage locator. 

I received a lot of support from my friends. They thought I was crazy. But crazy pushes boundaries, and I think that’s healthy. How else do we get things like iPhones, electric cars and cronuts?

When the balloon got up to 33000 meters it finally burst and came hurtling back to Earth. 

It’s just freefalling like a meteor at this point but eventually the parachute takes over and it slows down to about 5 meters per second.

The balloon rig itself was put together from scrap materials: a discarded polystyrene wine cooler, fluoro builders line, bits of balsa wood, tape and some bubble wrap. 

Bubble wrap is miraculous stuff. Not only does it protect the electronics inside, it insulates them too. It has to endure freezing temperatures of -50 Celsius. That’s almost as cold as Russia!

The video that came back from maximum altitude looks incredible! Out of this world.

You don’t realise how delicate the atmosphere is until you see it from above. Next to nothing separates us from the empty vastness of space. We have no choice but to look after this planet. It’s the only one we’ve got. All we have is each other. 

Which brings us to why a minion was seen floating in space:

As fascinating as capturing video footage of space is, it doesn’t engage people. You need to tell a story. Make people laugh. Originally I planned to send up a bride and groom cake topper, but at the last minute swapped it for my sister’s minion toy.

Add on some wedding rings to have something at stake (they came back safely didn't they?) and you got yourself an adventure! 

When it came time to recover the balloon it was predicted to land 90 kms away in Central Victoria. It landed safely in Red Lion, VIC. The balloon, and Kevin the minion, was found lying in a field of slightly amused cows. 

I'm considering doing more launches in the future. I apologise for the amateur iMovie trailer. And this 6 second vine clip:

I’m not a skilled man.

We all have needs. And we all have to regularly top up those needs.

You don’t breathe enough to last you forever, nor do you eat enough either. And you certainly don’t love enough to last you forever.  

All our needs - food, drink, air, love, intimacy - must be topped up regularly.

Many of us live with the anxiety of one day losing the thing which fulfils our needs: 

• My partner who loves me now will no longer love me in the future. 
• My job that provides me security today I might lose tomorrow. 
• My attractiveness that brings me all this attention will one day fade. 
• My creative spark that energises me will one day extinguish. 
  

And we cling to the object that fulfils that need:

• We try to make our lover love us. 
  
• We try to make the job who we are. 
  
• We fight or mask our signs of ageing. 
  
• We hold onto people and things that make us feel valued and don’t let go. 
  

We become shackled to people and objects. When our only means of feeling valued are our looks or our money, we become prisoners to our appearance and money.

If we feel like our lover is the only person who can make us feel this way, we hold onto them with our affections, chaining ourselves to them:

“What is life worth living without you?”
“I just can’t imagine living without you!”  

Thing is, we mistake that which provides for our needs for the needs themselves:

• You don’t need your lover. You need to feel loved. 
  
• You don’t need your job. You need to feel secure. 
  
• You don’t need to be popular. You need to feel valued. 
  

All these needs are met in many ways. All you need is confidence in your ability to meet your needs:

• Your lover, she may leave you, whether by death or by betrayal. But there will eventually be another. 
  
• That job, you may get fired. But there will eventually be another opportunity. 
  
• Your status or appearance or popularity or relevance may fade, but there are always more ways to feel valued. 
  

Studies show that people who become paraplegics are no less happy than anyone else. Our minds always find a way to have our needs met.  

Question.

What if you woke up tomorrow with no money, no family, no friends, no partner?

I don’t know what I’d do to get money that first day. And I know it would be sad and difficult and lonely.

But I also know that I would eventually be fine. I would cry and struggle. But I would keep going. And eventually I would be fine. If everything was taken away from me, while I would mourn my loss, I would live on.

Happiness is not preventing losses in your life. Happiness is learning to adapt to them.

It’s not the people and objects that fulfill the needs in your life that make you happy. You make you happy.

If everything you had was taken away from you, would you continue going forward or would you give up? 

Is getting married right for you? What do you need to know before you get married? Ask yourself: 

Be honest about your engagement. Do you just feel like you should be married? Why do you feel that way? Make sure you aren’t using your marriage to avoid or escape something.

• If you find that you have to talk yourself into it - don't get married. 
• If you have to talk your fiancé into it - don’t get married.  
• If someone else is talking you into it – definitely don’t get married. 
  

Flowers and cakes are fun and all but there's more to your relationship than that. Your wedding is one day - your marriage is a lifetime. Being married isn’t the goal – anyone could get married. Being happily married is much more challenging. What’s your next 50 years of your life going to look like? 

Come to an understanding with your partner about how you'll handle children, money, careers, family, retirement, etc. 

The best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour. What was your partner like in previous relationships? How do they treat you? What have you and your partner learnt about marriage from your parents? 

If you have to give up your friends or family, then the cost is too high. If it doesn’t work out, are you going to be emotionally hollowed out? It’s better to be healthy and alone than to be sick in a relationship. 

It's healthy to have goals in your relationship. Express your needs and expectations now, not when you're already married. 

What are your deal breakers? What are your partner's?

These are all difficult questions with no easy answers. 

In my previous article I mentioned how 2 people can accelerate their intimacy by asking each other a series of escalating personal questions.

What normally takes weeks, months or even years to achieve can now be done in a single conversation.

These questions are broken up into 3 sets, each more personal than the last. This Valentine's Day have these out and open, ready to go on your phone.

Do people actually fall in love from doing this? Yes. Yes they do.

Keep in mind, you don't agree to try something designed to create romance if you’re not open to it happening. Are you ready?

Let’s get started. 

1. If you could choose anyone in the world, who would you want as a dinner guest?

2. Would you like to be famous? In what way?

3. What was the last thing you taught yourself how to do? Why did you want to learn it?

4. What would constitute a ‘perfect’ day for you?

5. When did you last sing to yourself? To another person?

6. If you were able to live to the age of 90 and retain either the mind or body of a 30-year-old for the last 60 years of your life, which would you want?

7. What are your biggest passions in life? What activities do you do to indulge them?

8. Name three things you and your partner appear to have in common.

9. For what in your life do you feel most grateful?

10. If you could change anything about the way you were raised, what would it be?

11. Take four minutes and tell your partner your life story in as much detail as possible.

12. If you could wake up tomorrow having gained one quality or ability, what would it be? 

This Valentine's Day, I want you to try something different. 

I want you to fall in love.

Yes. You read correctly.

And I don’t mean to say ‘be loved.’ That’s something a teenager would say. What I’m daring you to do is something much more defining – dare to love another human being.

There’s a certain kind of happiness you experience from loving someone. In loving, we strive to be our best selves. We celebrate being human.

Loving is good for the soul.

I guess you expect it to just happen to you. As if love was an event. You meet an attractive stranger’s eye across a crowded room and it’s on, right?

Well, not quite.

But I know something that certainly helps.

It begins with 36 questions.

In case you missed the crazy popular New York Times article, 2 people begin by asking each other a series of escalating personal questions. And, because the level of intimacy gradually increases with time, you don’t notice you’re in the deep end of the pool until you’re already there.

You’ll learn something about yourself. You’ll enjoy learning about your partner even more. We all have a story about ourselves that we tell to others, but these questions make it impossible to rely on it.  

It’s the kind of intimacy you get from camping or travelling. Staying up all night with a new friend, it feels natural to get to know someone that quickly.

Most of us think about love as something that happens to us. I prefer to think of love as an action. Something you choose to do.

You can’t choose who loves you, although I’m sure we’ve all spent a part of our single lives convinced otherwise. You can’t create romance from convenience or compatibility.

All you can do is give it a chance with someone who is willing to do the same. You may be surprised at how it turns out - you don’t agree to try something designed to create romance if you’re not open to it happening.

Love doesn’t just happen to us.

We’re in love because we choose to be.

Think you’re up to it?

Coming up next: 36 Questions to Fall in Love with Anyone 

Chances are you’ve been to at least one wedding this summer. They remain a timeless expression of commitment. 

10 years in the wedding industry means I’ve seen my fair share of marriage. And they all come with amazing and intimate moments. From panicking brides to grooms being wheeled away by paramedics, I've witnessed some very candid moments.  

Afterwards, I always like to ask couples about their ups and downs along the way. Their responses are as varied as they are revealing. Heart-felt as often as they are funny, these moments in married life take everyone by surprise. 

Let me share with you what I’ve learnt so far. 

And it works beautifully. 

People take ownership of the flowers and decorations and dresses and such but beneath it all, most weddings follow the same chain of events. From the ceremony it always flows to photos to reception to speeches to music and dancing. Sometimes people forget that weddings are just big events and it takes many production professionals working together to make them successful. 

This means that not too many couples stray from the tried and true formula unless they really want to showcase. 

All weddings come with a mixed bag of emotions. Most people aren’t used to being the centre of attention so it puts a lot of couples on edge. This is completely normal, and my job is to get them to a place where they can be comfortable.

The biggest emotion is the one that hits just before the ceremony. You can feel it in the air. Family and friends settle down. The laughter and banter stops. Everyone becomes really quiet. 

The bride and groom, having a good time and smiling, their eyes suddenly go wide. You can see them being overwhelmed by the realisation before them. This unshakable feeling of walking a path you freely choose above all other paths. That there’s no turning back after this.

This is the first day of the rest of our lives together. This is it. This is the big moment.

This is really happening.

A lot of planning goes into weddings, but not a lot of planning goes into marriages. Afterwards I always ask couples, ‘How did you expect marriage to be?’ and ‘What did it turn out to be?’

Their answers have been pretty consistent so far. 

The reality is often a quiet daily routine that bears little resemblance to what many people imagined it to be. 

Have you ever looked at a couple and thought to yourself wow, they are so happy together. What’s their secret? What do they know that I don’t?

Or perhaps thought wow, what a sad relationship. Why are they even together? 

The more couples I talk to, the more their stories fascinate me. Their stories, though varying in the details, all have the same underlying themes and motifs. To really understand marriage is to dig deeper and uncover what lies beneath the superficial.

We judge peoples relationships too harshly. We don’t know how they fight, how they resolve issues, how they compromise. We don’t know their circumstances, their values, their hopes and dreams and fears. We don’t know why some couples are happy while some are miserable. We know very little about what goes on behind the scenes. 

All we can do is acknowledge that they are together for a reason. 

I believe that marriage in an important institution. I believe in it so strongly I legally uphold it by law.  

But to some people the notion that you’re going to be together - just you and this other person for the rest of your life - is insane.

And it is. Not marriage, but this notion. This notion that only one person is perfect for you and that they complete you forever. That’s not how marriage works. 

The reality is that circumstances change and as you grow older, you grow wiser too. You will learn that marriage is not for those without conviction. Because the person who risks nothing, does nothing and has nothing. 

All we know about the future is that it’ll be different. 

This is the perhaps the biggest of the puzzle pieces I discovered – that you’re not perfect for anyone. Compatibility has less to do with a happy marriage than you may think. 

People yearn to find The One as if they’re somewhere out there and all you have to do is find them to live happily ever after. That’s not how it works. 

For example, people in Australia shy away from the idea of an arranged marriage because it takes away freedom of choice in your partner. But I’ve discovered that you have far less options than you’re aware of. This too shall be discussed in another article. 

My point is, you don’t have to be perfect for each other to be happy. 

Do you honestly think the secret to happiness can be read in a BuzzFeed or Elite Daily article? Please. 

I know way too many people who want to be happy all the time, as if they’re afraid of their other emotions. They want to constantly feel like they're eating something delicious or playing with puppies or owning a new pair of shoes. 

But that’s not how happiness works. So you can’t expect marriage to work like that either. 

Marriage isn’t easy. Life is complicated. All you can do is be there for your partner. Look them in the eye and tell them, ‘I don’t want to do this with anyone else but you.’

That's how you know. 

According to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, the average Australian wedding costs $36,200. 

The most expensive cost? Food, alcohol and venue, coming to $18,683.

The least expensive cost? The wedding ceremony itself, at just $941. 

Below you'll find a summary of ASIC's findings as well as where the money is coming from:

So how much are you spending on your wedding? 
Got friends who have spent a lot more? A lot less? 

Tell us by joining in the conversation on Facebook.