13/01/2026
𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝗦𝗼𝗺𝗲𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗲𝘀 𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗛𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗗𝗼 𝗦𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁𝗹𝘆 𝗠𝗮𝗱 𝗧𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀
I have a friend called Roy.
One morning, Roy woke up and thought:
“I’m going to buy a bell.”
Not a doorbell.
Not one of those polite little bells you ring for service.
A 𝗰𝗵𝘂𝗿𝗰𝗵 𝗯𝗲𝗹𝗹.
So he bought one.
Then, quite reasonably, another thought arrived:
“What on earth am I going to do with a church bell?”
This is usually the point where most of us would pause.
Maybe return it.
Maybe list it on eBay under 𝘪𝘮𝘱𝘶𝘭𝘴𝘦 𝘱𝘶𝘳𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘴𝘦𝘴.
Roy didn’t.
He thought:
“I know. I’ll build a chapel.”
Not to start a religion.
Not to run services.
Not to make money.
To give it away.
He built a church in Austin, Texas, and made it free for anyone who wanted to get married.
No booking fee.
No packages.
No ‘gold’, ‘silver’, or ‘platinum’ options.
He called it 𝗗𝘂𝗹𝗰𝗶𝗻𝗲𝗮, after the woman in 𝘋𝘰𝘯 𝘘𝘶𝘪𝘹𝘰𝘵𝘦 — the symbol of devotion, imagination, and choosing meaning even when the world thinks you’re being ridiculous.
And that’s the part that matters.
Because this didn’t start as a business idea.
It didn’t start as a branding exercise.
It started with a bell… and a slightly mad thought.
Here’s what I love about this.
Most people are waiting for permission before they do anything interesting.
Permission to be sensible.
Permission to be strategic.
Permission to make it all add up first.
Roy bought the bell 𝘣𝘦𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘦 it made sense.
And the story came later.
The church became a story.
The marriages became stories.
The act of giving something meaningful away became a story people remember, retell, and feel.
And when Roy speaks about it, that’s what holds the room.
Not polish.
Not cleverness.
Not slides.
Just a moment where someone followed a curious, slightly unreasonable idea all the way through.
Sometimes you don’t get stories by planning them.
You get them by doing something that feels a bit mad, a bit generous, and a bit unnecessary —
and seeing what happens next.
Not because it’s efficient.
Not because it’s scalable.
But because it makes life richer.
And the stories that come from that?
𝗝𝗼𝗵𝗻 “𝗢𝗰𝗰𝗮𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗘𝗻𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗿𝗮𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗦𝗲𝗻𝘀𝗶𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗠𝗮𝗱𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀” 𝗖𝗮𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗱𝘆-𝗥𝗶𝗰𝗲