Using a celebrant

[Lonecatwithkitten]

We postponed our Wedding in December last year as DP was diagnosed with cancer in September and was in the throws of awful chemo when we would have got married. He was booked for surgery on the primary tumour in April and we had planned to get married in a Registry office before that - Covid obviously got in the way.
Surgery is rescheduled for June and we hope we will be able to marry before the surgery for legal reasons.

Our plan was always to do the legal bit and then have our marriage at a letter date with a celebrant with the dress etc.
Has anyone booked a celebrant what did you look for, are you have an alternative to exchange of rings like a hand fasting? I love the idea of our own vows though this could be a tearful thing after everything we have been through. Thanks for your thoughts.

We're having the legal bit on the Monday morning and having the actual wedding on the Saturday with a humanist celebrant. We'll exchange rings on the Saturday and we are having a hand fasting too. Writing own vows etc.

As far as we're concerned the Monday is just to sign a bit of paper and we're just going in our jeans to get it out of the way.

We looked through loads of celebrants to find one that was the right fit for us and we're really happy with him and he's being very thorough with the paperwork and questions so he writes a ceremony just for us.

I hope you can marry before June - even if you just do the same as us and get the legalities taken care of. Then you can have a lovely "proper" wedding and make it a big celebration. I think saying your own vows will be lovely and a way to mark everything you have been through, and make it personalise to you. I bet there won't be a dry eye in the house!

Good luck with the surgery and finding a celebrant - keep us updated!

We had to find a celebrant as we had a destination wedding with the legal bit first.
Took ages but we found a great match. She lived not far from our venue and used to be a voice over actress and was the “mind the gap“ lady from the trains. Since my husband and his friends are a bit lively it was a good fit.
We had a wine ceremony - mixing of the red and white to show they couldn’t be undone. Very appropriate for me!

Sorry lovey not lively. Although that too....

We had a celebrant from the humanist society do naming ceremonies for our dcs. Not the same, obviously, but I'm sure they do weddings to.

I am a civil celebrant and we are lovely people! The fact that the whole service is tailored around you as a couple makes it so special - if you use the right person they wont use a generic script and everything will be linked around you and your likes and dislikes, your history as a couple, it is a way to share your time together with your nearest and dearest. When you have been through difficult times such as you have it makes it even more poignant to have your story told at your wedding. Ceremonies such as hand fasting or sand ceremonies are lovely ways to personalise the day and also add a bit of interest to your guests too as quite often they haven't seen these ceremonies done before. Civil celebrants can still include any elements of religion in the ceremony if you wish - sometimes it is important to an older family member that there is a prayer or similar included and that's the beauty of it, you really can have your ceremony your way. I am more than happy to answer any questions you may have.

We also used a Humanist celebrant for DC's Naming celebrations. Wonderful.
The celebrant met with us first and we spent a couple of hours chatting and discussing what we'd like for the ceremony (short & sweet!) we met again just before the event and confirmed all the final plans together. It was relaxed but well organised and flowed very well.

@mice I suppose my biggest question is registration/qualifications. I know this not the whole story, but there seems to be soooo many organisations and qualifications.
I have been married before and in one aspect of that wedding I was taken for an amount of money by someone who seemed to have references etc.

I don't want that to happen again so really need to know what should I look for initially before I get into whether the individual seems to be a good match to us.
I like the idea of hand fasting, but again have no real idea what that involves.
I have almost exclusively been to weddings in churches and so have no reference point for a service conducted by a celebrant. Though at the other end of life a fiends funeral was conducted by a celebrant, my friend although had had the luxury of knowing her death was coming and had meet with the celebrant and plan her own service on great detail. It was so beautifully personal.

There is no set formal qualifications for celebrants - you could set up and call yourself one without any formal qualifications . There are many companies that offer training - I trained through the Institute of Professional Celebrants and there are many similar organisations out there. A celebrant can conduct a wedding but not a marriage (rules are different in Scotland) and the legal marriage needs to take place usually beforehand. If I were looking for a celebrant I would ask to see testimonials, meet up with them, either in person or by facetime etc and just talk to them about what sort of things you are looking for. Any good celebrant would do this free of charge. Ceremonies such as handfasting - also known as "tying the knot" are traditional or celtic style ceremonies that can be added as an additional extra to add a bit of pomp to the ceremony and different celebrants will do them in different ways. Some will use a cord made from a mixture of the fabric from the brides dress and the grooms outfit, others make lovely hand plaited cords to match the colour way of the wedding. I feel the most important thing is to establish a rapport and a level of trust with the person before agreeing to anything. That is far more important than any qualifications as these are not a legal requirement.

Just like the funeral you went to that was beautiful and personal that is the type of wedding that a celebrant could do for you. Most people don;t get to chose celebrant for a funeral as in their grief they just accept the one that is recommended by the funeral director, although I have recently had families who want to talk to me first - and thankfully they do like me when they do! If you let me know whereabouts you are I may know a celebrant in your area I could recommend and you could chat to. I would never recommend someone that I wouldn't use for a ceremony of my own!

I had a celebrant for my wedding and we had fully personalised ceremony, vows & a unity candle ceremony - it was wonderful.

I am also a celebrant and as nice said it's the relationship that you develop that is the most important aspect.

My DD had a quickie registry office wedding on Thursday and a wedding on saturday with a celebrant. It was fab! Very personal. The celebrant emailed some family for anecdotes that she included in the ceremony

@mice thank you for that explanation I am on the Hampshire/Berkshire border.