What is a professional celebrant?
A Celebrant is someone who can help you to compose/conduct a ceremony. This can be for a “celebration of life” or funeral, a wedding ceremony, renewal of vows or a naming ceremony. A Celebrant has no restrictions in terms of format, style or content or indeed venue or location. A Celebrant can also help a loved one compose an “end of life ceremony”.
What is the difference between a celebrant and a registrar?
A Registrar works with and alongside a Council registry office to declare a birth, death, marriage or civil partnership. They also take wedding ceremonies at the Registry Office or in a building that is licensed to take a wedding ceremony. This ceremony is often not very long, generally has the same format and is legally binding. A Celebrant will compose and conduct any ceremony with any format and in any location. If a couple legally marry abroad they may want to then come home and have another ceremony for the wider family and friends that were unable to attend the original ceremony. The difference with a Celebrant conducting a wedding ceremony is that this would not be legally binding and to make it so in Wales and England the couple would still need to see a Registrar. Scottish rules are different.
What different services do celebrants offer?
A Celebrant can conduct a naming ceremony instead of a christening to welcome a baby/child into a family or perhaps a family have adopted a child and would like to recognise this with their family . A renewal of vows can be held to celebrate a wedding anniversary for any amount of years.
What does a celebrant do at a funeral?
) A Funeral Celebrant will help a family to celebrate the life and passing of a loved one. The ceremony can be non-religious, semi-religious and spiritual funeral services. This includes cremations, traditional burials and also green natural burials. This approach places greater emphasis on how the person lived their life, their personality traits and incorporates their wishes, songs, readings and poems from relatives and friends. I will also help a family with an internment of ashes by reflecting on the original ceremony and saying a final farewell. Families in current circumstances may also wish to have a memorial service if they have not been able to include extended family and friends at the Funeral due to COVID restrictions.
I will contact and visit a family after being notified of a death and talk through in detail what they would like in the ceremony both practically in terms of requirements at the chapel e.g curtains etc and talking about their loved ones life, memories and stories. They will receive from me poem suggestions if needed and then a draft of the ceremony to ensure the content is correct. I liaise with the Funeral Director to order music, finalise the ceremony content and ensure the FD is completely aware of the running order. ( A bit like being a Project Manager, my old job 😊) After the ceremony I visit the family (normal circumstances) and supply the family with a bound keepsake copy(ies) of the ceremony. I’m then able to signpost them to any relevant support networks that they may need for bereavement support.
Where can a celebrant marry?
A Celebrant can marry couples anywhere they request from the standard hotels to country manors, forests, beach, private chapel, wooded glade, garden, the list is endless