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Top tips for choosing your wedding celebrant
So, you’ve sorted your wedding date and venue – tick and tick! Now you’re thinking about who you’d like to conduct your ceremony? Along with all the other wedding admin and choices you have to make, it can feel a little overwhelming. With that in mind, we spoke to one of our humanist wedding celebrants Claire to get some tips and guide you through the process of choosing your wedding celebrant.
Hi Claire! Why do you think choosing the right celebrant to marry you is so important?
It’s definitely worth being fussy about who you choose to marry you and deliver your ceremony. Your ceremony is your secret weapon! Choose the right celebrant and it can transform your day. For a start, if you’ve chosen the right person, you’re going to be more relaxed because you trust them. You’re also going to be excited about the bit that most people dread because you’re working with someone you think is great to create something you can’t wait to share.
Where should couples start when looking for their celebrant?
First, decide what’s important to you. You need to have a discussion and be honest about what matters to you both. Ask yourself some questions, for example:
- What do you want from your ceremony?
- Do you want something very minimal and straightforward?
- Are you a romantic at heart or are you big nerds?
- What tone do you want for your ceremony e.g. do you want something traditional and formal or something more light, funny and relaxed.
Most importantly, you need to decide how you want to be married? Is your faith or lack of faith important to one or both of you? There will be a celebrant that suits. There are religious and interfaith organisations that conduct weddings, you could have a civil wedding by a Registrar or you might choose a humanist wedding…that’s us! I know it can be confusing when you start looking. There are a lot of celebrants.
Why should couples consider a Humanist Society Scotland celebrant for their ceremony? (not that we’re biased…)
Humanist Society Scotland is the original and largest provider of Humanist ceremonies. The charity successfully campaigned for legal Humanist weddings twenty years ago and never looked back!
We also do funerals, naming ceremonies and we’re an active charity, a campaigning and lobbying group with volunteers in chaplaincy and education. We have purpose beyond weddings.
Humanist Society Scotland have over 130 celebrants, based all across the country, so you’ll have plenty of choice to find the right fit for you. We also have a unique ceremony promise for added peace of mind: emergency cover (if illness or unforeseen circumstances arise, another celebrant will step in) and all of our celebrants are fully trained and permanently legally authorised.
Once a couple has decided that they would like a Humanist Society Scotland celebrant, how do they choose who?
We all have profiles on the Humanist Society Scotland website – you can read over these to get an idea of what different celebrants are like (their approach, personality and style etc). Use the find your celebrant tool to search by date, location and see who is available. Then, create a shortlist and contact the ones you like the sound of for an initial chat.
Top tip! Take a look at our blog for a list of useful questions to ask any wedding celebrants you meet up with.
How can couples make sure they find a celebrant that’s a good fit for them?
I would suggest that couples definitely check their socials and websites. Do you get a sense of who they are from this and do you like how they write?
If you’ve seen a celebrant in action and you loved them, that’s also a great place to start. They’ll be delighted to hear you loved their work!
You could also ask some of your other chosen wedding suppliers, ask them who they rate. But do bear in mind that they might recommend people who match their energy not yours.
And finally, you can also look at reviews but make sure you consider that a newer celebrant might not have had the chance to build this up yet so it’s not a reason to discount someone.
The key is to do your research because you need to have confidence in your celebrant that they are going to make your wedding ceremony what you want it to be. The right celebrant will make you excited about your ceremony. They will elevate it from a simple but dull legal process to something really amazing and it will set the tone for the whole day.
A decent wedding celebrant will make your ceremony perfectly nice but a great celebrant will help you create something meaningful, emotional, fun and memorable AND you’ll get married!
Find your celebrant!
Start looking for a celebrant to conduct your humanist ceremony in Scotland.
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