Humanist Naming Ceremonies

Welcoming a new addition to your family is an exciting and joyful time.  A Humanist Welcoming or Humanist Naming Ceremony is a beautiful and personal way to mark the special milestone in your family and share your joy with those you love.

Our Welcoming & Naming ceremonies are all about your family and your new addition.  They are all individually crafted to reflect what’s important for your family, and your dreams and hopes for your children.  Welcoming & Naming ceremonies can be as creative as your imagination allows; you may want to involve your extended family and friends, include some symbolic gestures, and it can take place wherever you like.

Often a humanist welcoming or naming ceremony is a unique, personal and secular alternative to a traditional christening for new babies.  However, our ceremonies are a lovely way of welcoming a new child into your family regardless of age.

You may find our leaflet, Celebrating Family, helpful.

Our fees

HSS Registered Celebrants are all self employed and, therefore, you are advised to confirm fees with them directly. The fee you are charged will reflect the time to arrange your ceremony, a meeting to discuss it, and its preparation (which includes all correspondence and communication), and its delivery on the day. We are a Registered Charity and Celebrants contribute part of their fee to the society to allow us to continue to invest in the development of humanist ceremonies and develop our campaigns and charitable work. Due to the variation of Naming Ceremonies, there can be variations in the cost. As a guide, you can expect to pay in the range of £175 – £250 for a Naming Ceremony in 2019 and possibly slightly more for future years. There may also be additional expenses such as travel costs, but your celebrant will be able to advise you.

The HSS Ceremony Promise

Your humanist ceremony will be to mark one of life’s most important events.  That is why we take your booking seriously.  As the longest standing provider of humanist ceremonies in Scotland we support and co-ordinate our nation’s largest and best known group of Humanist Celebrants.  Every year our celebrants conduct thousands of ceremonies and we’re committed to ensuring that every one is unique and of a consistently high quality.  To demonstrate our commitment to you and your ceremony we are the only provider to offer the Humanist Society Promise; all Humanist Society Celebrants are covered by our Promise as are all their ceremonies.

1. Be Assured, We’re Insured
We are delighted to have a reputation for providing high quality ceremonies and service.  Although it is only occasionally (only about 0.5% and we conduct around 7000 ceremonies each year!) that problems arise with our ceremonies you can be assured if you book a Humanist Society Celebrant they are covered by our Public Liability Insurance.

2. We’ve Got it Covered
It is very rare that the celebrant you have booked is unable to conduct your ceremony; and this would only be in extreme circumstances such as serious illness.  However, as the largest provider of humanist ceremonies in Scotland we have the network to find you a replacement, even at very short notice.  We have office staff available to ensure we can respond quickly to any emergency with minimal stress to you.  Although unlikely to happen, always ask your chosen organisation how they provide cover in emergencies.

3. Developing Skills to Give You the Best
All Humanist Society Celebrants must complete intensive training and mentoring programmes before they are registered to conduct any type of ceremony.  Our celebrants are regularly reviewed and also participate in ongoing practice development opportunities.

4. Setting the Standard
All our celebrants work to a set of standards to ensure that your experience is the best it can be.  Our celebrants are also subject to a complaints and grievance process.  If, in the unlikely event you have any concerns about your ceremony please raise these with your celebrant directly in the first instance.  If this proves difficult please email ceremonies@humanism.scot and we will do all we can to resolve the matter.

5. Best of All, We’re a Charity!
The Humanist Society Scotland is a Registered Scottish Charity and you can read about us here; our accounts are published annually. As a charity we campaign for a fairer Society; provide humanist ceremonies, including funerals for those under 16 at no charge.  We’re also really proud to be the Humanist organisation that worked hard for legal humanist marriage in Scotland.