If you’re reading this, you are probably thinking about having a wedding celebrant at your wedding instead of a registrar. But what does a wedding celebrant actually do and what does the process of working with one look like?!

Firstly, wedding celebrants marry you! But in an entirely different way to being married by a registrar or in the church. A celebrant ceremony is deeply personalised and focuses on you as a couple, rather than the law or god. It will contain your story as a couple, as well as any lovely extra elements and symbolic acts you might want to include.

Unlike working with a registrar, your ceremony with a wedding celebrant is completely bespoke. If you are interested in all the exact differences between celebrant-led and registrar-led weddings, you can read my blog here.

Wedding ceremony - UK wedding celebrant — Photography by Sarah Martin

The key point to note is that a registrar meets you around 15 minutes before your ceremony to read a basic, simplistic script, while a celebrant crafts a bespoke, personalised ceremony from scratch. This involves various meetings during the lead-up to your wedding to get to know you as a couple and as individuals so that your ceremony feels truly YOU and authentic.

What to expect when working with me

As a UK wedding celebrant, I have led many London ceremonies, but I frequently travel across the country, and I love doing ceremonies abroad! Over the last few months, I’ve done a wedding in Lake Como (in the villa where House of Versace was filmed no less!) one in Berlin and another in France.

I can’t speak for all celebrants, but below is an outline of what the process of working with me looks like.

Say hi!

Once you’ve found me and decided that we might be a good fit for each other, the next step is to get in touch and say hello! Normally via whichever platform you found me on or over email or phone. You can check availability, and it’s a good idea to include your wedding venue/location if you have it confirmed.

Discovery call:

From there, we can arrange a convenient time to have a chat on Zoom – 20 minutes is normally enough. I can explain to you how it all works, and you can ask any questions you might have. We can talk about ideas you may have and things you’d like to include, and I can make some initial suggestions. We can also discuss how it all works as well as talk about things like the separate legal element to marrying and as well as pricing.

More than anything, this call is an opportunity to get a feel for each other and see if we’re a good fit. It’s important to work with a wedding celebrant that you feel comfortable with and someone you feel will best represent you as a couple.

After you’ve decided:

Have a chat with each other and take some time to decide if you’d like to work with me. If it’s a yes, I will send you a contract (that can be agreed upon over email) and ask for a 50% “Save the Date” payment upfront. The rest is payable just 1 month before the wedding.

If it’s a no – that’s totally fine! It doesn’t happen very often, but I’m a big girl – I don’t see it as a sign of rejection and can handle your decision! So please do let me know rather than ghosting, as I hold the date for you until I hear (…for a reasonable period, at least.)

Couples Questionnaire:

As the date of our planning meeting approaches – normally about 6 months out from your big day – I will send you a questionnaire to complete together. As well as gathering lots of practical information, the intention of this is really to get you thinking in these terms ahead of our planning meeting. It can be lovely to make an evening out of this together over a bottle of wine or dinner, as you start to think about the nuances of the day and what you want out of your ceremony. There are some questions about each other and your relationship in there, too, so that you can come to our planning meeting prepared.

Planning meeting:

This is where we get into ALLLL the detail! We can arrange a convenient time when you have a clear diary. It’s best to reserve up to 90 minutes and to turn your phone/any laptop notifications off so you can be present with each other. This is basically me interviewing you and asking you all about each other and your relationship. How did you meet? What do your lives look like together? What does marriage mean to you? What do you love about each other….and LOTS more!

We will talk about things like the tone and style – relaxed, fun, informal, romantic? When I’ve spent some time with you during this meeting getting to know you, I can make some recommendations about things I think might work in your ceremony – whether that’s symbolic acts, readings or ideas of things I’ve seen before that I know work really well. We can talk about things like vow ideas and how to write your own, too.

It can often be a really affirming time for you both, actually articulating lovely things that sometimes are never said to each other and putting words to what your relationship means. Often, I get the feedback that this meeting alone makes the whole process worthwhile before you even get to the ceremony itself!

Normally one planning meeting is enough, but if we need to meet again, we can arrange a time. If you live locally, we can meet in person. If not, Zoom is almost as good!

Script writing & first draft:

I then go away from our meeting armed with lots of amazing information from you and can start to put together the first draft of your ceremony.

When it’s ready, I’ll send it over and we can pass it back and forth as needed until everything is signed off and ready to go.

Before the wedding:

I’ll check in with you in the lead-up to the ceremony and we can clarify any final bits together. If it makes sense, we can have a little call the week before and go over the finer details of the day.

On the day:

I’ll be there for around 1 hour before your ceremony. I’ll be the point person for the ceremony itself, meeting with anyone involved in the wedding ceremony and making sure everyone knows their cues and what’s happening as well as chatting to the venue and whoever is doing music. Then I’ll marry you! I’ll leave you a lovely commemorative keepsake script of your wedding ceremony, too.

And that’s it. Not all wedding celebrants are the same and everyone will have their own process, but this is roughly what it looks like if you work with me Do get in touch if you’d like to find out more about how we could work together.

The Process of Working with a Wedding Celebrant