What exactly is a Celebrant

An Independent Celebrant offers you the opportunity to have a unique and personal ceremony to celebrate life’s most important events; weddings, civil partnerships, baby naming, renewals of vows and anything else that you might want to celebrate with a service. This is achieved by meeting with you and exploring what you want to include in your ceremony.

A personalised ceremony will then be created with words, music, poetry, religious passages, symbolism or anything that you want to include that means something to you. The ceremony itself can be held at any time and location chosen by you and this does not have to be licensed premises for weddings and civil partnerships. For anyone the church will not marry, eg divorced couples and civil partnerships an Independent Celebrant is the perfect choice to prepare and deliver the ceremony on your special day. I am a trained Independent Celebrant and I will endeavour to ensure that your celebration and ceremony is unique for you. People often confuse a celebrant with a registrar.

The legal part of any marriage ceremony takes around six minutes and the rest of the service is purely ceremonial, even exchanging of rings. An Independent Celebrant is not registered to perform the legalities relating to a marriage. The legally binding part of the service must take place at registered premises and by a registered officiate for a marriage or civil partnership to be recognised in law. For a religious service, this may be in a church or any other religious building registered for marriage. For civil marriages or civil partnerships, you attend a Registry Office or a licensed venue.

Whether you choose a Registry Office or beautiful licensed location, the ceremony conducted by the Registrar will stay the same, short and impersonal and won't allow you to have any religious reference of any kind or any individual input to make your service bespoke. If you choose a celebrant, you can arrange the legal side of your marriage to take place at the local registry office with each other and two witnesses and then have your ‘proper’ ceremony performed at the location of your choice, licensed or not, by your celebrant, who you will have worked with to make your ceremony unique and personal to you.

Regarding baby or child naming ceremonies, there is no legal requirement at all. The only legality concerning children is that they are registered at the appropriate registry office within a specified time after birth, their ceremony can then take place at any point in the future at any location chosen by you.

Whether you want a simple affair, maybe at home or at your favourite pub, or something more lavish or quirky, maybe in a beautiful listed building or perhaps even a field, as an Independent Celebrant I am here to create and deliver your ceremony and make your dreams come true.