Choosing Your Celebrant

Choosing Your Celebrant

Whether it be a priest, registrar or civil celebrant, your officiant can make or break your wedding day. It’s so important that you can relate to them and trust them. With a priest or a registrar, you don’t have much choice. But you can choose your civil celebrant.

The vital question therefore is: how do I choose the right one?

Which officiant?

Obviously, your wishes, beliefs and budget are all factors.

A religious ceremony is just that – and it follows a set formula which allows little room for personalisation.

The same applies to register office weddings – except that  there may be no religious mentions at all.

To get the best of both worlds, you can combine register office (or a religious service) and civil ceremony. For example, hold the (legal) wedding the day before – or immediately before –  and then have the ceremony that actually fits with your dreams.

Would you like something different?

Would you like something a bit different, perhaps?

You certainly should be free to choose the type of ceremony you’ll be having – especially on the most important day of your life. You may have to compromise (with parents, for example). However, ideally,  the service should be a deeply personal experience that reflects both your and your partner’s beliefs, values and style.

That’s why you may opt for a civil celebrant. So how do you choose the right one for you?

Find your Civil Celebrant

You may already know of a celebrant through a referral, say. Otherwise, you will probably turn to Google. You can look under affiliated groups (eg AOIC, British Humanist Association, UKSoC, etc.). People listed there will have been trained and offer minimum (actually, often excellent)  standards. Otherwise, you might key in “Civil Celebrant Harrow” and, hopefully, “Vows That Wow” will appear!

Check your Celebrant out

Once you’ve found a possibility or two, have a look at their website. Read the testimonials, but, possibly more important, see their video. This will give you an idea of the sort of person they are. You will not want to work with someone you feel uncomfortable with!

What to find out

Having settled on your celebrant, these are things you need to know:

  • First, establish if the celebrant is free on the date you have in mind
  • If so, check if they will travel
  • Ask about legal requirements, as licensed premises have strict rules
  • Of course, you need a quote (although trusting and liking them should be more important)
  • Ask how they operate – ie is there an initial meeting (where?) – and what the fee includes
  • Try and get a sense of their experience, enthusiasm and character (just as there are many different sorts of ceremonies, so civil celebrants have different personalities)
  • Check how flexible the ceremony may be (eg can you write your own vows?)
  • You may want to ask about length of ceremony (although this will very much depend on your requirements)

If you feel happy that you would like this celebrant to conduct your ceremony, then your gut feeling is probably the thing to go with. However, make sure you read and understand their Terms & Conditions. There shouldn’t be any nasty surprises, especially with a bona fide professional, but it’s always as well to be vigilant.

Working with a professional will be a pleasure. You will be free to enjoy the unforgettable, unique experience that is so precious. A good civil celebrant should be able to provide precisely what you are looking for.

An Unforgettable Year

An Unforgettable Year

Maybe 2016 is the year that you are planning to marry? You want to make it an unforgettable year.  You have so much excitement ahead of you. Choices, decisions and expenses are things you’ll have to wrestle with. You’re planning the biggest day of your lives – and that’s really pleasurable – but be aware that this often comes with pressure in its wake.

Pressures

  1. Your parents may be putting financial or psychological pressure (or both!) on you to have the ceremony that THEY want.
  2. You may underestimate the timings involved or the things that need to be considered and put in place – the stress can increase as the big day approaches.
  3. Your suppliers may be a disappointment.
  4. You may have serious problems selecting your guests without causing offence.

Solutions

There’s no easy answer to point four. All I can suggest is that you carefully calculate your budget and then, in consultation with your intended (it’s essential that you work as a team throughout), decide who needs to be there, as well as whom you want to be there!

In order to reduce stress, start planning early. Do ask me for my “Wedding Countdown Checklist“, which I’ll e-mail to you with my compliments.

If your parents are bankrolling the operation (or even if they’re not, but they’re putting their oar in regularly), don’t let them bulldoze you into doing what you don’t want to do or disapprove of. But you must be the best judge of how to handle them. However, it is your big day and your input deserves to be respected. If they won’t see that, maybe you can offer a compromise (eg “We don’t want a religious ceremony, but we’d be OK with a blessing, if that makes you happy.”).

Finally, you want to be sure of your suppliers.

Referrals are best (though other people’s tastes may not always be the same as yours!). Do have a look at suppliers’ websites and don’t be afraid actually to speak to them before deciding. This applies to most suppliers, such as photographers, florists, civil celebrants, etc.

For the venue, go along and also meet the events organiser. Bring a list of questions, and be sure that you see and love the room where you want to be married or blessed.

Arrange to sample some of your caterers’ output before committing yourself.

Unless you’re planning a full religious service (officiated by your priest), try and get to know your civil celebrant beforehand. You need to feel at ease with and confident in him/her.

Some stress is inevitable, I think, but there are ways of minimising its effects and I hope this advice will help you to have that great year. And that’s my wish for all my readers.

Winter Outdoor Weddings

Winter Outdoor Weddings

Well, you’d need your head examining to contemplate a winter outdoor wedding or vow renewal, especially in our climate!

Hold your horses (or reindeer?), I hear you say.

Yes, I agree that it’s a huge gamble. Nobody relishes a wet, cold ceremony. But just imagine if you get one of those crisp, snowy days, with a blue sky. What could be more magical?

I’ve officiated at an open-air ceremony in January. There was torrential rain either side of the wedding, but we enjoyed a blessed gap for the ceremony itself!

If you’re thinking of going for it, there are some ways of harnessing the climate to your advantage; you can also lessen its (negative) impact. So here’s what I suggest.

The Weather

If you’ve taken the plunge (sorry about the pun!), then accept that you’ve taken a decision and you have to make the best of it.

Two nice touches you could adopt are:

  • Issue blankets (whether in themed colours or not) to guests
  • When the guests arrive at the reception, rather than ice-cold champagne, why not offer them hot chocolate or mulled wine?

Make the Weather your Theme

You can use snowy scenes as background for your wedding invitations, RSVP cards, and, on the day, for the place cards.

Table decoration could include pine cones, foliage and lots of white. If it is likely to be snowy weather, plain white can work very well for the colour scheme.

You might even replace flowers (which, being out of season locally, can be costly) with pine cone bouquets, which are attractive as well as rather original.

Candles or tea lights may be a good idea, but you will have to take good old health and safety into account – people need to be able to see where they’re going and you don’t want fires breaking out, either! Also bear in mind that exposure to the elements may cause candles to be blown out or even to fall over!

Seasonal Colour

If you are having white as your themed colour, this may allow you to choose strong colours for bridesmaids, which could look very striking.

You can style the wedding cake with festive red and white.

The Garden

It can be a lot cheaper to use your garden for the wedding, rather than hiring a venue, and it may have, well, a homely feel about it, which can be charming. However, you could save less money than you think, and you risk missing out on that valuable peace of mind that dealing with professionals should afford.

You’ll have to make suitable arrangements for tables, chairs, toilets, parking, catering, place settings and electricity. Then you will need to offer protection from the elements, possibly providing blankets, as already suggested, and even umbrellas.

So, yes, an outdoor winter ceremony is a dangerous gamble, but the rewards can be so worthwhile …!

DIY Funeral Eulogies

DIY Funeral Eulogies

When you think about it, wedding speeches and eulogies have much in common. They do have to be well-written and well-delivered, and neither of those areas tend to be many people’s strengths.  Moreover, grief can make the process even harder.

So here is some guidance to steer you to safety.

A quick and easy solution is to ask your celebrant to draw up a eulogy for you. You’ll have to supply the information and probably check and approve the draft , but that’s a good method – especially if you dread public speaking – and you may well be at your lowest ebb anyway at such a time.

Another possibility is to get a friend or relative, or even several, to deliver tributes. Nobody should be forced into this, but, if they agree, they should be warned to keep the tribute reasonably short (1-2 minutes each, tops), to the point (rambling interminably spoils the moment) and well-delivered (slow and clear).

For anybody planning to do their own speech writing, I hope the following hints will help.

Think about your audience

  • Be aware of the fact that there may be issues that would be better left unsaid (family animosities, for example)
  • You may well feel mournful, but you can also focus on the uplifting and inspiring. Many people prefer a celebration of life, and a joke need not be seen as inappropriate, although we’re not talking about comedy routines!
  • People will want to hear nice things about the deceased, but everybody is human. It may be fine to mention one or two idiosyncrasies about the deceased. However, saying somebody was “a bit difficult at times” or “they could be obstinate on occasion” gets the message across in a better way than saying “he/she was a complete b***”!

A couple of minutes (2-4) is probably enough.

The person

In most cases, you will want to cover the main biographical parts of the deceased’s life (people will be there who know only one side of that life, probably). However, an account like that risks being quite dry. A few well-chosen stories can really (no pun intended) bring the deceased to life.

So aim at covering the qualities of the person, and also something encompassing happy, funny, unusual, even sad events that sum up their life.

The script

It’s worth writing a full script (experienced and confident speakers may get by with notes, and a few can talk fluently impromptu, but I don’t advise this in the majority of cases). You should practise reading it, preferably to someone you know quite well, who can tell you if your words are coming across as you mean.

Start, middle and end

You can leave the beginning till you have written the other parts, but when you do, it’s probably best to start by going straight for the point. It might just be to thank the guests for their support.

You can end with something short by way of conclusion (possibly a phrase addressed directly to the deceased).

 

Delivery

  • Practise reading your eulogy beforehand.
  • Stand when giving the eulogy.
  • Come dressed appropriately.
  • Try and stand still when speaking, and appear as calm as you can.
  • Look up periodically at your audience (so they feel involved). Mark your place with a finger as you look away!
  • Speak slowly. (You’re bound to be nervous, and we often accelerate under those circumstances.) You project better that way – and also you (and your audience) will have time to think about what you are saying.

Nobody will blame you if you are overcome with emotion. It’s perfectly natural. Give yourself a couple of moments before carrying on. (If you really can’t, and you have a script, then your celebrant can take over.)

To sum up, you don’t have to have a eulogy at all. If you do want one, involve the celebrant, by all means. Alternatively, you can invite people close to the deceased. But if you do it yourself, I hope the advice I offer will be helpful to you.

Preparing for a Funeral

Preparing for a Funeral

Let’s be brutally frank: it’s funeral season. And let’s face it, we’re all going to die some time …

I’m a funeral (as well as a wedding) celebrant. So here’s some guidance that may be helpful to you, when the inevitable happens.

Death

If someone dies at home (or in a nursing home), a doctor must be called to issue the Medical Certificate of Death. This will be done by hospital staff, if the deceased dies while in hospital.

Assuming there is no need for a post-mortem, etc., the next step, before arranging the funeral, is to make an appointment to see the Registrar.

Registering the Death

There are lots of choices how to commemorate a death, but, come what may, it has to be recorded legally. So the registrar will need to be informed, and will want:

  • details of the death (including the Death Certificate)
  • name, address, date and place of birth of the deceased
  • their occupation
  • whether they were receiving a pension or allowance from public funds
  • if married, the date of birth of the surviving spouse.

 

The funeral

The Procession

Historically, a cortege was much favoured, and today you can still see horse-drawn hearses. Most commonly, though, it will be a limousine – although you can actually come across a range of creative ideas for the procession (eg motorcycle hearses, or bringing the coffin by a lorry, say, to reflect the deceased’s profession or passion).

2014-12-04 15.12.34

Burial

There are a number of interesting customs still in use – mostly in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, where burial tends to happen sooner. Some regional traditions include the use of cords to lower the coffin (Scotland), families in Wales announce a death by pinning cards to lamp posts and there are the ‘lifts’ (Northern Ireland), where the coffin is passed from hand to hand. In England, rosemary may be placed on the coffin or at the graveside (symbolising remembrance).

It is traditional to strew soil or rose petals over the coffin, but nowadays there are new rituals, which may include live music, fireworks, release of doves, bubbles or balloons.

Funeral celebrant - cemetery

Cremation

Ashes can be buried, scattered or kept, so it is as well to consider these options carefully. There are various regulations about scattering or burying ashes, and a Funeral Director should be able to advise you.

The service

Music still plays a big part at a funeral, but religious music is in decline. People prefer songs associated with the deceased (or chosen by them). An organ is often an option, but usually the chapel may have a Wesley System (which can access most songs). Alternatively or additionally, CDs or MP3s are the order of the day.

Orders of service have often become more elaborate than they once were. Now, in addition to the deceased’s name, date of birth and death and the words of any hymns being sung, there may well be photographs and stories.

Speeches and Eulogies

In many cases, the person leading the service still delivers the eulogy, but increasingly family, friends and work colleagues may contribute a poem, a memory or a tribute.

Celebrant

If you use a Funeral Director, they will give you information about the funeral and should explain that you can have a full religious service, a humanist-type one (totally secular) or a part-religious funeral ( combining both elements). They will then put you in touch with the appropriate celebrant.

In most cases, the celebrant will visit and discuss the choices that may be available to you so that you can have the service that is most fitting and, hopefully, satisfactory.

Perhaps this is the moment to remind you that I offer religious, part-religious or non-religious services! I even write and prepare funerals for those who want to have a say in their funeral during their life-time.