Celebrant for blessing

Sounds amazing. Where are you having the ceremony? I know two so just wanted to know which was closer to you.

We are doing this too ?

If you are having your legal ceremony elsewhere, you can literally have whoever you want conduct your ceremony. In our case, we have chosen to write the ceremony ourselves and have it performed by my partners father.

If you have anyone special if your life, who wouldn't mind speaking in front of your guests you could ask them, or you can hire in an independent celebrant. You do not need to go for a Humanist celebrant. If you google "independent wedding celebrant" you will find some useful information.

A celebrant can generally be as involved in the process as you want them to be- either by providing ceremony text and so on, or using your words. Regardless they'll work with you to achieve something unique and completely personal. You will not have the same restrictions as you would at a licencesd venue so you're free to mix and match various elements of traditional and non traditional ceremonies as you wish.

What part of the country are you in? I can make a couple of recommendations for the South East of England if that's any good?

With regards to booking, i'd definitely meet any you are interested in first. It's essential you feel comfortable with them and trust them to be able to piece together a ceremony for you. I'd start looking into this sooner rather than later, as this type of ceremony is becoming increasingly popular and weddings tend to book around 18 months in advance.

Hi, I am an Independent Celebrant in Kent and have a number of weddings booked for unlicensed venues, castle grounds, woodland and various other venues. There are no rules and I help you to create your wedding ceremony how you want it.

You should really consider booking your celebrant at the same time as your venue. I'm already taking booking for 2016/17 and only do one wedding per day.

please feel free to email me any questions you have ******************@*****.***

my website is www.celebrant-uk.co.uk

Karina x

Hi ,

Thanks for your replies. I am in Leeds so it would probably be around the Yorkshire area really.

Can I just ask not all celebrants are humanist celebrants? Sorry if that is a silly question. We would want to meet and discuss everything about us as a couple and make the ceremony as personal as possible.

Adam xx

Also...

Obviously the legal side will all be done on the Thursday prior to the wedding day. This will be very low key and very few people know about it (only parents really). So all the exchanging of the words that make it legal will be said then. On the Saturday with the celebrant will it still come across as a real cermony. Will the words "do you take... to be your husband etc" and "I do" all still appear in part of it. Or is that only allowed in the registry office?

It's not a silly question at all, we wondered the same thing when we started planning and it took a fair bit of research for us to find out the ins and outs of how non legal ceremonies work- whether there were still rules and so on. In short, as the legal bit is done, as far as we could establish you can literally do as you please (within the confines of the law of course) you can use the same wording as a civil ceremony would use, but generally people choose to personalise theirs a little more, taking elements from all over.

They do still very much come across as a "real" ceremony IMO aside from the signing of the register. You can work a ring exchange into your blessing and so on so it mirrors a legal ceremony too.

Not all celebrants are humanist celebrants though, no ?

To add, in order to legally marry there's only 1 sentence that you actually have to say during your legal ceremony (so we were told by the registrar when we gave notice)- and I believe that is the part in which you declare that there is no reason why you cannot lawfully marry your partner. Everything else if you want, can be saved for your blessing.

This is what we have chosen to do as we didn't want our legal ceremony to be anything other than a paper signing. We wanted all our vows etc to be saved for our wedding so it felt a bit more special, and as if it was the first time we were making our promises to each other.

Awww thank you

That is exactly how we are looking upon it too. The registry office is us basically getting the paperwork out of the way ready for the big day on the Saturday.

No problem

It was tough figuring it all out in the beginning, so if our experiences with the planning so far can help anyone else i'm always happy to share.

Good luck with it all, i'm sure it'll all start coming together piece by piece and you'll have an incredible day!

Adam, we had a Humanist ceremony in Pontefract last month. I can highly recommend our celebrant. She was amazing and everyone has commented on how personal it was to us, how sincere and authentic it was, and one of my friends is going to book her for his unborn child's naming ceremony after witnessing a Humanist ceremony for the first time at our wedding.

Are you doing the legal bit at Leeds Town Hall? They do a £49 ceremony - just you and two witnesses, no music, just the very basic possible - for £49 plus £25 booking fee but they're only available on the last Monday of the month. That's what we did.

Hi Adam

The full ceremony that you choose to have created can be as traditional as you want it to be, including the bride being given away etc. it can also include religious music, readings or poetry so literally everything you could want. It's quite common for guests not to realise you have done the legal ceremony previously as we still pronounce you husband and wife

Humanists create totally non-religious ceremonies in the same way that your local council does. An Independent celebrant will create a ceremony based on your personal beliefs rather than their own. This can be religious, non-religious or partially. Sometimes a song you want mentions a God or angels without you realising it.

i am a member of the Fellowship of Independent celebrants. You can see all members on our website www.foic.org.uk

Most of the FOIC celebrants have received training and a qualification such as the Diploma in Marriage Celebrancy and will automatically be covered by Public liability insurance. We would always suggest that you meet us first as it's essential that you like us and our style of writing. You can ask to see previous work to get a feel for ceremonies too if you like.

I hope this helps

Karina

Thank you for your replies.

We are getting married in Leeds town hall on the Thursday. We debated over the basic £49 ceremony however, my OH parents really want to be there so we have opted fro the Thursday in the bigger suite and invited my parents. We will probably go out for a meal afterwards but I have made it clear that it is low key, no fancy hats, no flowers, no music etc.

Thanks for the website Karina I will take a look

In that case I can also highly recommend Browns for the meal afterwards. We took our witnesses there as a thank you and they gave us freebies when they realised we'd just got married! ?

It's a little disingenuous of Karina to suggest a Humanist celebrant will foist their beliefs upon you. They conduct a non-religious ceremony. You wouldn't have a Bible reading but then if you wanted that you'd probably be doing the whole church service anyway. They don't insist on anything; it can be entirely personalised to you. We had a reading which mentioned god with no issues. I'm sure Karina has some excellent celebrants on her books, I just wouldn't want you to rule another option out based on erroneous information.

Good luck with your search and if you do decide to contact Hannah, pass on Mel and Carl's regards! ?

I am sorry if you have read my reply and considered it ingenious, I cannot see anything in my comment which states that a Humanist will foist their opinions on anyone. I work quite closely with a number of Humanist celebrants and they have all advised me that they do not perform ceremonies with any religion. This was all I stated.

if this is incorrect I can only apologise, but I was only advising based on my professional experience. It clearly depends on the celebrant you choose and you just need to find someone who you feel comfortable with and who will create the ceremony that you want.

Mel is correct that you need to consider all options. please see a few other organisations for other options:

https://humanism.org.uk/ceremonies/find-a-celebrant/

http://www.independentcelebrants.com/civil-celebrants-yorkshire.html

http://www.professionalcelebrants.org.uk/celebrants-family.html

Hope this helps too

Karina

This bit came across that way, Karina. Apologies if that wasn't your intention. ?