Celebrant vs Registrar

Hi

We have actually booked a celebrant for our wedding day.

A celebrant was not something me or my partner had even thought of or considered in fact im pretty sure my OH had no idea what a celebrant was. We went to a small local free wedding fair shortly after getting engaged for ideas and met a local celebrant, she was so friendly i think she just saw our lost faces realizing all the choices to make and things to consider and started talking to us.

If I'm honest we fell in love with her and we have now booked her for our wedding, she became one of our must haves. I will list the benefits which made our decision to have a celebrant below, hopefully this helps ?

. Personalized ceremony so its all about the love between us and our story

. we know exactly who would be marrying us that day, no strange face to meet on the day and hope they are nice, happy person etc.

. No legal terms have to be used, I went to a wedding once where they used the words ' entering this contract' it just sounded like a business deal as opposed to vowing to share your life with this person. just wasn't my cup of tea.

. my other half is quite nervous about have to speak etc. this way he has a friendly face up there who is aware any struggles and help put him at ease, she will do as many rehearsals with us to make him more comfortable and we get to see the script etc and approve it before the big day.

. our celebrant sends out questionnaires to use both to learn all about us and our story and works with us over 8 months before the wedding to make the perfect ceremony we are happy with and so she really knows us!

If I'm honest there is many things i love about having a celebrant for our day. The only downside is obviously friends and family wont be witnessing the official marriage however we decided this was not important to us and that was just the legal aspect which isn't of great importance to us and agreed that our wedding day will be the day we are vowing to each other forever and that is more important for our friends and family to witness.

I would say have a think about what the legal aspect of it means for you and what you are wanting from your wedding day. Might be worth speaking to some local celebrants and see if there's any who you feel is the right fit and will deliver your dream wedding if not then maybe a registrar is the way to go which will be equally as perfect because ultimately you are marrying each other.

I hope this helps

We've just now settled on the idea of doing two ceremonies on different days and I am so excited! Here's our plan:

The MAIN EVENT being our wedding day, full blown thing, with a celebrant who is my oldest friend, so it's super personal but not legal - we'll do personal vows, as well as repeat the "I do"s and the rings, have personal readings, all those good things so it still feels like a proper ceremony. This day is where we have our full guest list, the first dances, the reception, etc.

The LEGAL ONE being probably a week or two before in a registry office - instead of just having two witnesses, we've going for 10 people (usually the one tier up option when you book these), so we get 4 guests each which basically equates to parents and siblings. We'll go out for a nice lunch afterwards. I'm really excited about this mini pre-ceremony being on a different day after talking to someone who's did the same thing; she sold it to me with the line "Getting married is fun! So if you're only going to get married once, why not get married twice?" She approached it as an intimate version of the wedding that could have been, so -

Outfits: Her FH wore the same suit (mine is going to wear one he already has as he's worried about spilling something on his wedding day one haha). Family members in attendance wore whatever nice outfit they'd like, most went for something different to what they wore to the main wedding. The bride wore a white dress that was a really nice day dress/meal out one so not a repeat wedding dress so her main one would still be a surprise on the day - she actually borrowed something, but went for a lacey mini dress and said that in another life that's what she might have gone for as a wedding dress (her actual one was long and satin), so I'm thinking of doing something similar and going for my 'what could have been' style but just bought from a high street shop so it's not buying two super expensive dresses and will hopefully be re-wear-able.

Music: They opted for their second choice songs for recessional and processional - and I love that because we were really torn when deciding ours so this means we'll get to experience both options! They also picked four songs to have on in the background while they were signing which I think is good shout (also, she said that not having to do the signing at the main event was great as it kept the ceremony flowing and helped keep the vibe on point so that's another bonus!).

Other things that I'm going to do: For this legal wedding, I'm going to have my mum walk me down the aisle! (My dad still gets to do it for the main event but this way both my parents get to give me away and feel equally important.) I'm going to just buy a bouquet from a supermarket or somewhere cheap, but go for something really colourful as I'm going quite muted for my main wedding. We're also going to investigate loads of registry offices as they all look so different to hopefully find somewhere pretty that gives us a nice background for some (non-professionally taken) photos.

Sorry that's such a long post but I think moving the legal stuff to a different day is a really exciting option so wanted to share!!