As a wedding photographer, I’ve seen all sorts of different ceremonies and my absolute favourite type is a celebrant wedding. I love the fact that a celebrant will plan a completely unique ceremony for you and make all your guests cry or laugh! It gives us so much more to photograph!
So I asked my friend, Meg Senior, a humanist celebrant to come and do a guest blog post all about celebrant weddings.
Meg Senior is a Yorkshire wedding celebrant who creates life affirming ceremonies for laid-back
nearlyweds. She’s all about making the planning process fun (and a little bit romantic) and
celebrating each couple’s unique qualities and individuality.
This is Meg, she is pure JOY!
Over to Meg….
When Hannah asked me “What are the top five reasons to choose a celebrant wedding?” my brain
instantly went to my TOP number one reason. I’ll get to that in a minute, but first it is true that there are countless reasons to book a celebrant wedding!
Read on for this Yorkshire wedding celebrant’s top five reasons and, in my opinion, the ultimate
number one reason too…
The top five reasons to choose a celebrant wedding
1. Your ceremony will actually be about YOU and YOUR relationship
With a celebrant wedding your ceremony won’t be about the institution of marriage, using
generic words which can be applied to any relationship. A celebrant wedding is completely
bespoke and includes your values, your hopes for the future, your love story, your hilarious
in-jokes.
We’re all keen to personalise everything else about our weddings (outfits, table names,
invites etc), why wouldn’t you do the same with your ceremony?!
2. You get to choose the person who is going to marry you
You pick a celebrant to book yourself, rather than the council allocating you a registrar. You
can find someone whose personality you rate, who you click with and can imagine inviting to
your wedding. Your celebrant will be someone you can trust to get on with your crazy
friends, and chat with your family too.
3. Your ceremony can be a party starter
Your celebrant ceremony will set the tone for the whole wedding celebration. Your guests
will get to know you and your partner better, they’ll hear your stories and be entertained,
they’ll feel like an important part of your life.
That’s why guests love celebrant weddings. They know you and love you, so they want to
hear about you! With a celebrant, your ceremony won’t just be the bit to get through first,
that everyone is waiting to finish before the canapes can be served.
4. You won’t have to say anything you don’t believe
With a celebrant wedding there is no required legal wording to include (in England anyway)
and no promises to a deity or higher power. A good celebrant makes sure everyone feels
welcome and that no one is being judged, so if you have religious guests they’ll feel right at
home too.
5. You can get married wherever and whenever you want
Obviously – as a Yorkshire wedding celebrant – I recommend anywhere in this beautiful
county, but seriously ANYWHERE is good. The top of a mountain, in a hot air balloon, or simply an unlicensed venue. Most of my couples choose licensed wedding venues anyway, but it’s nice to have the option!
Unlike with a registrar, you won’t have a strict time slot to adhere to. Your celebrant will dedicate their whole day to you, so you can be late if you need to be, or you can choose a midnight ceremony if that’s your thing too.
And finally…
The top reason to book a celebrant wedding
In my opinion the top reason to book a celebrant wedding is that the person who marries you
actually cares about you. That’s not to say that a registrar wouldn’t care about you during your
ceremony, they’d be heartless not to! But a celebrant that you’ve handpicked, that person who
you’ve spent time with over six months or so, THEY will know you and your relationship on a deeper level.
Throughout the process of planning your ceremony your celebrant will have worked their magic to
really get to know you. We celebrants are skilled at teasing out the important information, so that
we can mirror who you are in your ceremony wording.
So by the time your wedding day arrives you won’t be handing the reigns over to a random person
you’ve never met before. Instead you’ll be asking someone you trust to host the central part of your wedding day. You will be sharing your ceremony with a new friend who genuinely cares about you.
An absolute no brainer. For more info please head over to Meg’s website – Yorkshire Wedding Celebrant.
And here are a couple of Meg’s blogs if you’d like to find out more about celebrant weddings:
https://www.megsenior.com/post/what-is-a-wedding-celebrant
https://www.megsenior.com/post/how-to-choose-a-wedding-celebrant
All the images in this blog were taken by my own fair hand. Come and say hello if you love my work.
