You’ve booked your wedding venue, and now you want to make your day extra special by choosing a wedding celebrant? Great! You can do the ‘legal bit’ at the registrar’s office on the day of your choosing. The vast majority of my couples don’t do the legal requirements on the same day as their celebrant-led ceremony.

 

What you may not know is that there are only 41 words, plus your names, that form the legal minimum for getting married. You don’t have to do a service or ceremony with the registrar. A lot of registrars will try and tell you otherwise, but it’s simply not true. You can have what is known as a ‘notification only’ with two witnesses present. This means you can save your music, rings, readings and vows for the ceremony that you’ll share with your friends and family.

Here’s what you need to know about choosing a wedding celebrant. Firstly, it’s important that you choose someone you resonate with because you will, hopefully, be developing a relationship. This is one of the primary differences between a registrar and a celebrant.

Not all celebrants are the same. You might make a choice based on price or the celebrant’s location to your venue or their background or if you have shared interests. You might choose them on their looks or voice or something else. Perhaps your choice is based on the celebrant’s familiarity with your venue. Maybe you’d like to book them because you’ve seen them at work or had a glowing recommendation from a wedding planner or friend.

 

Be wary of choosing someone based on their price. I can’t stress this enough. A lower-priced celebrant who is undercutting other celebrants may appear popular because they’re getting more work, but of this you should be sure: they will also be undercutting in other ways. That is, they simply won’t have the time to write you a bespoke ceremony. They’ll be ‘cutting and pasting’. Nor will they have the time to get to know you as well as they should. How can they if they’re churning out several weddings a week/more than one a day?

 

Of course, there are also brand-new celebrants who charge the same fee as someone like myself (who has 28 plus years of real-life wedding experience). How do you tell the difference? Therein lies the problem. Now, while some newly certified celebrants might prove to be excellent, it’s important to remember that this is an unregulated industry. What this means is that every week, hundreds of new celebrants are being churned out of celebrant-training schools with certificates simply for ‘turning up’. This is no indicator of whether someone has the skills and qualities to do the job adequately never mind with excellence. (As a celebrant trainer, all my students are certified based on aptitude.)

 

I’m now in my 28th year of being a wedding celebrant. I’ve experienced every scenario you can imagine. One of my celebrant superpowers is being calm. This calmness shows in your wedding ceremony and extends to you as a couple. Of course, that doesn’t mean it’s devoid of humour or fun or whatever atmosphere you want created.

My job is to provide solidity, an anchor if you like, so that your ceremony is grounded. This is, after all, the template for your married life. It’s best not to confuse the words ‘safe hands’ with boring. My ceremonies are anything but! Each one reflects my couple so it might be traditional, alternative, unusual, humorous, edgy, romantic, philosophical, and so on. What they all have in common is that they are 100% bespoke (original) to the couple in question. There is no ceremony in the world that will come close regardless of what traditional elements it might include.

In 2020, I graduated from University of Cumbria with a Master’s Degree in Creative Writing. You can bet I’m going to LOVE writing your love story.

You can find me officiating from Callanish on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides down to Cornwall, and internationally, but mostly you’ll find me officiating weddings here in beautiful Cumbria. I’ve officiated in castles, flower meadows, on beaches, in woodlands, barns, homes, gardens, hotels, stone circles, stables, canal boats and more.

 

If you’re getting married in Cumbria, and want a beautiful wedding ceremony you’ll always remember, do get in touch.

Getting to know Nicky and Karen was a true joy for me. I meet so many couples in my work as a Wedding Celebrant, a job I’ve thoroughly enjoyed for 28 years now, and it never ceases to amaze me the pure magic involved in how people meet and when that spark takes hold. Their elopement ceremony was held here in the Eden Valley, Cumbria, one of the most beautiful counties in the UK.

It was while on holiday that they met, in the magical Ionian sea, on the Greek Island of Zante, a place of beauty known for sea turtles, white beaches and entertainment. Beneath sunny skies, and to the soundtrack of waves lapping upon the shoreline, the seeds of friendship were planted. The Hand of Fate knew what it was doing when it brought them together on that gorgeous Greek Island. The Greeks have philosophised about love for a long time, and have many different words for it.

One of the fabulous things I loved about creating their elopement ceremony  was their incredible openness to ideas. As a result, we were able to incorporate spiritual, religious and cultural elements that were meaningful and personal to them into their beautiful ceremony.

The plan was to have their ceremony in a gorgeous garden at one of their favourite places: their happy place. Well, in true British Summer style, it was tipping down. Were we going to let that stop us?

A massive thank you to fab photographer Kathryn White for navigating the rain!

Veronika Robinson is a Heart-led Celebrant in Cumbria. She has had the immense pleasure of creating beautiful weddings since 1995, and still has a skip in her step each time she heads off to officiate a ceremony. Although her practice is based in Cumbria, she officiates from Cornwall to Callanish, and everywhere in between, including internationally. Veronika is an inclusive celebrant and practises discrimination-free celebrancy. Her officiating style is relaxed, authentic, friendly, warm, gentle, caring, and with natural humour.