I meet a lot of couples. We talk a lot about their expectations of their celebrant and their ceremony. It helps me to know whether I’m a good fit for their wedding. Occasionally, I am not and I’m confident enough to tell couples that and make some suggestions on who might suit them.
One of the most common things a couple will talk to me about, in these catch ups is the ceremonies that they have attended that they remember for all the wrong reasons.
So what’s the one thing that I hear all the time?
“We went to this wedding, and all the celebrant did was talk about themselves…” or “The celebrant kept talking about the couple like they knew them.”
Now, I have done the weddings of numerous friends and family members so including personal anecdotes and stories of myself with the couple has been appropriate.
But in the (almost) 700 weddings that I have done, I have always promised the couples that the one thing that will never, ever show up in their ceremony, is MY OPINION.
Some couples, I met numerous times before the wedding, some I only meet in real life on the actual day.
They all get a very personalised ceremony that has been written specifically for them, that talks about their hopes and plans.
However, in the brief moments we have spoken/emailed/phoned/ planned, to pretend that what I think matters is doing my couples a great disservice.
Often, I am standing surrounded by 30 – 100 people who have known the couple for years, or the whole time they have been on this planet.
The couples time with me is so insignificant in comparison to the lifetime of memories and friendships shared between the couple I am marrying and their guests.
Don’t get me wrong, there are couples I have married that I am still in contact with today. A lot of them I consider friends, but I would never presume to put my role on their wedding day ahead of their parents, brothers and sisters or friends.
Your celebrant should want to do a great job for you, not inject themselves into your lives, or drag the attention away from you.
You don’t want a celebrant pretending to be your best friend, you already have one. You just want a celebrant to do a damn awesome job of legally marrying you.
