Rarely have I found a couple confident in this ceremony and why it is so important to spend time to find a professional and experienced celebrant that gives clear and easy guidance adding reassurance from start to finish.
Many couples in the excitement of their announced pending wedding get drawn into the non fundamental issues of their day, which are all optional, what isn’t optional for a legal binding New Zealand wedding is the Celebrant and there are hundreds to choose from with an array of experience and expertise and a huge range of prices attached. Your budget is most definitely going to be a constraining factor on every level of your planning but I do advise you take care when cutting the budget with your celebrant. A professional celebrant should be a member of the industry association where they are kept up to date on all relevant law changes and adhere to a quality industry standard giving you a level of comeback should they disappoint you. Other considerations is their public liability and assurances that the advice they give you is accurate. New Zealand offers a spectacular range of ceremony venues from standard venues, private and public gardens and beauty spots from mountain tops to beaches. It is important to know what the requirements for these locations are and a well-established celebrant will save you many hours of investigation or disappointment on the day when you arrive and find you cannot hold your ceremony is the desired location.
Another consideration is the personality of the celebrant, do they give you the freedom to design your ceremony, yet give you advice and ideas to bind it together? Are they bold and clearly spoken enough to be heard by everyone with or without a microphone? Do they take centre stage or have the necessary experience to know when to step in or out of the picture? These are just a few things to mull over but until you meet a couple of Celebrants you won’t know what you are really looking for.
A good place to start looking is the New Zealand official government register where you can break down your search by location. You will then be able to assatain the seriousness of a professional Celebrant by their website and information offered on it. Some of that information could be their professional memberships, quality standards and accreditations but you cannot get better than qualified testimonials from the couples who already made a good choice. Another place to find a celebrant in your given area of venue is social media, where other couples are more than willing to offer advice on their celebrant’s performance but again choose wisely, as discretion and integrity on these forums is obviously important.
Once you make your inquiry the boxes need to be ticked off; how long did it take to reply, how did they reply, on open forum or closed reply, have you felt that you are being listened to? It’s all in the Gut! If you don’t gel from the start it’s likely that celebrant will not deliver on your personal needs as the relationship between the celebrant and couple is incredibly important in delivering the personality of your ceremony.
These days there are very few constraints on how you conduct your ceremony and a good celebrant will give the correct advise on your legal obligation and be flexible enough to allow the rest of the ceremony go the way the couple desire with advice and suggestions from a seasoned celebrant who can pull all those ideas together with simple, clear direction to all involved creating a seamless occasion everyone will be delighted with.
When you find the celebrant that you feel will deliver on their promise to you they will want to chat with you in person, this is obviously better face to face but in this day with so many destination couples tools such as Skype work just as well. Where possible I have been known to hold skype meetings at the chosen beach for my distance couples to show them the location and bring the important of good advice to life on tides, weather conditions and other considerations that could be uncontrollable on the day but need discussion and planning in advance.
Your celebrant will provide some on line help and guidance when scripting your ceremony but will need several opportunities to chat, as part of a good service is the relationship between the Celebrant and couple and the knowledge the celebrant will get from talking both with the couple together and separately.
In today’s wedding ceremony differences and combined beliefs and traditions it is also important to know that your chosen celebrant offers unconditional expectations on you and is willing to listen and learn about your expectations and personal needs too.
There are many many traditional unity ceremony and theme ideas and all these can easily be found on the internet to find the right one for you, however there are no rules on this and you could find or start a new idea and family tradition. One wedding I did was for a lovely couple who had known each other for 60 years and their ceremony was just them and their two close friends but the bride bought all sorts of special items belonging to family members who couldn’t attend, it was very simple and special.
So in conclusion you should be discussing with your partner on what your priorities are and what it is you’re looking for in a celebrant. Budget is obviously important but please remember that those who charge more often have costs to cover because they are professional and go the extra mile to insure they keep to high standards and customer satisfaction and with one chance to get the day perfect this should be a priority. Whatever your personal needs and theming is, will your celebrant be flexible enough to work in with these without conditions?
If you would like to learn how I can help you please visit my website and contact me via e-mail or telephone or facebook and I will look forwards to discussing your day.
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1 comment:
Finding the right marriage celebrant for the special day is very important. Celebrants are the one who is responsible for making the wedding day more special and memorable.
Celebrant Brisbane
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