The Savvy Celebrant

By Susan Gallina

An essential guide for all marriage celebrants. Covering marketing strategies, creative ceremonies (including ritual and tradition examples), and social media engagement as well as website creation.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Feb 9, 2017
• ISBN: 9781326943820

Book preview

Introduction

As marriage celebrants, our role is an important one. Helping couples make decisions about the kind of ceremony they would like to have and guiding them through planning all of the important details is just the beginning. With so many options available, helping couples to make choices that are right for their specific taste and circumstance is an essential part of modern celebrancy.

But working as a marriage celebrant and running a successful celebrant business involves so much more. Setting yourself up as a business, deciding what name you will market yourself under and also what kind of marketing you will do, all requires a lot of thought and organisation.

Tackling a marketing strategy, getting good placement and visibility online and having content that stands out is important, but ultimately it is about creating a marketing strategy that will bring in more business. Good marketing in this industry is essential to long-term success. That’s where this book can help.

Having travelled all over Australia teaching mandatory professional development to celebrants, the one thing that I have found in every part of the country is celebrants who are struggling with how to market themselves and gain more work in their local area. It seems that this is a common issue in every state and with that in mind, the marketing tools and strategies in this book are essential to all celebrants, new and experienced.

In addition to all of this, when it comes to the business of ceremonies, more and more frequently modern couples are declining the usual offerings and choosing to include wording, rituals and traditions which bring meaningful significance to their wedding ceremony. Celebrants are under far greater pressure than ever to be familiar with the use of many different styles and options, as well as rituals and traditions, and to be willing to take part and engage in them as part of the ceremonies they perform. You’ll find many of the popular ones have been covered in this book for you.

Some couples come to us knowing exactly what they want and are even so prepared that they have already written vows and worked out the order of their ceremony, but others come feeling very unsure of what to do and need that guidance and support that only experience can bring. For this reason, all of the individual components of a marriage ceremony have also been covered in this book, including examples and wording options for you to use and build upon.

I hope you will find all of the sections in this book useful in helping you to really get your celebrant business at the top of its game.

Being a Celebrant – My Story

Being a Civil Celebrant for more early two decades has afforded me the wonderful opportunity to play a role in hundreds of ceremonies including weddings, baby naming ceremonies and funeral celebrations.

I remember going through my course and then finally receiving the notification that I had been appointed. I was thinking, fantastic, what do I do now? It was scary. I had no idea how to actually get myself out there, where to find clients and what on earth I would do when I got one!

Obviously, I worked it out eventually, but it was the care and support that I received from other, more experienced celebrants in my local area that really got me off to a running start. I am eternally grateful to them and I try to make sure that I offer help and support to every new celebrant that I come across to pay back some of that kindness.

Over the years my work as a celebrant has taken me to some weird and wonderful places and allowed me to get to know, if only briefly, many unique and interesting couples. One of the best things about this job is working with a couple to create their wedding ceremony and then being called back for a naming ceremony for their first born, then second and sometimes third!  It is always heart-warming to remember the two people that stood before their family and friends to commit to each other and to then see them, a few years later, raising their own child or children.

I’ve had the very good fortune to visit many beautiful and hidden places in South Australia, from the far North to far South and of course the Adelaide Hills, but when a friend asked me to conduct her wedding ceremony at a resort in Thailand I thought all my Christmases had come at once! It was a fabulous experience and a wonderful holiday for all of us that made the trip over for the big day. The bride walked the grassy, flower-lined aisle at sunset, to a backdrop of the bluest ocean, and we partied on the very edge of the beach at a sit-down reception, watching the candle-lit paper lanterns float away into the distance.

I honestly believed that this couldn’t, and never would be topped until recently when I was asked to fly to Brisbane for a wedding that was to take place on-board the P&O Cruise ship, Pacific Dawn. When they enquired as to whether I was available and willing to do it, the words that came out of my mouth were, ‘yes, of course I’ll do it!’

Sadly, I wasn’t going to set sail with them, but I did get to board and spend the day on the ship to look around and relax, before conducting the ceremony and disembarking.

I have to say that I’ve enjoyed almost every minute of this job, except for a few heart-stopping hiccups and the unavoidable sad moments that inevitably come with working as a celebrant.

What we do as celebrants is important. Every celebrant will know that feeling you get when you finish a wedding or even a funeral and you leave feeling completely uplifted. Our work comes with a real sense of having done something good in this life, so give yourself a pat on the back and enjoy it. You are one of the lucky few who have the wonderful opportunity to play such a meaningful role in the milestones of so many lives.

Congratulations.

Getting Started as a Celebrant

Note: If you’re already a celebrant and have been for some time, you might want to skip or just skim through this next section. Many of the recommendations below will already be second nature to you if you’ve been working in this industry for a while.

There are many things to consider when working as a celebrant. You will interview clients regularly, which means you’ll need somewhere to base yourself. This location should be reasonably easy for clients to locate and it should be a suitable place to chat and discuss ideas and thoughts. Issues such as noise, space and privacy should all be considered.

Organisation is also a really important thing to master, as is safe and secure document practises. Creating yourself systems and processes is a great way of making sure that nothing is missed and all ceremonies are not only prepared in advance, but are approved by the couple and signed off before the big day.

Let’s have a more detailed look at some of the ways celebrants can organise their work.

Documents:

Introductory letter

It is wise to have an introductory letter prepared to send to couples after their initial call or request for information. The introductory letter should introduce you and tell the prospective clients a little bit about the services you provide and what sort of person you are. You need to make sure that you put effort into this. If you don’t make a good impression straight off, you won’t get the first meeting let alone a booking. Make sure that