Civil Ceremony, who to use?

LP12

Hi,

I'm getting married in June 2014 and am planning on having a non religious civil ceremony in the hotel. The HSE aren't available the date we've booked and I've been looking into other options like spiritualist union ireland, humanist association ireland. I haven't been able to find and public review of any of these or any sample videos on youtube. Could anyone tell me about their experiences with people or groups who can do legal civil ceremonies?

Thanks

January

Everyone recommends Tom Colton.

lazygal

I would recommend Brian Whiteside of the Humanist Association.

tatli_lokma

January wrote: »

Everyone recommends Tom Colton.

slight exaggeration! lol
Plenty of people don't chose him for their own reasons.

OP, just as a small point, but Spiritualists are technically a religious sect, and classed by the HSE as a religious solemniser, however many of them are happy to devise a ceremony with you to meet your needs/beliefs. If you want a truly non-religious ceremony you need to go for the Humanists.

rebel333

I'm using Miriam Fitzgerald from spiritual union, Tom coltons group, wedding in a few weeks and after meeting her I would completely recommend. She is lovely. I'll let you know about the ceremony in a few weeks..

alexonhisown

I would recommend Mary Losty of the spiritualist union of ireland, she meets with you the week before the ceremony to go over what content you would like, she doesnt try to force anything on you. Lovely lady.

SmilingLurker

I would recommend Brian Whiteside from HAI. As an atheist I did not want a spiritualist, but pick what suits the two of you the best. Good luck!

doriansmith

SmilingLurker wrote: »

I would recommend Brian Whiteside from HAI. As an atheist I did not want a spiritualist, but pick what suits the two of you the best. Good luck!

Ditto, I know the spiritualists are willing to do a completely non-religious ceremony but we didn't want to use them due to their beliefs/practices. Brian Whiteside is excellent & lovely to deal with, we really enjoyed our Humanist ceremony.

LP12

Thanks everyone for all your help. I think we'll go with Brian Whiteside if he is free but there seems to be a few good options out there so I'm much happier now!

John Mason

we went with Tom Colton. he was fine, we had a completely non-religious service.

we meet up with him a few weeks before and went through what we wanted.

we had done up a sample booklet, and he advised us on the order to have it in, and what to take out.

very easy to deal with

Gatica

same as... While neither my OH nor I wanted anything religious for our ceremony we just didn't have any alternative that suited us so went with Spiritualist Union. The HSE was fully booked for our nearest dates and our only alternative was to get married in the registry office and have a ceremony after on our "wedding day". We decided not to do that as we wanted our Wedding day to be the proper wedding day, the ceremony to be the real thing, not a fake restating of I Do's we'd already said. Unfortunately the Humanists were still not legally able to marry couples at that stage.

I imagine the service offered by any members of the SU group is the same, whether Tom, Mary or other. It was the ceremony we wanted, content we wanted and no mention of gods or spirits.
Although I must admit the style of delivery to be very "sermon"-like or auction-like, fast and without feeling. My husband and I almost burst out laughing when it started. Having said that, we loved our wedding and numerous guests commented it was the nicest ceremony they'd ever been at. The main part for us was our vows to each-other and the signing of the papers.
In addition we got to have it outside, which we couldn't have done if it was a HSE wedding.

ShaShaBear

On a slightly different note, how could you go about ensuring that something like this doesn't happen?

I was always under the impression that you didn't book anything until you knew both parties could satisfy the date requirement. And my partner was under the impression that the HSE would always accommodate the date - if there was no solemniser in the area, they'd get someone in for someone else?!

Gatica

the couple is responsible for ensuring they have someone booked to perform their service, whether priest, HSE or other. If the HSE is booked out, then you're out of luck. They don't have a registrar from a different district travel there for your convenience. It has to be the local registrar. Although have heard mention that if you're willing to pay the cost of travel you can get a registrar from further afield, don't know how true that is though.
The recommended way to do it is to find a couple of available dates at the hotel and call the local HSE's registrar and find if they're available for the date. Usually a long time in advance. If they are available then book both. Hotels can also provisionally hold a date for you for 1-2 weeks before you pay the deposit.

John Mason

we checked that Tom Colton and the venue were free on the day we wanted.

Tom had 3 other weddings before us on that day but that suited us, as we were not looking to married until 5.30pm/6pm.

Once everything was confirmed with went to the HSE and got our licence.

lazygal

We didn't book anything until the celebrant was confirmed. I would think its quite risky, especially if you're relying on a busy HSE area celebrant, to book anything without having the essential legal elements in place.

January

We booked the wedding and don't have a celebrant yet... The HSE is busy that day but we have a few in mind and are in the process of researching which we want. If push comes to shove we'll do registry office that day and get someone close to us to do the "ceremony".