Humanist Celebrants - Availability Problems

conf101

Just wondering if anyone could offer advice on our predicament.

We're getting married next summer and have a provisional booking for a venue for Sunday August 3rd. We plan on having a humanist ceremony and are only now finding out how difficult it is to get a celebrant available for that day. All celebrants we've contacted so far are already booked. We still have a couple to hear back from but I'm not really holding out much hope, it is the bank holiday weekend after all and it's only just over 10 months away.

We're looking at moving to a different date but would rather not do that unless absolutely necessary. Can anyone suggest some other alternatives that might be available to us to explore before moving the date?

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Moonbeam

You could get married in a registry office before the big day and then you could have any celebrant you want on the "wedding day".

conf101

Thanks for the suggestion Moonbeam. It's an option we're looking at.

Gatica

I'm afraid since legalising Humanist celebrants they've become very popular and their numbers are quite low relative to the number of non-religious weddings taking place across the country.
Too late for this advice, but you shouldn't book a venue without confirming availability of celebrants first, whether church, registry or other.

Unitarian Church and Spiritualist Union are the other celebrants you could try. They can do a ceremony to cater to your requirements without going all out godly on you.

conf101

Yeah that's what we're discovering Gatica.

We haven't actually booked the venue yet, just provisionally. We didn't pay a deposit just in case this very problem arose. They have the bank holiday monday available and we've been in touch with celebrants who are also available on the monday so it looks like we may be moving it.

I've explored the Unitarian and Spiritualist options but as an atheist it's really not something I want to do.

Gatica

Neither my OH nor I wanted the religious ceremony but was the only option open to us as Humanists were not approved and we made the mistake of booking before confirming a registrar in the area
We didn't want a separate ceremony to the wedding day so we opted for SU.

conf101

How did you find your spiritualist ceremony? What structure did it take?

Gatica

We really enjoyed having it personalised and non-religious.
We did a ring-warming ceremony at the start, hand-tying (which I know has pagan origins, but we just liked it being symbolic of being linked together), and a love-letter ceremony.
We had it outdoors as it was lovely weather and read our own vows. It was about half hour long. We picked our songs and readings and it all worked out perfect.

Can PM you a sample of it.

conf101

Gatica wrote: »

We really enjoyed having it personalised and non-religious.
We did a ring-warming ceremony at the start, hand-tying (which I know has pagan origins, but we just liked it being symbolic of being linked together), and a love-letter ceremony.
We had it outdoors as it was lovely weather and read our own vows. It was about half hour long. We picked our songs and readings and it all worked out perfect.

Can PM you a sample of it.

Yeah. I'd love to take a look at it. Cheers

Gatica

Sent PM with a rather plain looking ceremony format... Had Word version but looks like can't do attachments with boards PMs.

conf101

Got it, thanks Gatica. Looks like a really nice ceremony

pooch90

I'd say we might have robbed your celebrant. We're having humanist ceremony on August 3rd!

conf101

*Shakes fist angrily*

We got sorted anyway, moved the date to the Monday, which isn't all that big of a deal.

Who did you get for your ceremony? How long ago did you book them?

Best of luck with it

pooch90

Oh we booked ours ages ago, back in February, took a punt on them having their status approved.
We've got a lady called Emma Sides, she seems lovely, have only had one telephone conversation with her though.

lainycool

pooch90 wrote: »

Oh we booked ours ages ago, back in February, took a punt on them having their status approved.
We've got a lady called Emma Sides, she seems lovely, have only had one telephone conversation with her though.

We have Emma aswell for December and she is really lovely, I had heard good things about her so I'm looking forward to it.

conf101

Yeah we were in contact with Emma, she seems really nice.

We have booked Eithne Dempsey, who also seems nice and very helpful.

My fiancée was told that before they were approved they were getting an average of 3-5 inquiries a week and now that they're approved some are getting 10-15 a day. Hardly surprising.