Civil or Humanist Ceremony?

MelanieC

Sorry if this has been covered already but I'm very new to this. We don't want a church wedding so will be having a ceremony in the venue. I don't know a lot about the different ceremonies but from what I gather,a humanist ceremony is spiritual (but not religious) & more emotional if u like wheras a civil ceremony is more formal & basic? Is this right?

I'm so confused tho coz at a venue today I mentioned having a humanist ceremony to the wedding co-ordinator & she said you have to pay the civil people anyway so why pay twice,just have a civil ceremony. I don't get this.....I thought humanist ceremonies were legally binding so is that not enough??? What is the point of them being legal if you still have to pay the civil office as well? Or was I misinformed?

I like the idea of a humanist ceremony as it will be a very small wedding & I would like it to be as romantic & personal as possible but I'm confused about having to pay double just for the privilege??

Any info appreciated. Thanks!

lazygal

Everyone has to.pay the state €200 to register intent. If you want a civil ceremony outside the registry office there'll be an additional fee. Humanist celebrants are a separate charge again.
We had a humanist ceremony before they were legally binding. We wanted free reign on the ceremony and music. Also the civil ceremonies are only available Monday to Friday and certain times for off site so if you want a Saturday wedding civil is out. It's up to you but I preferred the freedom we had with the humanist route and it was about what we wanted rather than the HSE rules.

Gatica

As above poster said, irrespective of the type of ceremony you have, the 200Euro registration fee is for everyone, civil/HSE, humanist or religious...

The HSE will still charge extra for call-out to your venue anyway, so I don't know why your organiser said that you may as well have HSE if you're paying the reg fee. There's a fee for calling out to the venue, and I presume that will include cost of travel. It may be a little cheaper than another registrar, but personally I like the freedom of the day of the week/time/venue/format that humanist and Spiritualist Union ceremonies afford you.

Milly33

As the others have said.. You pay your €200 fee no matter what you are doing and then if you want to have the wedding on site in your venue you pay again.. Lets say petrol cost of for them to come to you..Pending which route you go down, Civil to travel if not too far maybe another €200, Celtic priest is around €450, humanist not sure but think around the €350 mark..


If you don't want to pay again, then you could go into the registry office a day before hand or even after the main day wedding and have a ceremony there (that is your €200) and sign the registry, and then on the day of you wedding you could just have a simple ceremony if you know a good speaker or something like that you could have them act like the register or priest etc

MelanieC

Ah ok,that makes more sense. Thanks for that info guys. Don't know why the hotel manager advised a civil ceremony to avoid paying twice tho as obviously you have to pay twice either way. If that's the case,think I will plump for humanist,it's not that much dearer & as you say,affords us more freedom.

Next step is to look up the whole humanist thing now as I don't even know where to start & I imagine they book out fast enough these days?

Michael OBrien

You can find out more from the main website here.

http://humanism.ie/ceremonies-2/
Humanist weddings are booming, but there are a limited amount of celebrants so book early.

andreac

Im thinking of having a Humanist ceremony too. Ive contacted a few already and Eithne isnt available for my date. Hoping someone will be available.

Milly33

best of luck with it, and Happy Planning

andreac

Ive contacted nearly 6 of the Humanist celebrants today and two have replied so far and they are unavailable. Really hoping to get someone.

pooch90

Don't forget the Spiritualists do the same as the Humanists, both charge €450

mailforkev

We had a humanist ceremony in 2013. There is no "spiritual" element, firmly grounded in reality.

It lasted about 20 mins and was mostly written by myself so was exactly what we wanted. We had three people read shorts poems in between weddingy bits and a couple of string musicians playing popular music. Short and sweet and great.

I think they are pretty much booked up for 2015 as far as I know.

Edited to add:

Also, our guests got served champagne on arrival to the art gallery where we held the ceremony so they could sit there sipping that while we got married.

Started off the celebrations as we intended to continue. I'd recommend it to anyone.

pooch90

There was no spiritual element to our spiriualist ceremony either!

berrecka

mailforkev wrote: »

We had a humanist ceremony in 2013. There is no "spiritual" element, firmly grounded in reality.

It lasted about 20 mins and was mostly written by myself so was exactly what we wanted. We had three people read shorts poems in between weddingy bits and a couple of string musicians playing popular music. Short and sweet and great.

I think they are pretty much booked up for 2015 as far as I know.

Edited to add:

Also, our guests got served champagne on arrival to the art gallery where we held the ceremony so they could sit there sipping that while we got married.

Started off the celebrations as we intended to continue. I'd recommend it to anyone.

Just to clarify, since humanists ceremonies were given full on legal rights, alcohol cannot be served/consumed during the ceremony. As soon as the papers are signed by the b&g and witnesses, you can crack out the bevvies though!

Also, as I understand it, there are no Humanist celebrants available any Saturday in 2015, and very few in 2016.

lazygal

pooch90 wrote: »

There was no spiritual element to our spiriualist ceremony either!

It's still classed as a religious ceremony, and the spiritualist union has some pretty whacky views IMO. That's why we ruled them out, along with other religious bodies, when we got married.

lazygal

berrecka wrote: »

Just to clarify, since humanists ceremonies were given full on legal rights, alcohol cannot be served/consumed during the ceremony. As soon as the papers are signed by the b&g and witnesses, you can crack out the bevvies though!

Also, as I understand it, there are no Humanist celebrants available any Saturday in 2015, and very few in 2016.

How come Catholic ceremonies can have communion wine then?!

andreac

I got confirmation that Billy Hutchinson is available. Has anyone used him? Not sure whether to hold off to see if anyone else is available before booking Billy as i still havent heard back from 3 or 4 others yet.

Neyite

lazygal wrote: »

How come Catholic ceremonies can have communion wine then?!

Transubstantiation is the loophole I'd imagine.

ETA: for instance Pioneers who cant take communion wafer can take alcoholic wine after consecration without a break in their pledge.

stinkle

andreac wrote: »

I got confirmation that Billy Hutchinson is available. Has anyone used him? Not sure whether to hold off to see if anyone else is available before booking Billy as i still havent heard back from 3 or 4 others yet.

Billy married us, he's great! Pm if you want any specifics

skippy15

Had a humanist wedding last year- would highly recommend-
I enjoyed re drafting and re wording some of the ceremony and doing whatever readings I wanted, ended up doing one in Irish and id written myself happy out

brandnewaward

try bridgit carlin , we got her booked for june next year.

pooch90

lazygal wrote: »

It's still classed as a religious ceremony, and the spiritualist union has some pretty whacky views IMO. That's why we ruled them out, along with other religious bodies, when we got married.

I'm aware it's classed as a religion and that is why we initially booked the Humanists, however we found the Humanists didn't quite live up to their own ethos when issues arose about the outdoor ceremonies.

The spiritualists were much kinder and didn't try to ram anything down our throats. They solved problems not created them like the Humanists did for us. For anyone that is not so vehemently anti-religion the spiritualists are a viable option.

I would find the Spiritualist views less wacky that RCC tbh.

andreac

Ive been in touch now with Billy and he is available so hoping to meet him soon and go through what is involved. Was worried i wasnt going to get someone as so many were unavailable.

Gatica

We had a SU ceremony and it was catered to us and there was no propagandising of their belief or any such. The Humanists weren't yet registered so it was our only option apart from the HSE.
Under the circumstances, I didn't care what their beliefs were, whether aliens populated the planet or the Flying spaghetti monster did, we just needed someone to say the legal Do-you's? and oversee the flow of readings.

Michael OBrien

pooch90 wrote: »

however we found the Humanists didn't quite live up to their own ethos when issues arose about the outdoor ceremonies.

Can you elaborate a bit? As a humanist who has yet to attend any such gatherings, what difficulties arose (I am not asking for personal details, just an overview of what problems arose)?

pooch90

It was the time during last year after Humanists were given legal status as solemnisers but then the spanner was thrown in the works about the legality of outdoor ceremonies. Just the way our celebrant handled it with us was less than satisfactory.

Whereas we contacted the SU and Tom Colton went above and beyond advising us, before we had even thought of booking them, I just contacted him to see how the SU were dealing with it. As said above, their beliefs were secondary to us, we wanted someone personable and genuine to preside over our ceremony.

fits

pooch90 wrote: »

It was the time during last year after Humanists were given legal status as solemnisers but then the spanner was thrown in the works about the legality of outdoor ceremonies. Just the way our celebrant handled it with us was less than satisfactory.

.

You have posted a few times about this. Do you think condemning 'the humanists' because of an experience with one person is fair?

pooch90

Hardly condemning, slightly OTT there. I've never said not to go near them or anything else 'condemning'.

I have more often posted that the view of Spiritualist ceremonies is sensationalised in people's imagination than the reality, which is you can have exactly the same ceremony as if you used HAI. With very limited availability for Humanist celebrants this year, I have simply pointed out there is an alternative, identical service out there.

You have made your views of SU clear, more likely after having zero interaction with any of its members. I, initially would have been the same until having dealt with them.

fits

pooch90 wrote: »

Hardly condemning, slightly OTT there. I've never said not to go near them or anything else 'condemning'.

I have more often posted that the view of Spiritualist ceremonies is sensationalised in people's imagination than the reality, which is you can have exactly the same ceremony as if you used HAI. With very limited availability for Humanist celebrants this year, I have simply pointed out there is an alternative, identical service out there.

You have made your views of SU clear, more likely after having zero interaction with any of its members. I, initially would have been the same until having dealt with them.

I have not posted any view on the SU as I don't have one. I have never had any dealings with them. You have posted many many times about how the humanists are up themselves so I'm just calling you out on it. Fair enough you may have had a bad experience but with one person, not the organisation as a whole.

Gatica

fits wrote: »

You have posted a few times about this. Do you think condemning 'the humanists' because of an experience with one person is fair?

I don't know about their posts on other threads, but this is hardly condemning:

pooch90 wrote: »

we found the Humanists didn't quite live up to their own ethos when issues arose about the outdoor ceremonies.

I'm pretty sure posters are allowed to air their reviews on interactions with any supplier, be they solemniser, hotel or band. Everyone else can make up their mind based on all the available information, which, even on boards, is quite vast... and not usually based on 1 person's view.

fits

Gatica wrote: »

I don't know about their posts on other threads, but this is hardly condemning:

ok perhaps the wrong word

I'm pretty sure posters are allowed to air their reviews on interactions with any supplier, be they solemniser, hotel or band. Everyone else can make up their mind based on all the available information, which, even on boards, is quite vast... and not usually based on 1 person's view.

And thats fine. But this poster has critcised the HAI several times but when asked for further clarification, it was just one member responsible, not the HAI as a whole, and i think thats an important difference.