Civil Ceremony Help!

tibor_imo

Hi all,

We have been doing a bit of research on our options for ceremonies and have been hearing conflicting things from all over the place so looking for a bit of clarification from those with experience!

Neither of us are religious/spiritual in any way and therefore don't think a humanist or spiritual ceremony would suit us so at present think a civil ceremony is our best option.

- When we book an appointment with the registrar initially do we need to know who the solemniser will be or is this person 'assigned' for want of a better word?
- If they are assigned, is it possible for us to change to an alternate solemniser (depending on availability obviously) if say, we had a recommendation for someone in particular?
- When we have confirmed the date and the solemniser is the time of the wedding decided by us or them? Is this flexible?

Onto the actual ceremony, I've heard different people say that they are 'impersonal' and 'strict/dry' and others say that we have pretty much the freedom to do whatever we want as long as there are a few official bits completed in the right order. We obviously would like to have a few readings. music and a personal touch to proceedings - could this be an issue at all?

Finally, is it 100% only Monday to Friday that these ceremonies can be carried out?

Thanks for the help and any other advice greatly appreciated!

Toots

tibor_imo wrote: »

Hi all,

We have been doing a bit of research on our options for ceremonies and have been hearing conflicting things from all over the place so looking for a bit of clarification from those with experience!

Neither of us are religious/spiritual in any way and therefore don't think a humanist or spiritual ceremony would suit us so at present think a civil ceremony is our best option.

Humanists aren't religious in any way, if you check out Question 2 on their FAQ page it gives a bit more detail.

Onto the actual ceremony, I've heard different people say that they are 'impersonal' and 'strict/dry' and others say that we have pretty much the freedom to do whatever we want as long as there are a few official bits completed in the right order. We obviously would like to have a few readings. music and a personal touch to proceedings - could this be an issue at all?

My brother in law got married recently and had a civil ceremony in a hotel - you can personalise it to your hearts content provided there is nothing religious included in it whatsoever. Also I'd imagine you're given a time to work within, so you would need to bear that in mind. In my BIL's they wrote their own vows, and each of them had a sibling get up and read a piece of poetry. They had their own choice of music for walking in, and walking out, and they did a unity candle as well. It was probably one of the most moving weddings I've ever been at, thank god for waterproof mascara!!

Finally, is it 100% only Monday to Friday that these ceremonies can be carried out?

Yep, HSE will only do the ceremonies Monday to Friday. Humanists will do them any day, so it'd definitely be something to research a bit, just so you have the flexibility of a weekend wedding. You could do the legal bit on a weekday, and then have your wedding on a Saturday and get someone else to officiate it, but some people don't like the idea of having the two parts on separate days, so it's down to personal preference there.

andreac

Definitely consider a humanist ceremony. It's not spiritualist and I'm not religious or spiritualist either so it's definitely one to consider plus it can be 7 days a week as Toots said.
We are going with a humanist ceremony this August.

MistyCheese

Hi and congratulations. I will try to help with some of your questions:

tibor_imo wrote: »

- When we book an appointment with the registrar initially do we need to know who the solemniser will be or is this person 'assigned' for want of a better word?

When you have your appointment with the solemniser you need to provide certain details regarding the ceremony like location and intended date of yoru wedding and the name of your solemniser.

You should decide a few things about your wedding before this meeting. Do you want to get married in a hotel room or in the registry office? If a hotel room you can choose your own solemniser or you can have the solemniser from the registry office. There will be a fee for them to come out to your wedding location. If you choose to get married in the registry office I don't know if you can choose your own solmeniser (I don't think so) and there will not be any additional fee above the €200 for the licence.

tibor_imo wrote: »

- If they are assigned, is it possible for us to change to an alternate solemniser (depending on availability obviously) if say, we had a recommendation for someone in particular?

This I'm not sure, I'm afraid.

tibor_imo wrote: »

- When we have confirmed the date and the solemniser is the time of the wedding decided by us or them? Is this flexible?

When you go to register your intent to marry they will ask you when you are planning to get married. You can choose what time as long as they have that timeslot available. Obviously it's first come, first served with regards to the times that will be available.

tibor_imo wrote: »

We obviously would like to have a few readings. music and a personal touch to proceedings - could this be an issue at all?

You can add music and readings as long as they are completely secular and do not mention or reference religion. We even got a print-out of popular and pre-approved readings. We were asked to e-mail any readings not on the list that we would like to use so they could be approved.


Remember you MUST give three months notice of your intent to marry. This is very important. We went in on the 28th of March - a Friday - and wanted the date of the 30th of June. The solemniser confirmed that we had booked just in time. Because if we'd left it to the next working day - Monday the 31st of March - we couldn't have got married on the 30th of June.

SecretBride

We had our civil ceremony yesterday.....it was grand, very impersonal, lasted 10 mins, job done! We could have added music and readings but that wasn't the plan for yesterday. Navan office is fine but honestly it was really, really impersonal. I'm glad it wasn't our 'wedding day'.

Consider the humanist thing....I actually don't believe in God at all and am as far from a 'dippy hippy' as can be but we have a humanist booked. I think my h2b thought we would be prancing around the woods like fairies drumming or something when I explained humanists to him, he was VERY sceptical! But having met Emma and talked through what they do and after getting a copy of our ceremony we were thrilled with what we saw and can't wait for Saturday. It's all about us, our relationship and our families.....there's no religion and no spiritualism at all. We chose our own readings....couple of poems about marrying your best friend etc and our own music....tracks from Dirty Dancing!

fits

I was really surprised at the reaction within our own family to our humanist ceremony. It was, for many of them, their first time at one and they thought it was brilliant.

SecretBride

fits wrote: »

I was really surprised at the reaction within our own family to our humanist ceremony. It was, for many of them, their first time at one and they thought it was brilliant.

I honestly think that humanist = voodoo to some ;-)

tibor_imo

Thanks for the input everyone (and the congrats) - will respond in a bit more detail later, just in work now.

One thing on the humanist ceremony which we have heard from others is that there is a section, or mentions of specifically denouncing god. Is this true?

Whilst we are not religious ourselves, my fiancees parents would be quite, and whilst they more than respect our wishes etc she wouldn't want to 'rub their nose in it'.

fits

tibor_imo wrote: »

One thing on the humanist ceremony which we have heard from others is that there is a section, or mentions of specifically denouncing god. Is this true?

.

Lol! No there isnt. There is one sentence about what humanism is. Thats all.

SecretBride

tibor_imo wrote: »

Thanks for the input everyone (and the congrats) - will respond in a bit more detail later, just in work now.

One thing on the humanist ceremony which we have heard from others is that there is a section, or mentions of specifically denouncing god. Is this true?

Whilst we are not religious ourselves, my fiancees parents would be quite, and whilst they more than respect our wishes etc she wouldn't want to 'rub their nose in it'.

Absolutely not!!! If you want to see our ceremony pm me your email address and I'll send it on....it's literally word for word what will be said on Saturday...

And my other halfs family consists mostly of nuns so like that, there's no way that we would put religion down in any way, don't worry :-)

fannymagee

Congratulations Tibor_imo!

If you're getting married in your venue, yes you can change the name of your nominated solemniser. If you're getting married in the registry office you can't nominate, you get who you're given.

Speak with a few Solemnisers, and see what kind of language they use, and whether they have set rules about your ceremony. Some organisations have a policy of doing a little talk about their organisation during the ceremony, and while it's not exactly renouncing God, it can rub some people up the wrong way ;-)

The situation you describe where parents are religious and couple are not is incredibly common these days! There are some beautiful ways to craft a ceremony so that everyone feels included and respected, and everyone goes away with a warm glow in their belly :-)

andreac

Def no relation to god whatsoever. Have you gone on to their website and had a look at what its all about? If not, you really should. Its really lovely and def think this would suit you to be honest by the sounds of things. You can add in your own readings or poems etc (non religious of course), songs, you name it. Its lovely.

http://humanism.ie/

Atomic Pineapple

tibor_imo wrote: »

Thanks for the input everyone (and the congrats) - will respond in a bit more detail later, just in work now.

One thing on the humanist ceremony which we have heard from others is that there is a section, or mentions of specifically denouncing god. Is this true?

Whilst we are not religious ourselves, my fiancees parents would be quite, and whilst they more than respect our wishes etc she wouldn't want to 'rub their nose in it'.

Quite the opposite actually, humanism is about being good for the sake of humanity and not the sake of a god or to gain ascension to an afterlife, in that way it also contains a respect for all beliefs.

Quote from the Humanist Association of Ireland:

Humanist weddings are wonderful and personal ceremonies. One of the tenets of humanism is a tolerance for others who hold different belief systems. Therefore everyone feels included during a humanist ceremony. However, humanists have no belief in a god or the supernatural, relying on scientific evidence and appreciation of the world around us and the achievements of humans. So our ceremonies are secular and non-religious occasions. They are designed to be a positive option for those who share the same philosophical belief system as humanists whether you wish to call yourself a humanist or not, and even whether you are a member of any humanist association or not.

http://humanism.ie/2015/05/faq-about-humanist-weddings/

During the ceremony you can't have anything religious said like a prayer or religious reading but there is no denouncement of religion.

If you are thinking about a Humanist ceremony I'd encourage you to start contacting celebrants ASAP as all of the registered celebrants are booked up for 2016 and we had an anxious wait to confirm one for our wedding in July 2017.

fannymagee

Atomic Pineapple wrote: »

If you are thinking about a Humanist ceremony I'd encourage you to start contacting celebrants ASAP as all of the registered celebrants are booked up for 2016 and we had an anxious wait to confirm one for our wedding in July 2017.

You can also look into Interfaith Ministers, who are also non-denominational Solemnisers and will create your ceremony according to your individual requirements- no rules about what language/readings/music you do or don't use. They're less well known, so you've still a good chance of getting one for upcoming weddings in 2016/17 :-) www.interfaithministers.ie

tibor_imo

Thanks again for all the input and clearing things up!

Hearsay and word of mouth can be dangerous eh?

As we're going to be the first of our group of friends to get married and neither of us have ever been to any weddings that weren't 'traditional' and catholic it was obviously all a bit unknown to us!

Faith

fits wrote: »

I was really surprised at the reaction within our own family to our humanist ceremony. It was, for many of them, their first time at one and they thought it was brilliant.

Yeah, us too. Particularly from older relatives who would be regular mass-goers!

tibor_imo wrote: »

One thing on the humanist ceremony which we have heard from others is that there is a section, or mentions of specifically denouncing god. Is this true?

Whilst we are not religious ourselves, my fiancees parents would be quite, and whilst they more than respect our wishes etc she wouldn't want to 'rub their nose in it'.

As others have said, nope. We included a section (and it was totally optional) about what Humanism is - it was essentially "We believe that morality and goodness comes from within". We really liked that part

fits

Faith wrote: »

Yeah, us too. Particularly from older relatives who would be regular mass-goers!



As others have said, nope. We included a section (and it was totally optional) about what Humanism is - it was essentially "We believe that morality and goodness comes from within". We really liked that part

We were told that sentence about humanism as well as the legal bits are compulsory. Everything else could be tailored to suit.

SecretBride

fits wrote: »

We were told that sentence about humanism as well as the legal bits are compulsory. Everything else could be tailored to suit.

Us too fits, but it really doesn't impact on the wedding-y bit.....more just a couple of lines explaining what they are all about!