Non-religious celebrant

saidinmilamber

Hello there, myself and my husband-to-be were looking for a celebrant to oversee our wedding at the end of next year in Kilkenny. We thought that would be loads of time to book a Humanist celebrant, but boy were we wrong! They're all either booked up or don't travel to Kilkenny. Anyone have any thoughts on any alternatives?

andreac

saidinmilamber wrote: »

Hello there, myself and my husband-to-be were looking for a celebrant to oversee our wedding at the end of next year in Kilkenny. We thought that would be loads of time to book a Humanist celebrant, but boy were we wrong! They're all either booked up or don't travel to Kilkenny. Anyone have any thoughts on any alternatives?

Have you contacted all of them? What about a spiritualist ceremony? Or people have been talking about an interfaith minster too, that could be an option.

saidinmilamber

andreac wrote: »

Have you contacted all of them? What about a spiritualist ceremony? Or people have been talking about an interfaith minster too, that could be an option.

Just waiting to hear back from the last couple of them now, but I'm not hopeful We're both very much atheist, so didn't want to go down a spiritualist route.

andreac

saidinmilamber wrote: »

Just waiting to hear back from the last couple of them now, but I'm not hopeful We're both very much atheist, so didn't want to go down a spiritualist route.

Ah ok, yeah i wasn't totally gone on that either and id be like yourself. I tried loads before i eventually got one, Billy Hutchinson, have you tried him? I would make sure you contact them all. Billy usually replies back within a day or two.

Fingers crossed.

Atomic Pineapple

There is a wait list that you can get added to so any new humanist celebrants can contact you, are you aware of that?

saidinmilamber

Atomic Pineapple wrote: »

There is a wait list that you can get added to so any new humanist celebrants can contact you, are you aware of that?

Yeah, I saw that alright on the site and one of the celebrants that emailed back mentioned it. I think I'm more adamant on finding a celebrant that would fit mine and my finacé's vibe than it strictly being a humanist. I think it could be a bit of a shot in the dark to bank on an inexperienced unknown person. Is there another organisation of secular celebrants out there in Ireland other than the Humanists?

saidinmilamber

andreac wrote: »

Ah ok, yeah i wasn't totally gone on that either and id be like yourself. I tried loads before i eventually got one, Billy Hutchinson, have you tried him? I would make sure you contact them all. Billy usually replies back within a day or two.

Fingers crossed.

He's one of the remaining ones that I'm waiting to hear back from! Fingers crossed!

Atomic Pineapple

saidinmilamber wrote: »

Yeah, I saw that alright on the site and one of the celebrants that emailed back mentioned it. I think I'm more adamant on finding a celebrant that would fit mine and my finacé's vibe than it strictly being a humanist. I think it could be a bit of a shot in the dark to bank on an inexperienced unknown person. Is there another organisation of secular celebrants out there in Ireland other than the Humanists?

If you are willing to go through the motions and get legally married in a HSE location prior to your wedding day you can just have a ceremony however you like on the actual day of the wedding + reception.

So the week before your wedding day organise to go to the HSE and go through the legalities with a civil ceremony with your witnesses and then you are completely free to do whatever you like on the day you share with everyone else, some people hire an actor but there are also professional celebrants, Romy from http://www.abeautifulceremony.ie/ is supposed to be very good.

pwurple

saidinmilamber wrote: »

Just waiting to hear back from the last couple of them now, but I'm not hopeful We're both very much atheist, so didn't want to go down a spiritualist route.

Is the official registrar unavailable also?

Humanism is an organised group with a set of core tenets, they don't suit everyone either...

Mrs OBumble

Get the legals done with an HSE registrar during the week.

Find a friend who's got the personality and public speaking experience by to an MC for the day, and get him/her to do whatever ceremony that you make up, which has significance for yourselves but no legal meaning.

fannymagee

Interfaith Ministers are non-denominational, and are less well known so tend to have good availability :-)

saidinmilamber

Ended up getting it sorted. I spotted on an older thread in this section mention of Romy from abeautifulceremony.ie so thought I'd look into her. She sounded ideal, and when we got on to her, it turned out she'd done ceremonies in our venue already, which was great! She can't solemnise us, so we're going to go to the registry office before the wedding and get the legal malarky sorted. Thanks for the advice though ya'll!

FYI to anyone who comes upon this thread in the same situation, the Humanists eventually got back to me and there's load of them due to qualify as celebrants soon enough, so one can go on a waiting list for them. We just didn't want to be assigned a random person that we couldn't look up first, plus we were kind of fuming still that so many of them don't travel outside of Dublin

nearzero

They do actually travel outside of Dublin but have to pay extra - which is completely understandable! When you add up mileage and then you are booking them for an entire day so they cannot accomodate any more services on your date - so you are paying to have them for the day! Billy actually traveled to Sligo for my wedding 2 years ago & he was incredible! I would have paid the same twice over for the service he gave, it was so memorable

Plus I would definitely consider ourselves as humanists so it meant alot to us But they are getting busier and busier!

saidinmilamber

I wouldn't have minded paying extra at all, but that wasn't offered as an option. Kilkenny isn't that far from Dublin, and one reply that we got was, in it's entirety without any greeting or sign off, "Sorry, too far for me to travel."

andreac

color_girl wrote: »

They do actually travel outside of Dublin but have to pay extra - which is completely understandable! When you add up mileage and then you are booking them for an entire day so they cannot accomodate any more services on your date - so you are paying to have them for the day! Billy actually traveled to Sligo for my wedding 2 years ago & he was incredible! I would have paid the same twice over for the service he gave, it was so memorable

Plus I would definitely consider ourselves as humanists so it meant alot to us But they are getting busier and busier!

Is that billy hutchinson we have booked him so that's great to hear.

tea_and_cake

andreac wrote: »

Is that billy hutchinson we have booked him so that's great to hear.

I was at a wedding Billy did and he's very nice. Very personal and social!