We know that when it comes to celebrant training you have a lot of questions that you'd love answers to. We've compiled a list of the most frequently asked questions that we get about our training, which we hope will answer all the questions that you have too!
Questions about our celebrant training
Q: What is your celebrant course format?
Having trained student celebrants and celebrants for a number of years now, we learnt very quickly that everyone learns in different ways. So, we have developed our online course to allow for this.
Once you’re all signed up you will get access to your student account where the online course is housed. From here, you will be able to engage with the course, step by step, studying via the course videos and ebooks which accompany the different modules. There will also be tasks and quizzes to complete along the way to help you to embed everything you've learned.
In addition to your personal study, every week there will be live online video tutorials led by us, to help you further your studies and meet other trainees. This is where you can come along to ask questions, share your doubts, highlight any concerns - whatever you want to share or ask to help with your studies. We encourage you to attend as many tutorials as you can. There will be a minimum number of these that we will ask you to attend before we certify you as a celebrant, as it's important for us to have interaction with you (both for your learning and for us to be able to assess your needs). Our tutorials are on mornings and evenings on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursdays.
Also, within the online course platform itself, you’ll be able to post any questions or comments that you have too. Support will always be on hand for you.
Q: How much does your celebrant training cost?
Our celebrant training courses cost £1,100 each, however if you do both courses with us, the second course will be just £500. So, for trainees who do both courses with us they will pay a total of £1,600 to train and certify as both a funeral and wedding celebrant. We also have a payment plan option too.
Q: How long does your celebrant training take to finish?
It will probably be possible to get through all the online course material in 3 full days, but you will also be able to take it at a pace that suits your needs and spread out your learning over weeks or even months if you’d like to. In order to be certified, you will also need to attend four group tutorial sessions and submit your assignments, so at a minimum it could take 10 days to complete. We do encourage you to take your time and not to rush it!
Q: What happens once the celebrant course is finished?
Once you have finished the online course in its entirety, and have satisfactorily and successfully completed the required tasks, tests and assignments, as well as having attended our group tutorials, we will sign you off as a Celebrants Collective Certified Wedding Celebrant. But even though you’ll technically be finished with this side of your training, you’ll still have lifetime access to the online course, which includes all updates and improvements, so you will always have the most current information at your fingertips.
You will then graduate to the Celebrants Collective Members HQ where you’ll continue your celebrant development with us as a certified celebrant and we’ll guide and mentor you as you set yourself up as a celebrant and open for business! Yay!
As a Celebrants Collective Certified Wedding Celebrant, you will also be expected to continue with us as a member in order to validate your accreditation with us. Your first year’s membership is included in the course price. You can read more about our members HQ here.
Q: Why can't I see your celebrant training course dates?
Because you can't start and finish it when you wish. The main portion of the course, the backbone of the course, is all online, which you'll access through your personal account, and where you'll find the course and all of your tasks and assignments. Each week, twice weekly we come together online for 1.5-hour group discussions and Q&As to deepen your learning. This flexibility means you can take our course at your own pace, learning and assimilating everything in your own time, with extensive support from us via our Facebook training group, course platform and live sessions.
Q: When do I pay for the course?
You can pay in full when you sign up, or you can spread the cost over three months. You'll make the first monthly payment straight away so that you can get started with your training and the further two payments will be charged to your payment card in the next two following months.
Q: What if I want to cancel the course once I've started?
We would of course be absolutely gutted to hear this, but we'd get in touch with you to find out your reasons for cancelling and help to get the best possible outcome for you.
Questions about being a celebrant
Q: How do I find work as a celebrant?
We know that during your research into becoming a celebrant, along with figuring out who you want to train with and why, one of your first thoughts is along the lines of knowing how you'll find work and get bookings after you're trained. We cover this in both of our training courses and give you all the tips and advice that you'll need from setting up your website and social media accounts, to most importantly, learning how to market yourself in the right way. We appreciate that this can be a daunting task, especially if you've never had a job before where you are in charge of creating your own business, but here at the Celebrants Collective we have your back. Many of our trainees are already now up and running and working as celebrants and continue to develop with us in our membership HQ, to make sure that they're doing the best for themselves and their clients.
Q: Is it difficult to get work as a certified celebrant?
We would be lying if we told you that it was easy to get work as a celebrant. It would be unrealistic to think that you will complete your training and instantly start taking bookings for ceremonies (although, it does happen!). But for many celebrants there has to be a period of putting in the groundwork and laying the foundations first, before the enquiries and bookings start to come in and then come in more regularly.
In terms of funerals, there are more and more celebrant funerals happening and the demand is growing. Once you have connections with local Funeral Directors and arrangers and other people in your network, you should find that bookings start to come through - but it does take some effort to get to that point and you have to work at building those connections.
The same with wedding work. You need to network in your local area and market yourself to get your name out there. We always encourage our trainees to be patient, tenacious and persistent in equal measure. It can be difficult, but it's not impossible and Claire and Natasha and their trainees are proof of that!
We cover this in our course and also during our tutorials where we share experiences and suggestions for growing your celebrant business.
Q: Is the celebrant profession oversaturated?
We have the best job in the world - fact! So, it's only natural that many people are called into this profession and are attracted by not only its awesomeness but the fact that what we do is so flexible, rewarding, and hugely satisfying. You may hear concerns about there being lots of celebrants - is there any profession that has the right number of people? And what anyway is the right number? As both the funeral and celebrant industries grow, so does the demand of such services by families and couples who seek out celebrants. There may be a lot of celebrants (again what is a lot??) but we are all different and we all work differently. Not all celebrants want to work full time. Not all celebrants want to travel outside of their hometown or local area for ceremonies. Not all celebrants can work midweek. We are varied and there is variety.
We've recorded a podcast episode on this in fact, so why not take a listen to episode 12: Are there too many celebrants? here.
Q: Do you need a diploma or other qualification to become a celebrant?
In the UK, most other European countries, the USA and Canada, it’s mostly not necessary to have any type of qualification to be a celebrant. In many places, whilst it’s not legally required to train as a celebrant, it is necessary in order to fully appreciate and understand how a celebrant works.
These countries outlined above have no national governing body for celebrants, which dictates course formats, duration, content and structure etc, as well as different standards of practice, for example. So, it’s purely down to each training organisation to determine their own structure of training, delivery of training and recognition of training.
So, in the UK for example, some training organisations have made their courses into academic courses which give their trainees a diploma or other type of academic qualification on passing their course.
However, the majority of trainers, like us at the Celebrants Collective, don’t. There’s no right or wrong, and neither path is more beneficial than the other. Nor does one path give celebrants more weight than the other.
Read more about celebrant diplomas, certifications and qualifications here.
Q: Why should you do your celebrant training with the Celebrants Collective?
We’d like to think that having read through everything that we’ve written and you’ve done a bit more research for yourself, that you’re weighing us up as a top option! Yay! We hope so! At the end of the day, it all comes down to what feels right to you and which organisation you feel will give you what you need as a celebrant trainee and also a developing celebrant. Who will help you to be the best celebrant that you can possibly be and increase your chances of having a successful celebrant career? Trust your gut we say!
If you're ready to come and join us, we'd be excited to welcome you onboard. You can read about our wedding training here and our funeral training here, as well as sign up and get started from as early as today!
Photo by Pedro Bellido Photography