Everything you need to think about in order to become a wedding celebrant and to choose the right wedding celebrant training for you
However you’ve arrived at this point - where you’re interested, if not almost 100% certain that being a wedding celebrant is the next career move for you, you will probably have lots of questions about becoming a wedding celebrant. This blog post aims to share with you ten top tips that will help you to get a better understanding of not only what a wedding celebrant is but also all the important factors that you should take into account before you take the big leap towards wedding celebrant training. Fully understanding everything about how to become a wedding celebrant and to prepare for this new role, will help you to make the right choices when it comes to doing your wedding celebrant training course and beyond.
Do your research
Although our tips for how to become a wedding celebrant aren’t necessarily in any order we would say that this tip is perhaps one of the most important ones. It can be so exciting when you discover the world of celebrancy and feel driven towards a new job that is deeply satisfying and rewarding, a role where you can really have a purpose and make a difference. However, we urge you to hang on to that excitement whilst you do your research about wedding celebrant training. You can’t do enough of it! Researching about your dream career and learning as much as you possibly can about it will mean that you are entering the celebrant profession with your eyes wide open and a full understanding of what you’ve signed up for. Research the different celebrant training courses and think about which course is the best fit for you. Which do you feel excited about and connected with?
Do your due diligence
Researching wedding celebrant training courses is a wise first step to take, and when you start to narrow down the list of who you want to possibly become a wedding celebrant with, you should then do some extra diligence. If you have questions, ask them! There’s nothing worse than starting a training course when you're full of doubts. Those doubts could be the difference between you signing up for the wrong course or not!
Every single training organization will tell you that they offer fabulous celebrant training (and most do), but you need to be sure that their type of training is the right training for you. Read comments and testimonials from their trainees and graduates, listen to what others say about their training course or their celebrant training organization, and this will give you a good rounded picture, without just relying on what the wedding training course provider says about itself.
Understand what a wedding celebrant is
A lot of your research into how to become a wedding celebrant will lead you down the path of wedding celebrant training, naturally. You’ll find out a lot of information about wedding celebrant courses, celebrant training and how to become a celebrant. But sometimes the understanding of what a wedding celebrant actually is can be missed! FYI, you need to know what a wedding celebrant is in order to understand what it’s like and whether it really is a role for you.
A wedding celebrant is a person who helps a couple to celebrate their marriage celebration and depending on what country the celebrant is in this could mean that they are able to do this in a legal capacity, or simply in a symbolic capacity, with the legalities done at a different time with a registrar or other legal officer. A wedding celebrant works with a couple to create a bespoke wedding ceremony which represents that couples’ world beliefs, personalities and ideas for what they want their wedding ceremony to encapsulate. Wedding celebrants work closely and collaboratively through the wedding process and a lot of hours and dedication go into creating a unique and personal ceremony for each couple that you work with.
Assess your own wedding celebrant skills
Once you have a better understanding of what a wedding celebrant does, you will also want to make sure that you have most of the core skills needed to be a wedding celebrant. Are you a good communicator, in both the written and oral sense? Are you a people person? Are you a great listener? Could you run your own business? Are you creative? Are you self-motivated? Our wedding celebrant quiz will also help you to figure out if you have what it takes to be a celebrant, give it a try! Plus, there are more practical considerations too. Do you drive? Do you have a car? Space at home to work etc? Are you happy to work at weekends? It’s all important stuff to think about and get in order!
Think about how you want to train to be a wedding celebrant
Knowing how you want to train as a celebrant is really important to establish before you train to become a wedding celebrant! All celebrant training organizations offer their own different ways of teaching and training people to become wedding celebrants. There is no right or wrong, just the right way for you. Learning is such an individual process and it’s important to train to be a wedding celebrant in a way that suits how you learn, how you want to learn and that sets you up in the best way for your celebrant career. Maybe you’re someone who wants to work towards a celebrant diploma, which although isn’t necessary, it might be the route you want to take. Maybe you’re someone who wants to do in-person intensive training, or someone who wants to do a flexible online wedding training course, like ours. You might want one-to-one training. Whatever you want and however you want to train, there is likely a trainer who can provide it. So make sure to know what you want first.
Follow social media accounts of wedding celebrants
It can be a good idea to follow the social media accounts of some wedding celebrants to get an insight into what celebrant life is really like. Seeing other celebrants in action can be really inspiring and can help you to work out if it really is the job for you. If you’re lucky you might even be able to connect with other celebrants in your area, but do bear in mind that some celebrants get contacted a lot by those looking to train as a celebrant. Some will be more than willingly to answer a few questions, but some may be too busy or just not willing as it does take up previous time to respond to everyone who contacts. So don’t be upset if you don’t hear back and if you do, please be appreciative of the great act of kindness that someone has done in helping you, when they didn't need to.
Read blog posts and listen to podcasts
Another great way to research how to become a wedding celebrant is to start by reading lots of celebrant training blogs and also listening to celebrant podcasts. These are really insightful ways to find out more about becoming a wedding celebrant, can answer your questions and also help you make the right decisions along the way.
Prepare to financially invest in your future
We feel it is important to be realistic about what it is going to cost you to become a wedding celebrant. Being a wedding celebrant is a rewarding and fun job to have. It is a professional role, which you want to be suitably trained for and also supported throughout your career. You should view what you pay to train as a celebrant, as an investment in your future as a wedding celebrant. And so typically if a training course only costs a few hundred pounds or Euros (or less!) you need to really assess whether these types of courses are going to give you what you need as a wedding celebrant. It may be a case that you get what you pay for!
Along with the actual investment in your wedding celebrant training, you will also need to be prepared to spend money on a website and website hosting (pretty essential for your marketing). Plus, a new wardrobe of celebrant clothes! Maybe a new laptop or computer if you don’t already have one. Additional celebrant career development as you continue as a celebrant, and other costs associated with running a business. Make sure you have the funds to fully invest in becoming a celebrant and getting established.
Think about your long term support
When you do your research into training to be a wedding celebrant, you will want to know and be sure of how training providers support you after you have certified. You want to make sure that you’re not left solely to your own devices once certified. Your wedding celebrant training will actually be the easiest part of the journey. Where it starts to get difficult, frustrating, lonely as a wedding celebrant is after you’ve finished your training. Find out how the training course you’re interested in will support you after the course has ended. We offer long term/lifetime support to our trainees through our members HQ, for example.
Picture yourself as a wedding celebrant
And lastly, we love this last piece of advice. Now that you’re starting to gather your thoughts and getting a good idea of what training to be a celebrant is like, start to picture yourself as a wedding celebrant. Picture yourself chatting to couples, how you’ll interact with them and build a rapport with them. Picture getting enquiries and your first bookings. Picture yourself in your celebrant clothes, being at a wedding venue, chatting with guests and getting ready for your ceremony. Picture yourself leading a ceremony and how you’ll be feeling, especially after having led your first ceremony. It’s exciting, isn’t it? But more than that it will start to give you confidence that this role really is for you and that you can make a good go of it and living from it.
If you love all of the advice that we’ve given here, and the Celebrants Collective, sounds like a great celebrant training provider (it is!) and an awesome establishment whose wedding celebrant training you’re interested in, then look no further. Our website is full of great resources for celebrants-in-the-making.
And if you know that you're ready to come and join us, we'll be excited to welcome you onboard. You can read about our wedding training here, as well as sign up and get started from as early as today!
Photo by Kino Ortega