Questions About Celebrants and Training

When searching for ‘celebrant’ or ‘celebrant training’, there are many questions asked in relation to our role including, ‘what does a celebrant earn?’ ‘What kinds of ceremonies does a celebrants create?’ Celebrant training questions and researching the answers are part of training to be a celebrant.

Here are the answers to some of the most asked questions about celebrants and training to become a celebrant.

Can Anybody be a Celebrant?

If you are a good writer, good with people, can research information, and speak in public you have the basic skills required for becoming a celebrant. Celebrant training should teach you with all information to becoming a wedding or funeral celebrant, but this is questionable after seeing the same questions asked by many ‘celebrants’ in Facebook groups.

Formal or academic qualifications aren’t required to be a celebrant, nor do you need to choose a celebrant training course offering these as they aren’t essential nor recognised to work as a wedding or funeral celebrant.

Is there a Demand?

Is there a demand for celebrants? Celebrant wedding, funeral and life event ceremonies are more popular now than they have ever been and this popularity means yes, there is a demand for all kinds of celebrants.

Can it be a Full time Job?

Being a celebrant can be a full time job if you are prepared to be dedicated to gaining bookings. Marketing your business is an essential part if you want to be a celebrant full time and need it to be your main source of income.  Taking into consideration your home and family commitments will also be a contributing factor to being a celebrant full time.

Can You Work Part Time?

Yes you can be a celebrant part time. Celebrants are mostly self-employed and work the hours they can work to fit around other employment, family, or personal commitments. You can choose how many hours you work.

Is it a Good Career?

In short, yes being a celebrant is a good career if you are like meeting and helping people. You should be prepared to work hard at marketing your business to gain bookings.

What is the Difference Between a Celebrant and a Humanist?

Most non Humanist celebrants will include religious content such as prayers, hymns, or Bible readings into the ceremonies they are asked to create. Humanist celebrants generally will not be willing to include any religious content or prayers into the ceremonies they create. (Although some will do this).

What is the Difference Between a Civil Celebrant and a Celebrant?

A Civil Celebrant is a celebrant who may create and lead weddings and funeral ceremonies that follow a non-religious structure, but they will include some if requested. Celebrant refers to the role of writing and performing a ceremony. A Civil Celebrant is a category of celebrancy.

Why are There Different Kinds of Celebrants?

Celebrants are people of all ages with different lifestyles, beliefs, and specialised areas of celebrancy which leads to kinds of celebrants.

What’s the Difference Between a Celebrant and a Registrar?

A celebrant is usually an independent ceremony writer who performs weddings, funerals and life event ceremonies in any venue or place requested to do so by those a ceremony is for.

Currently in England and Wales (Jan 2024 when this was blog was written), celebrant wedding ceremonies are celebrations of a relationship and aren’t legally recognised.

Celebrants can include full personalisation, religious, semi religious, or spiritual wording, acts or rituals within the ceremonies they write and lead. Music can be heard that has religious references in it and any witnesses to a ceremony are there in an honourable, not legally required capacity.

Celebrants can lead ceremonies on any days and dates and at any time.

Registrars work for their local council authorities and have given authority to legally marry two people in a designated licensed for lawful marriage venue or place as governed by UK law. Registrars have outlined legal criteria for words and statements which they should say and what cannot be heard or said during a civil marriage ceremony. Celebrants and registrars are different.

Can a Celebrant Legally Marry You?

Not in England and Wales. Only registered marriage celebrants in other parts of the UK can legally marry you.

Do Celebrants Need a License?

No, celebrants do not need a license, but it is highly recommended they have taken a celebrant training course.

Can a Celebrant Perform a Funeral?

Yes a celebrant can perform a funeral. Funeral celebrant is an employment role and most funerals and celebration of life in the UK are created and performed by trained funeral celebrants rather than religious leaders.

How Much Does a Celebrant Charge for a Funeral?

Funeral celebrants fees vary depending on their geographical region, their experience, the time length of a funeral or celebration of life ceremony and additional services such a scattering ashes or inurning ashes in an additional ceremony after a cremation has taken place. Funeral celebrants charge between £200-£300 for their services.

Most funeral celebrants do not charge for creating and leading funerals for babies, children, and anybody under the age of 18.

How Much Does Training Cost?

You should expect to pay between £800 – £2,500 for reputable celebrant training which will give you the tools, skills, information, and support to train as and start your celebrant business. Some companies offering training in residential retreats set their fess up to £4,000. When considering becoming a celebrant and training to become one, what matters is what you will learn not where you will learn it.

Information About Celebrants and Training

There are choices to make when deciding how you want to train to be a celebrant; choices about the timeframe your want to learn in. If you have employment, family, or current commitments, a 5 days residential course which can cost up to £4,000 may not be suitable for both your commitment and financial situations.

Residential courses can include learning in a retreat environment where you are designated equal time to learn and to socialise with other student celebrants. A nice experience for some, an expensive break for others. Some residential courses take place in hotels and after a full days learning in a classroom environment, student celebrants are required to continue with personal studies which can include spending most of the night until the early hours of the morning writing a ceremony for the next day. Without any of the distractions of family life, these tasks can be seen to be easier to complete in this situation.

When working in the role of a celebrant, one of the skills required is time management. Learning the ability to research, write and create ceremonies alongside day to day life and commitments is essential. Residential courses may offer a full on, fast pace of learning, or a more relaxed experience variable between training companies. What none of them offer is the balance of established family/employment commitments and the role of a celebrant included. They can not offer this but learning how to manage all is imperative to become a celebrant.

Online celebrant training gives your the opportunity to fit your celebrant training around your current commitments. We at Choice Celebrant Training have two different ways to learn online which are:

5 days on our Accelerated Learning Courses.

8-18 weeks on our online courses.

How Do I Become a Celebrant?

Sign up for a modern and regularly updated training course. It is worth noting many online cheap training courses may only cover the basics so aren’t as cost effective in the long term. If you want to train to be a celebrant, do your research before you sign up for any course.

Choice Celebrant Training is the first celebrant training company to offer every student celebrant choices.

• You can choose Accelerated learning and 1-2-1 online learning with your chosen award winning Celebrant Trainer.
• You will become a valued and supported part of our Celebrant Community.
• We host regular Zoom presentations on all aspects of celebrancy and running your celebrant business.
• Choice Celebrant Training Founder Ellie Farrell has trained over 500 wedding and funeral celebrants and has over 9 year’s experience as a Celebrant Trainer.
• Choice Celebrant Trainer Nicky Sutton has created and led over 1,300 funerals, celebrations of life and memorial ceremonies and she is also a funeral director (on hand for help and advice).
• Choice Celebrant Trainer Glenn Reynolds is an experienced and highly in demand wedding and life events celebrant with a wealth of knowledge to share. He is also a wedding host and runs a course on wedding hosting.
• All our Celebrant Trainers are current working wedding and funeral celebrants with celebrant businesses (not retired or elusive as some Celebrant Trainers may be).
• We have our own in house Graphic Designer and Web Designer (he has over 30 year’s experience of working in both industries) who creates logos, branding, websites and more for our Celebrant Community.
• We offer training courses for celebrants who want to refresh their skills or want to learn how to create different kinds of ceremonies.
• We offer a call back service to talk to you at a time convenient to you. and if you call us between 9am and 6pm Mon-Fri, we will answer your call if we are able to. If not, we guarantee we will call you back on the same day.
• Our courses are regularly updated with fresh and new relevant content.
• All content on Choice Celebrant Training’s website is written by (unless stated and except guest blogs) us. We do not use AI to write any of our content, courses, or teaching materials.
• Our course materials, Facebook group, Zoom presentations and monthly newsletters are full of information about celebrants and training.

This is your journey and about you. Are we right for you?

There is a lot of information online in relation to celebrants and training. What is worth knowing is you get what you pay for. A nice few days away relaxing and learning comes at a higher price. An online company using the word ‘college’ charging a ridiculously low price won’t give you the required information to work as a celebrant, nor prepare you for what the role entails.