From September, I'll be investing a lot more time into officiating and speechwriting. I've taken a lot from the first 18 months and the biggest one is that when it comes to weddings and other similar events, the ceremony don't have to be the boring part. I've found when done right, they are the most memorable, beautiful and precious part of the day.
My other key takeaway is that clients have an increasing desire for professionalism, know-how and expert guidance on their weddings, speeches and memorials. And they want that in the form of an actual person, not an internet article. They invest so much time and careful thought into the flowers, the food, the venue, how they communicate with guests and they want to exercise a similar level of choice over their ceremony and over their own words. Registrars are wonderful but for the clients I've spoken to, including ones who have ultimately gone with a different celebrant, registrars come with a set of assumptions about what should be involved in ceremonies, what matters, and how to go about things. The focus becomes ‘what will happen and in what order' and not why are we doing this and how can we bring that to life through our choices about this particular moment in time.
Ultimately, clients don't want the person leading their ceremony to be filling out a checklist. They don't want to talk about their jobs or the first time they met. They want to explore why a wedding, why a marriage and what the ceremony can mean. It takes more time but when you put that in front of an audience it is incredibly powerful. With speeches, this is even more challenging. Almost know speech I've written, even a eulogy, can be successfully crafted using a pre-packaged form. It's a reinvention every time.
And, delightfully, the alternative approach which marries modern lives and tradition works. We can explore the poetry, have the conversations, think about the language, find the words which carry significance. That, I think remains a project of refinement as I journey on; one which remains a driving purpose. And little by little, I hope the ceremony is no longer the part to get over and done, but the space that sits at the heart of the day.