Voewood House<\/a>.<\/p>\nAs always there are lots of questions from couples –<\/p>\n
can we get married on a boat<\/h5>\ncould we have the ceremony at home<\/h5>\ncan we livestream the ceremony to my mum who is poorly and won’t be there<\/h5>\ndo we have to get married in a Register Office<\/h5>\ndo we have to exchange rings<\/h5>\nwe are a gay couple, how can our ceremony help our family to understand why we are so committed to one another<\/h5>\ncan I write my own vows<\/h5>\n
The answers to these questions are : \u00a0yes you can have a ceremony on a boat (though the size of the boat might make a difference to how many guests you invite);.<\/p>\n
Of course you can have your ceremony at home – more than 50% of my weddings this year are either in the couple’s garden or in the garden of a parent or relative;.<\/p>\n
Yes of course you can livestream the ceremony – it’s your wedding and you make the choices. \u00a0My only caveat is to check the reliability of whoever is doing it and to double check the wifi signal!.<\/p>\n
You can choose to have a brief (and very cheap) legal ceremony at the Register Office with two witnesses before or after your Humanist ceremony. This way you do not have to have a Registrar who does not know you, conduct the whole wedding ceremony. About 50% of my couples do this. \u00a0To the other 50% it is not important to them. \u00a0We are still waiting for Humanist ceremonies to be legalised in England and Wales as they are already in Scotland, Northern Ireland, Jersey and Guernsey – did you know that 70% of all weddings in Scotland are Humanist weddings? If you are thinking about having a Register Office ceremony you may not know that you do not have to exchange rings there – you can do this in your Humanist ceremony.<\/p>\n
Humanist ceremonies are about your wedding, your way.\u00a0The joy of choosing a Humanist approach is that I will work with you over a number of weeks and write a magical ceremony that has a shape, is rich with symbol and meaning, is based on who you are as a couple, and includes the music and readings and people you choose.<\/p>\n
Gay or straight, if you love one another then that’s the most important thing; \u00a0Humanist ceremonies are flexible and guided by what you want. \u00a0All you need to do is email me and we can get that conversation started!<\/p>\n
What have I learned from this year’s weddings thus far?<\/p>\n
Remaining calm and flexible is the best gift I can give a couple on their wedding day.<\/h5>\nThe start time is the start time – but the start time is not necessarily the time that is written on the programme!<\/h5>\nDogs, cats and horses are important members of the family and finding ways to include them in the ceremony has resulted in lots of fun.<\/h5>\nUsing rich expressions through symbols rather than words – such as handfasting and lighting family candles – are very powerful methods of engaging wider family members and bringing them into the circle.<\/h5>\nInjecting humour into a ceremony is just as important as the solemn moments.<\/h5>\nThe elderly parents of couples marrying later in life, often appear fragile and sometimes are marginal to the ceremony, \u00a0but they have enormous wisdom and charm and finding a way of including them is magical.<\/h5>\nDo-it-yourself weddings are very labour intensive; the relationship between couple and celebrant can help smooth the path and iron out those last-minute glitches – such as having a plan for what to do if it rains and you’ve set your heart on an outdoor ceremony!<\/h5>\nFinally, frail love tokens are as meaningful as powerful words.<\/h5>\n
I love my role as a celebrant. Next to my husband, my children and my grandchildren it is the greatest joy and a huge privilege.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This year has been a busy year for weddings, vow renewals, babies and wedding enquiries. \u00a0Already the bookings are coming in for 2019, I have weddings through to the end of November, including one at my favourite venue Voewood House. As always there are lots of questions from couples – can we get married on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":369,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/humanist.org.uk\/dawnrees\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/humanist.org.uk\/dawnrees\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/humanist.org.uk\/dawnrees\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humanist.org.uk\/dawnrees\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/369"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humanist.org.uk\/dawnrees\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=459"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/humanist.org.uk\/dawnrees\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":464,"href":"https:\/\/humanist.org.uk\/dawnrees\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459\/revisions\/464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/humanist.org.uk\/dawnrees\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humanist.org.uk\/dawnrees\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humanist.org.uk\/dawnrees\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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