Five Top Tips for Finding Your Wedding Celebrant

Let’s look at how you will find your celebrant for your wedding in France

This has been written by my friend and colleague Helen, an English Celebrant who works in France. A further article will cover what to look for in your celebrant.

What does your image of your French wedding ceremony   look like? Are you in a grand chateau reflecting the history of others who have celebrated life events in the past? Does the sea shimmer blue just as your eye meets the horizon? Is the scent of lavender weaving its spell? Wherever you see your ceremony, do your guests look engaged? Are you all caught up in the experience of your wedding ceremony and living every minute with the thrill of knowing you are in the act of creating something big – your new life as a married couple? Or are your guests pleased to be in such a beautiful place but wondering how long the ceremony will last? To ensure you achieve the ceremony worthy of your wedding dream, you need to have the right person leading it, and so here we explore “five tips on finding your celebrant”.

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This may seem like an obvious statement, but as a citizen of the UK, you cannot have your wedding legalised in France. Less obvious, is that it is “the norm” in France to have your wedding in two parts. Here, couples do their legal ceremony at the Town Hall (The “Mairie”) then, if they wish, have a separate ceremony in church or with a celebrant. It’s been that way since forever! In case you’re very new to the whole “get married in France scene”, let’s start off with clarifying the celebrant’s role.

What is a celebrant?

A celebrant writes tailor-made ceremonies for life events, literally from the cradle to the grave. Any rite of passage can be celebrated with a celebrant, but for today’s purposes we’ll concentrate on weddings. A celebrant-led ceremony has no legal obligations or government restrictions. Other than, of course, those imposed by extraordinary national guidelines such as the recent Covid19 rulings.

In short, your celebrant is the person who will create a “wow” ceremony based on who you are to make the day entirely about you. So, you’d better choose the right one!

Here are 5 tips on how to find a celebrant

1. Ask your wedding planner

Wedding Planners will have seen celebrants in action, or at the very least been in touch with them and read their testimonials. A good planner will match you with the right celebrant “for you”.

The service provided by Lace & Lavande is completely bespoke, so of course Aneesha will consider who would be the best celebrant for your needs

2. Ask Your venue

On your wedding day, your hosts will be running around catering to your every need (well, we hope they will!). Possibly though, they’ll pause for a mindful minute or two to listen to the ceremony.

At the very least, the venue will pick up on the vibe created by the celebrant. Some stand out, hopefully those will be the ones which the venue recommends. Venues such as Château de Varenne, Sauveterre have a list of recommended suppliers for instance (yes, Lace & Lavande have the privilege of working closely with them!).

3. Check out the Wedding Blogs and Directories

Wowser, there are SO MANY of them! Here are a few with links for starters; Hitched in France, Celebrant Directory

OK, you may have spotted that these link to my (Helen your celebrant author of this blog!) posts within those sites but obviously there’s a huge choice within them.

Other places to look at are France-specific wedding blogs such French Wedding Style.

4. Google is your friend!

As well as being in directories, most celebrants will have a website, and some sort of social network account/s. Being at the top of a Google search doesn’t necessarily mean that this is the “right” celebrant for you. But it does mean they have a professional attitude to their work and probably have experience – they’ve been around the block! You can have a quick look at their testimonials whilst your Googling..

5. Work those # Hashtags!

I can’t believe I’m suggesting this since you’re bound to be a hundred years younger than me so know INFINITELY more about this than I do! But get yourself on Insta, Facebook, Pinterest or whatever floats your wedding boat and have a nose with your preferred hashtag. Have a look at the celebrants’ posts to find one which reflects your dreams and wishes for your big day.

So, that’s it from me, Helen the celebrant at Treasured Ceremonies.

I hope that this has been fun to read and more to the point, helpful! Contact Aneesha or me if you want to talk to us about your wedding here in France. Ooh la la (yes, they do say that in France)! What a team we make! What a day you’ll have!

Who am I (the author)?

Thanks for asking! I’m Helen, and I fly under the banner “Treasured Ceremonies”. I have ceremonies in France and UK booked for 2021 but will be concentrating on France from 2022. I’m creating my own “Happy Ever After” there so would be chuffed to bits to help you at the start of yours!

Photographer: Sara Jane Ethan

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Photographer: Maddie Farris

Our warmest thanks to the talented photographers who immortalise our events