Celebrant Training: what it can and can’t prepare you for
There are so many aspects of celebrancy, and good training by someone with decades of real-life experience will be clear about what training can and can’t prepare you for in your upcoming role.
Those who’ve trained with us know that I’ll often share stories from my thirty plus years as an international celebrant (across all rites of passage). Why? Because these stories are wonderful teaching tools of:
1. What works
2. All the things that can go wrong that are well out of your control. The only thing you have control over is your reaction.
There are some things that you can only learn from experience, rather than from a teacher or text book, such as:
Each time you watch a baby-sized coffin coming down the aisle (amplified even more so if you’ve experienced your own child’s [children’s] deaths).
Listening to the raw grief of a parent who has to say goodbye to their child and hearing them howl at the graveside.
Officiating in torrential rain and/or gale-force winds and somehow holding the space not only for your client but all the mourners.
Officiating a burial when it’s below zero and your mouth feels like it’s going to seize up because you can no longer feel your cheeks, lips, tongue and mouth. Or brain!
As celebrants, we work with people from all walks of life and all types of mindset. In our training, I give copious examples of how I’ve worked with challenging clients without losing my centre.
There can also be ‘boundaryless’ clients who, though lovely, can be difficult in their own way especially when you’re having to meet external deadlines.
Humans are humans are humans. You will encounter other people’s moods and have to have a strong sense of self so that you don’t get put off your stride.
A good celebrant will ensure they always leave margins in their travel time to deal with things like traffic jams or flat tyres. Take the view that it’s better to arrive at a venue early than late.
There are countless examples of situations that have been out of my control but have had to be integrated and made seamless in my celebrant work. They say life is survival of the fittest. I always say it is survival of those who can adapt. A great celebrant is excellent at adapting and being able to think on the spot and pivot, if necessary.
By sharing my lived experience as a celebrant over three decades, I am able to illustrate the different ways to deal with certain situations. And sometimes I share stories about other celebrant experiences:
The celebrant who turned up at the wrong venue (there are countless examples of this)
The celebrant who forgot they had a ceremony and the funeral director had to read the script off their mobile phone
Flat tyre en route to crematorium
The huge numbers of celebrants who get names wrong in ceremonies
The celebrant whose angry groom yelled out, mid ceremony, that it wasn’t the script they approved.
A bride being unhappy because the celebrant wanted to use their ‘branded’ folder
The celebrant who didn’t number their pages and got them out of order in the funeral ceremony
(The above scenarios are all situations that I teach you how to avoid.)
When you train with Paul and I, you’re not just paying for our time you’re paying for decades of real-life experiences. We are guiding you so that you don’t have to go through countless trials of fire or fumbling your way into a new career path. Our expertise will ensure that you enter celebrancy with your eyes wide open.
