by Events • March 14, 2025 • Wedding Planning Guides
If you’ve started to plan your big day and research barn wedding venues, you might have come across a term when exploring ceremony options, and asked yourself “what is a wedding celebrant?”
The simplest answer: A celebrant is someone who’ll host your ceremony and oversee your vows, who isn’t a traditional religious figure or officiant.
But a wedding celebrant does much more than that. A celebrant is someone who is trained in officiating weddings but who will usually go above and beyond what you’d expect from a registrar, a vicar, priest, Imam or Rabbi.
A celebrant focuses on creating a personalised, custom-made ceremony for you and your partner. Rather than following a traditional structure, they’ll work closely with you to craft a wedding celebration that truly reflects your personalities, beliefs, and values.
Wedding celebrants get to know you and give you the freedom to design a wedding ceremony any way you like – just like our ceremony areas give you a blank slate for the theme of your wedding.
A celebrant is a great choice for your big day if you want to incorporate your own meaningful elements and tell your love story in unique, creative ways.
What makes a celebrant special is their dedication to creating ceremonies that go beyond the traditional script. They’re storytellers, ceremonial experts, and guides who help bring your wedding vision to life in the most personal way possible.
From your very first meeting, they become a crucial part of your wedding journey, taking the time to understand your story as a couple, your values, and the type of ceremony you’ve always dreamt of having.
But of course, a wedding celebrant’s role extends far beyond just officiating on your big day.
They’ll meet with you several times before the wedding, learning about how you met, what makes your relationship special, and the elements you’d like to include in your ceremony.
They might ask you about cultural traditions or special rituals. They may talk about your faith, and what you’d like to include or exclude.
And they’ll discuss the structure of your day and the setup of your ceremony areas, to make sure all your plans and wishes can be brought to life.
We’ve seen celebrants help couples include everything from lighting a unity candle beneath our gorgeous oak pagoda to holding a Celtic handfasting as part of a rustic wedding theme.
Furnished with all that personal knowledge and understanding, your celebrant will then create the customised ceremony you’ve always dreamt of.
Anyone could be a wedding celebrant, yes, because there are no official qualifications required. But most professional celebrants will have been through specific training and certification to make sure they can deliver an unforgettable ceremony.
There are several associations and organisations of professional and independent celebrants in the UK.
You’ll also find different types of wedding celebrants, including independent celebrants, humanists, interfaith ministers, civil registrars, and clergy.
Independent celebrants are not tied to a single faith or belief system and can create ceremonies that combine elements from different faiths, beliefs, and cultures. Humanist celebrants provide non-religious ceremonies.
If you’re thinking of becoming a celebrant (or having a friend or family member train as one to conduct your ceremony), there are a few key skills you’ll need, including:
A celebrant will do many things for your big day, both before the wedding and during.
Before the wedding, they’ll:
And on your wedding day, they have to:
If you get married at Heaton House Farm, your dedicated wedding coordinator will be on hand to help and support your celebrant with many of these tasks.
No, in England, celebrants cannot currently perform legally binding marriages. But don’t worry.
Most couples who choose a celebrant wedding will have a brief legal ceremony at a registry office either before or after their celebrant-led celebration.
This gives you more flexibility, as you can have your meaningful celebration anywhere you choose at any kind of venue.
That might be under our iconic Sycamore tree or beneath the twinkling stars in our one-of-a-kind ceremony area.
If you’re imagining and planning for a truly personalised wedding – with a fully customisable wedding venue like Heaton House Farm and a unique ceremony that’s specific to you and your partner – then a wedding celebrant could be a perfect choice.
They bring a special personal touch to your celebration, giving you the freedom to marry exactly the way you’d like.
And they’re becoming increasingly popular for more and more couples.
Think about what you’d like from your big day, and then reach out to a local celebrant to see if they can help you bring your vision to life.
Before you start planning that magical ceremony, make sure you’ve found the perfect Cheshire wedding venue to host it.
Request a brochure today and see if Heaton House Farm is the idyllic place for you.
