Welcome to the Celebrant Talk Show! I’m Sarah Aird, and in this episode, Josh Withers and I catch up after a four-month break to discuss some big changes in marriage law, including the introduction of remote witnessing for the NOIM and the new requirement for separate meetings with each party to confirm consent.

We talk through how these changes are affecting celebrants, especially the overreactions we’ve seen in Facebook groups, and offer practical advice on keeping things simple. I also share how I’m managing these changes without making a big deal out of it.

Plus, we dive into some celebrant pricing strategies, how to assess consent safely, and Josh’s funny rant about why he avoids celebrant Facebook groups!

We really want to hear from you with anything you want us to talk about, or anything you might disagree with! Hit us up at [email protected]

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Celebrant Talk Show Podcast Transcript

Josh: [00:00:00] Friends and family, welcome to Australia’s most well barbered podcast for marriage celebrants. I can pretty much all say no other celebrant podcast has been to the barber inside the last hour and a half, but this one has this is the celebrant talk show. My name is Josh Withers and I’m joined by the other 51 percent of this podcast, Sarah Aird.

Sarah, have you been to the barber in the last 90 minutes?

Sarah: No.

Josh: You’re really letting the rest of the podcast down.

Sarah: yeah, I, yep. Nope. Okay. Every time it’s something different,

Josh: that’s the thing. That’s the goal.

Sarah: that was the thing. Yeah. It’s good. So we have not done a recording for, it’s been like nearly four months. In fact, it’ll be four months tomorrow. We did the last episode we did was on the 12th of June. And that was the day that the new laws came into being.

So that’s why we

Josh: It’s been a ride.

Sarah: And [00:01:00] today we’re doing a bit of a follow up on that really.

Josh: can I can I speak into that? I like podcasting without anything with anyone. I just love a good chinwag. Put that on my tombstone. It’s been a busy time. I’ve been in Europe. I’ve been in. Other places that I can’t remember. And but I like podcasting with you, Sarah. Sometimes Sarah and I won’t podcast because we’ve got nothing to say, which I think is a valid reason for not podcasting.

However, if there are topics, things, questions and answers so there’s, this is different to Celebrate Institute ask a question about marriage law, but those things you’d like Sarah and I to weigh in on, jump into our inbox and that will certainly peer pressure us into podcast recording.

Sarah: It totally will. I was actually thinking about that the other day, cause when we first started the podcast back in 2017, maybe.

Josh: years ago?

Sarah: It was pre our Celebrant Institute membership platform, and people used to write into [00:02:00] us with their questions that we would then talk about on the podcast. And we don’t really do that anymore because now we have the membership platform.

So people write to us, they email us with their questions, having paid us 12 bucks a month to answer them. And then we answer them by email. So it would be cool though, if people wanted to ask

Josh: Maybe it’s a topic or subject matter that is a little bit more than a, Celebrity Institute kind of email.

Sarah: that an email,

Josh: Sarah can you spend the next hour talking to us about the contrasts in things? I don’t know.

Sarah: You really thought that through, didn’t you? Does our

Josh: Yeah, it all goes to the same place. Hello at sullibrant. fm should get to us.

Sarah: Yeah. That you’d like us to talk about.

Josh: Sarah been a, it’s been a weird world in that there’s been a few little lawful changes happening this year. I am fairly inoculated from a lot of the chit chat around it. Because I am allergic to wedding industry, Facebook groups. If you do see me in one, know that’s [00:03:00] me trying to get back on the train and expect me to leave soon.

Sarah: I know you joined one like two weeks ago, are you

Josh: Yeah. But I’ve also, I’ve turned off notifications. Like I don’t really see anything.

Sarah: Every now and again, I’ll get a screenshot from Josh going, look, I just joined this group. And I’ll be like, yeah, in 48 hours, tell me if you’re still there. He’s

Josh: horrible. They’re the worst, just the worst thing.

Sarah: Look, they are pretty horrible, but I am in a lot of celebrant related Facebook groups and look, industry related Facebook groups because I because it’s a way for me to keep my finger on the pulse of what is going on, what people are struggling with and that all helps me to inform my training and my professional development.

Opportunities and things like that. So that’s why I stay. But it’s okay that Josh doesn’t. So the reason we’re talking about Facebook groups is [00:04:00] because since the law changed on what the 11th, 12th of June to bring in particular remote witnessing of norms and also the separate meetings about consent, there has been a lot of chatter in the Facebook groups that I’m a member of about two things.

The first one being about the meet, the separate meetings and what that actually means. And honestly, I have seen a lot of people who have been way overreacting and overthinking these separate meetings. So I just want to go right back to basics. All the Marriage Act now says is that before the marriage takes place, the celebrant must meet separately with each of the parties. Full stop. That’s it. It doesn’t actually say in the act to confirm they are consenting.

Josh: just catch up

Sarah: It doesn’t

Josh: share, we could just share a KitKat.

Sarah: Because this is one of the issues of legislation is that it often [00:05:00] tells us that we have to do something, but it doesn’t tell us why we have to do it. So it’s not until you go back and look at the, explanatory memorandum from when that legislation was created, that you find out what the intent behind it was in the first place.

This is something that I’ve been grappling with recently because for an example, the Certificate IV qualification, one of the many knowledge requirement elements is, the purpose of celebrants giving the happily ever before and after brochure to our couples. And I was like who knows what the purpose is?

It doesn’t say. in the Act, it just says that we have to give it. I now know what the purpose is because I found it. It’s in an explanatory memorandum from 1975 when that requirement was introduced and the purpose was to try and bring down the divorce rate. But that is my issue with this whole separate meetings thing is that it doesn’t [00:06:00] tell us why we have to do it or what we have to do or what should be, how those separate meetings should be managed or anything like that.

So that really means that as long as you meet with your people separately, you can do whatever you like. now we, of the Attorney General’s Department in putting this requirement in was for us to be able to ensure consent, particularly in a circumstance where we are remote witnessing the NOIM and we don’t know who else is in the room off camera, essentially, when we’re watching somebody sign the NOIM.

That was the original purpose of it. And they just decided to extend that to all weddings. So that’s the intention. But let’s just remember what the Act says. Meet with each of the parties separately. The way I’m seeing a lot of people really freaking out about this. I’ve seen people talking about, I’ve emailed all my couples with a lengthy description [00:07:00] of the fact that we now have to have separate meetings and I’ve explained that to them all and I’m putting them in my calendar and I’ve even seen somebody produce a document that you can have your couple sign to say that they are consenting to the marriage.

I don’t know, I think the Notice of Intended Marriage is them. signing to say they consent to the marriage, but okay. And the

Josh: and the marriage

Sarah: like that’s the documents. South Australia BDM has even changed the norm. I don’t even know if they’re allowed to do that. And I’ve written to MLCS about it, but if you use the South Australia online registration system, The norm that it creates has added a tick box that says, I confirm I met separately with each party before the marriage was solemnized to confirm they were entering into

Josh: you remember when Queensland BDM went online? And because they’re, I don’t know if you remember or know this, but the Queensland NOIMs look a lot of basically different. Just, [00:08:00] yeah but, And yeah,

Sarah: yeah, because they

Josh: the same

Sarah: they made it themselves.

Josh: it’s just not the same format, not the same font.

And the feedback we received at that point was that it was fine because the annoying, I think do you remember, did they say it was a working document? Was that the wording?

Sarah: No, I think the reason was that the NOIM is not in the Marriage Act. The contents of the NOIM is not in the Marriage Act. So it doesn’t actually say anywhere that this is the information you have to, whereas, for example, the contents of the Form 15 is in the Marriage Act. So that cannot be changed.

But anyway, I don’t know if it’s legal for the South Australia BDM to just unilaterally add things to the NOIM or not. I’m not sure if that’s, Cause that’s a different matter from it looking different from the formatting being different, that’s different. They’re just adding things. I’ve seen a lot, basically a lot of freaking out about this.

And I personally would like to talk you through how I [00:09:00] am managing this requirement and that it is not a freaking out ness of mine.

Josh: So are you freaking out about this or are you not freaking out about this, Sarah?

Sarah: the way I’m dealing with this. I’m not freaking out about it at all. So the way I’m dealing with this, I’m not doing anything with my current couples.

like ahead of time. What I’m doing is I’m telling them we have to sign the Don Lim separately. The Declaration of No Legal Impediment to Marriage. So if it’s a new couple, when I’m talking through all the paperwork and everything that we’re going to sign before the marriage, I say, one of the documents is the declaration.

This is what it says. We have to do it before the marriage ceremony and we have to sign it separately. So I’m just going to take you away, like 10 steps away from each other. Have a little chat. And so a couple, my couples who are already signed up, I’m just like on the day. I’m just going, so we need to sign.

We take them. I take them literally 10 steps away because there’s no [00:10:00] requirement that it’s in a different room or that it’s on a different day or anything like that. It’s just separately. So they need to not be able to hear the conversation and that’s fine. And we go through the Don Lim like I always do.

This form says you’re not married to someone else. You’re not siblings or parent and child. You’re over 18. And are you happy to sign that? Yes. And are you happy to get married today? That’s it. That’s all I’m doing. Now, if they say to me, if I say to them, are you happy to get married today? And they say, no.

Okay, far that hasn’t happened. It’s not, I don’t think it’s going to, but that’s not the point. I’ve ticked off my requirement to do the separate meeting and it hasn’t been a big, massive drama. It’s just, are you happy to get married today? Separately away from the other party. And that’s it. Yes, I am. So that’s the first thing I wanted to talk about and I’m, we’re on zoom so I [00:11:00] can see Josh is getting ready to say something

Josh: No, it’s a a constant thread, something that you and I probably we want to outrightly address this, but I think we address it almost weekly with a question from a celebrant institute member. And it’s something we’ve, this has been a theme of conversation for the last 10 years. But before you marry people.

as a Commonwealth Authorised Marriage Celebrant in Australia, you say the words, or words to this effect, I am duly authorised by law to solemnise marriages according to the law. And that’s not just true in the middle of the marriage journey, that’s true in life, because you’re a Commonwealth Authorised Marriage Celebrant, if you are a celebrant, listen to this.

And so the reason I highlight that is to convey that there is an authority that you have been given, you can. You can just believe someone is consenting If you believe it to be true in the same way that when someone takes male or female or sorry X

Sarah: non binary.

Josh: No, I’m sorry. [00:12:00] Yeah, it was X for a second and then yeah and there’s the sense of authority that I feel many celebrants don’t know they have And then you might come back to me and say, Oh, but what if they’re lying?

If they’re lying. And that’s fraudulent. So we have protections for these things. And so if someone isn’t consenting and you look at them and think they are, and they say they are, but they’re not, there’s only so many seashells you can save by throwing them back into the ocean.

And so people try to flesh out or buff up their authority Bye. Making paperwork and things and getting on bloody Facebook groups. And the thing is, you are a com authorized marriage settlement, authorized to marry people according to law. there’s this authority. I just want everyone to grab ahold of and know that they have, that you don’t need to make more of it.

Sarah: Yeah. And I think that’s actually, it’s a good reminder that so I’m going to talk about consent again in a minute, but in terms of this, I [00:13:00] have met with them separately and I have said, I’ve looked them in the eyes. I have done a kind of review of their body language and their voice and their facial expression.

And I’ve said to them, are you happy to get married today? And they have told me, yes, I’m done. That is my requirement and obligation. And we’ll talk more about consent in a minute and how you look at that in a minute, but that is as far as it goes. There’s no requirement for forms and tick boxes.

Not yet. We’re looking at tick boxes on the forms, but there’s no requirement for lengthy forms and lots of questions and digging in and, separate meetings at different times of day and different venues. And that’s just not a requirement. And so I think some of us have a tendency to really overthink it and to really go way beyond what is our requirement and our obligation.

It’s the same as, people come to me and they say, how do I know they’ve never [00:14:00] really been married before? You don’t, but they’ve told you that they’re signing the documents that say they’ve never been married before. Those documents are legal documents and there are penalties attached for making false statements on them.

You’ve done what you can, you’ve asked them, you’ve got them to sign the form, that’s all you can do. So it’s the same kind of thing with this. Don’t overthink it. Don’t make it bigger than it has to be. So that’s my, the first thing that people are freaking out about. Which is about making these separate meetings bigger than Ben The second thing that people are freaking out about is what if they say no? What if the person says that they’re not consenting? What if the person says that they’re not happy? What do I do? Is it’s not going to be safe for me. It’s not going to be safe for them. Blah, blah, blah. It’s always been our job, always, before the separate meetings came in, it has always been our job to assess consent. if [00:15:00] we think there is a problem, to refuse to solemnise the marriage. That is not new. That bit is the same. It’s always been there. I’m hearing a lot of, but what if they say no? Then you would do the same thing you always would do if they said no, because that is our requirement. I’m seeing, There’s a seller in one of the groups who is doing some really great work on.

Writing up kind of professional development tips about consent. And some of what he’s writing is going a bit too far, I think, in terms of our obligations. And I did talk to him about this. I did challenge him and we’ve, we came to something that we thought was better. So for example if on the day you get the idea that somebody isn’t consenting, then you should, Make sure that you and the person are safe and then you should go and tell the other party that the marriage isn’t going ahead. I don’t know if that’s our job. [00:16:00] It’s, I think it’s my job to support the person who is not consenting and it is my job to, if I need to, get them out of there because they might not be safe. But it’s not necessarily it’s not every time going to be our job. To tell the other party and the venue and the guests that the marriage is not going ahead.

So I think that anyway. That’s beside the point. The biggest point is this freak out about what do we do if they say no, because this is not safe, blah, blah, blah. Again, that hasn’t changed. That requirement has always been there that if we have any concerns about consent, we refuse to solemnize the marriage.

And we have always been required to be assessing consent from the moment we first meet them right up to. Before they say the legal vows, we need to be assessing consent at every [00:17:00] touch point that we have, whether it’s meetings, rehearsals, when we meet to sign paperwork. When they get out of the car, when we, even when they’re walking down the aisle, they can withdraw consent at any time. Just as with all forms of consent. You can withdraw them at any time. Even if you said yes half an hour ago, you can change your mind. You are allowed to do that. That’s a thing. So that has not

Josh: There’s this issue of safety there, which is really important though as well. But as a celebrant and I’m aware I’m a 42 year old male, white male celebrant. My safety levels are going to be different than other people’s just cause they all are different people or different whatever’s. But you should always be like, gosh, some of the stories I hear from female wedding professionals at weddings.

Just from handsy people, etc. Like it’s you always need to be considering safety. And just beware. And maybe it’s like whether there’s a safe person there. [00:18:00] Maybe it’s whether you’ve got a partner with you or something like that. Or just simply calling Chablot. If you’re not, if you’re not feeling safe.

That’s why we have Chablot. If you legitimately don’t feel safe, that’s why. And sometimes it might be about just simply removing yourself from the venue, just walking out and you’re allowed to, because if it’s an issue of safety like no judge in the country is going to, I don’t know, tear you apart as a celebrant because you walked out cause you didn’t feel safe.

Sarah: Absolutely. A thousand percent. And also. Encouraging maybe a person who is not giving consent,

Josh: Yeah.

Sarah: encouraging them to maybe come with you if they are not feeling safe, the hope is that if there were any consent issues, you would get to them well before the marriage day. That is the hope that we would not be dealing with this.

in the moment on the day. But things do happen. I and not just about consent because, oh, it’s a forced marriage or whatever, but consent because of [00:19:00] intoxication. They can’t give consent if they’re intoxicated. I had a mentor in fact, he was the reason I became a celebrant because I saw him at a wedding and he was so good.

He turned up to a wedding. Groom was absolutely off his face. He got the bride and the bride’s mother. To sign a declaration, like he just wrote it on a bit of paper saying I, celebrate name and not performing the wedding at this time because the groom is intoxicated and cannot give consent. And he got the bride and her mother both to sign that as well, that they were aware of it.

They were totally with him because they were pissed with the groom. And so that protected him. He was a big dude. Again, older white male. So had a level of safety anyway, but he got that signed for himself for legal safety too. And so those things happen. It’s not just about, Oh, this person’s being forced.

It’s, it can be about this [00:20:00] person’s too drunk. And was in theory a lot, but I think people are starting to freak out a little bit more now because of these separate meetings about what happens if it actually happens in practice. And I would say, we’ve been talking about consent the last, this year’s OPD is about consent, OPD two years ago was about consent, we talk about consent a lot, because it’s not new, that requirement is not new and I don’t think that the number of times, that a wedding has to be stopped due to a lack of consent is actually going to go up just because of these separate meetings because I don’t believe these separate meetings are going to make any difference at all.

Personally, I’ve talked about that on the Celebrant Institute blog quite a lot and we talked about it in the Celebrant Institute submission to the Senate inquiry on this bill. If somebody’s not consenting and they’re going to be prepared to tell you as a celebrant, they’re going to tell you anyway whether or not you have a separate meeting with them.

[00:21:00] I don’t think the separate meeting is going to make any difference to that at all. But, okay, sure. I don’t think that this is going to make the, I don’t think people are suddenly going to start saying, no, I’m not consenting more often just because you’re meeting separately with them. I would really encourage you to not freak out.

Don’t freak out about the separate meetings and what they mean. Don’t freak out about consent. Consent has always been a requirement. It’s just the same. It’s not going to get any worse or any better or any different. The requirement is still there. So there is quite a lot in the guidelines about consent and I really do encourage you to go back and read that stuff it because it is useful.

There’s a lot in this year’s OPD about consent is really great in terms of consent when under guardianship orders and those sorts of things. I think that’s right. Yeah, that’s this year. I can’t remember I did it so long ago and it all melds into one. But I’m pretty sure that’s this year.

So there is lots of great [00:22:00] information. I have also seen a lot of celebrants saying, if you’re going to make us do these separate meetings to check consent, why aren’t you teaching us about consent? They are! teaching us about consent. A, it’s in the guidelines. B, it’s OPD. I don’t know how they can teach us anymore.

Honestly, it’s quite yep. So they are teaching us about consent. But if you have any concerns about your ability to assess consent, I’m really happy to have a chat with you. About, about the things that I look for. The AGD, when the separate meetings requirement came out, they issued of guidance.

They emailed it to everybody. And that has some things that you can look for when assessing consent. So go back and review the stuff in the guidelines about consent. It’s 2024 and people are talking about consent in terms of sex a lot right now. It’s the same thing.

Josh: It’s the same mechanic.

Sarah: Okay. [00:23:00] That’s right. It’s this, you might be looking for the same things, people not making eye contact, people not wanting to talk those sorts. It’s the same kinds of things that you might be looking for.

Go and do some reading on consent in general. Just Google. What should I look for when assessing consent? Who knows what you’ll find, but I’m very happy to have a chat to you. If you do have concerns about how to assess consent, or if you have concerns about a specific couple, we’re always happy to answer those kinds of questions at the Sullivan Institute.

We we’ve. I’ve certainly had experiences in my own practice of dealing with couples where I wasn’t entirely satisfied about consent and I’ve got, all sorts of ideas and thoughts about what I’ve done in those situations.

Josh: I’ve been a celebrant for 15 and a half years and then we’ve just dug a little bit and it’s [00:24:00] been okay, but I’ve inquired about it but like just nothing really that interesting, like no, no deep interesting stories of legals only between a guy who seemed to be a very unlikely partner for his, Thai partner and so I just very deeply took them through the notice of intent and what it meant and as if, if you can imagine someone doing a half hour TED talk on annoying, that was me.

They all signed it. then he calls like a week later, he goes, man, I just can’t, I can’t believe it. She was using me for a visa. I’m like, I did not see that coming. I am surprised as well. There’s that. And then I’ve had, someone who was probably displaying intoxication and I. said this is raising some concerns for me.

It turns out we’re just playing it up for the girls. yeah, so I think they’re the two moments that I’ve really had to delve into this in my whole career. I’m obviously aware, I do the training, I read, when we do the [00:25:00] celebratory shit we talk about every day, I’m aware of looking for consent and it’s something on my mind, but at the end of the day, that’s as deep as I’ve gone.

Have you ceased the activity of solemnizing someone’s marriage?

Sarah: I haven’t, but I know someone who has, and they have given me permission in the past to talk about the situation in general terms. And I think we’ve even talked about it on the podcast. It’s many years ago now, but the the bride was of an international background and had lots of people flying from their home country to attend the wedding.

But told my celebrant friend that they did not want to get married. Because they had found out something about their partner and and they weren’t happy and they really didn’t want to get married, but they didn’t feel that they could cancel the wedding because of the shame it would bring to their family.

And because of all these people who had spent lots of money and were flying in. And so [00:26:00] my friend did the absolute correct thing and said, I’m not going to marry you. I would recommend that you go, we can do a commitment ceremony on the day. That’s totally fine. I would recommend that you go away and get some counseling.

Come back in six months and I’ll marry you then. And the groom found out about these discussions and said that’s ridiculous. It’s going ahead. And we believe coerced the bride into changing her story and saying that, yes, she was happy to go ahead. And they found another celebrant to marry them. And of course, the first celebrant can’t tell the second celebrant why they’re not going to marry them because the code of practice requires us to maintain privacy and confidentiality. And that’s a problem. A problem that I did actually raise with the AGD last time we were there. The second celebrant went ahead and married them.

Who knows what happened. But, in my view, the first celebrant was absolutely spot on. [00:27:00] That They refused to marry them because the bride had outright said to her I do not want to get married but I feel

Josh: We should remind the guys in the

Sarah: So they won’t consent in

Josh: thing. I feel every couple of weeks or months, it’s like, Hey, do you guys get a phone call from John Smith and, Melissa Brown? And the other thing, I don’t marry them.

Sarah: Don’t marry them. Yeah. I’ve had a few where I’ve had to think about it. So I had one many years ago. it was a mutual friend of somebody that I knew, was the bride and at the first meeting with the couple, he sat sideways in his chair as if he was getting ready to make an escape.

He barely spoke to me. He barely looked at me. He grunted a lot. And I couldn’t get any sort of excitement or interest or. engagement out of him at all whatsoever. They were having a big party and they wanted to do a legal signing the week [00:28:00] before because he didn’t want to be there. So I don’t mind. And I was really concerned.

I rang her at work the next day and said, look, mate, I’m right now. I’m not prepared to marry you because I don’t think he’s consenting. And she’s no, he’s just, he’s pretty grumpy and he’s just like that. And I’m like I’m going to have to call him. And have a chat to him, like separately, because this doesn’t feel right to me.

So I did call him and he said enough of the right things, he said enough of I love her and I want to marry her and I want to be with her and blah blah blah. that I agreed to marry them. It was fucking awful. It was three weeks after marriage equality came in. It was just after Christmas in 2017.

They both sat on the couch and he had a beer in his hand the whole time. He wasn’t drunk. It was early in the morning. It was like 11 o’clock. And when I got to, Australia is the union of two people, he went, man and woman in this house.[00:29:00]

Josh: Oh God.

Sarah: great. It was just, it was awful. I got out of there just going, I feel like I need to have a shower.

It was really gross, but he gave enough. He made the right noises that I couldn’t refuse

Josh: Made the right grunts.

Sarah: made, he said enough of the right stuff that I couldn’t, there was nothing for me to refuse them on. Basically, and they’re still married today. And they’ve got kids and the whole lot. Another one was where I had a groom who fairly clearly had a mild cognitive impairment. He’d managed to get to our meeting on the train And find where to come, you know without too much explanation and when I asked him Why he wanted to get married he could tell me that she was gonna Look after him forever and that he really liked it when she cooked him dinner and they were gonna live together and it was really nice And that was enough.

Because if you look at the guidelines, it talks about people with a disability, and it talks about people with a cognitive disability [00:30:00] not needing to have a deep understanding of the nature and effect of marriage, but that a surface understanding is enough. So he said enough that I was happy to marry them. And then I had one who was in his late 90s. She was 83. They’d been together for 15 years. They were getting married because his family was not. in agreement with their relationship. Isn’t that cute? At 83 and 90 something. So it’s not like they’re 15.

Josh: Poor guys.

Sarah: And he was getting worried about what would happen to her when he died.

In terms of, access to their assets and so forth. So they got married, but because he was so old. He was in his late nineties. I was pretty careful and I asked him a lot of questions and he could tell me where they met, when they met. He could tell me all the details of his previous two marriages.

He could tell me, he knew. Plenty of details, all the things. He was very excited about getting married. He knew why they were getting [00:31:00] married. Like he could explain all those things to me. and I came home and I made final notes after those discussions. And I was very happy to marry, delighted, in fact, to marry him.

They were lovely. So yeah, they’re the kind of situations that I’ve had where I’ve just had to ask some more questions. and make sure that this was okay. And I’ve done 550 weddings and I’ve had less than five issues where I’ve been particularly concerned about consent. And everyone else has been I think we also have to remember that when we’re talking about consent and we’re talking about what we’re using to assess it.

We also need to remember cultural differences in the way people express excitement and emotion and also we need to think about arranged marriages. A reminder that arranged marriages are not forced marriages. Forced marriage is where one or both parties are not consenting. They’re being forced to marry [00:32:00] by an external party.

An arranged marriage is where both parties are consenting, even though the relationship has been arranged by an external party. I’ve done lots of arranged marriages because I work a lot with the Indian community. And I have done marriages where they have barely looked at each other. They, there’s been no holding hands, there’s been no kissing and that’s fine.

But they could both also tell me enough about the other person and about why they wanted to get married, that they could tell me they were consenting. So just because they weren’t showing affection or emotion or excitement in what we might call like a typical Western way, didn’t mean they weren’t consenting.

That just meant that they have a different relationship style to what we might be used to. We do need to remember those cultural differences as well. All of my Indian couples, they never kiss because it’s not appropriate for them to kiss in front of their parents. So that doesn’t mean [00:33:00] that they’re not consenting or they don’t want to get married.

It just means that there are cultural differences in the way

Josh: can I just remind,

Sarah: that’s okay.

Josh: everyone if you open the Marriage Act of 1961, I’ve got the latest one as a PDF, And if you just open up your old search field on the PDF, And do a search for the word love, no results found, Kiss, no results found there’s no rings, nope nothing up, these things are lovely things for certain people in certain cultures and what not but they’re not required by law.

Sarah: Also, hang on before you go on, cohabitation is not in

Josh: Hang on let’s do a search for sex,

Sarah: is not in there. None of those. Also not in there because none of those things are required for

Josh: like the kind of article I want to share with you, maybe, I feel like I read it a year or three ago, where and now that I’m saying it, maybe it was a Malcolm Gladwell thing, but regardless of where it came from, there’s the act of smiling, like the what everyone listening would consider the plain old Western smile, looking at [00:34:00] someone and smiling.

There’s, I think there’s a South American tribe. I think the research went to that’s an act of aggression. Yeah, and so you can be, one person can read a smile and say happy, and the other person can be like, ah, he’s angry. You can’t portray your cultural expectations of marriage and love and relationship, et cetera, onto other people.

You just can’t. What you can do is look for consent, and if you’re not sure, you can dig a little bit deeper. And worst case scenario, not worst case, but in such a case scenario, you can, Refuse solonization and you can if you feel unsafe, you can leave, but, and then that’s your butt covered, but it isn’t something that they have to cater to.

Yeah.

Sarah: So that’s our little rant about consent and about the separate meetings. I hope that some of you maybe have got something out of it, although we may be preaching to the converted. If you completely disagree with what we’ve said, we want to hear about it. Cause we love to be challenged.

So [00:35:00] tell us hello at celebrant. fm and tell us if you’ve got a different thought or if you’ve got a different way of

Josh: something that I’ve always thought about in regards to consent, I guess this kind of client where this could present as an issue. If you don’t want to deal with this kind of thing, one of the easy things you can do is to charge more, which we call this a Segway in the business, Sarah, it’s actually something I’ve had in my mind because For those that haven’t been following along, I relocated to Hobart earlier this year.

Actually, we’re in the Huon Valley to be precise. But in Tasmania, the birth center marriages doesn’t have a registry kind of marriage office, a place we can get married by the government. Here you have to get married by A celebrant or a minister of religion. And so the paperwork only stuff is a bit more of a business here than it is in other places.

Obviously, you’re not going to build a whole business off of it. But yeah there’s more paperwork owners getting around than I did on the Gold Coast, for example. I want to look to the [00:36:00] marketplace. I thought I’m going to charge the most out of everyone just because it’s, that’s an easy way to get out of that conversation often if there’s issues around consent or whatever.

They’re looking for the cheapest person. And I just didn’t want to be that. But continuing the segue an article that I wrote last month has been getting some some good feedback and I just wanted, I thought it’d be a nice conversation for the Celebrant talk show. I was asked by Polkadot Weddings to talk about price.

Everyone knows that’s my favorite conversation to have. I love talking about price. And they asked a bunch of questions and I just wrote, I what I wrote back to them, I put up as a blog for the Celebrant Institute members because I thought it was actually a helpful conversation to help people talk about price.

Because, Sarah, if we know anything about celebrants don’t like talking about price. Or fees, or money, or anything. And I thought what I’d do, I’d just quickly run some of the questions past you, [00:37:00] and see how you reply, and then see how I reply, okay? Sound good? What factors should couples consider when setting celebrant budget?

Sarah: Oh, they should definitely not consider a lot of the budget tools they find online because they’re designed in America, where mostly people are married by religious ministers and charge like 200. So they shouldn’t look at that. What should they look at? It’s hard because it’s always hard when you’re starting out but they should, they should just do some research

Josh: Yeah, every

Sarah: see what people are charging.

Josh: some might do it as a hobby, some might do it as like a side gig, it’s just kinda, we do a couple of weddings a year so we can go on a holiday, that’s how I started, when we first did the first wedding expo, Britt and I said, If we charge 5. 50 a wedding and we get 10 weddings a year, that’s just a nice little holiday.

It’s like a, five and a half grand is lovely. It’s a lovely little [00:38:00] holiday. Obviously things changed pretty quickly after that, but you certainly can’t expect all celebrants to charge the same just because, as a daily messenger found out it’s illegal to price fix. So yeah, so we’re not all charging the same and it’s okay for everyone to charge different.

Sarah: don’t do that.

Josh: All right, new question. how much of their total wedding budget should couples typically allocate to a celebrant?

Sarah: Wow, that’s a question.

Josh: Oh,

Sarah: I’m gonna say

Josh: bit more nuanced just because much of the wedding budget scales according to guest numbers because it’s like a per head, like caterings per head, that kind of thing, seating, drinks.

Sarah: That’s fair. Yeah.

Josh: larger the venue, that kind of thing doesn’t really affect celebrant but it does affect other prices.

So I don’t think a percentage really works instead. As we found in [00:39:00] the survey, was that earlier this year, the celebrant prize survey, and the average nationally was about a thousand, was it a thousand and twenty, I think a thousand and fifty.

And that’s a national average. I know different areas charge different

Yeah. But I would say today, for a full time professional celebrant there are celebrants in Sydney, which is arguably one of the more expensive places, Sydney and Melbourne, that are charging 2, 500 for like just the ceremony.

And there’s celebrities that are charging close to a thousand I know one guy in Brisbane, who’s doing great work and charging 5, 000. That’s his, if you want him at a Saturday wedding. Now there’s more in that, but also he’s welcome to charge me once. So anything from 1000 to 25 to 5, 000.

Sarah: I know celebrants in regional areas who are still charging five or six hundred dollars as well. Because that’s what the market in those areas will pay.

Josh: This comes to the next question. They’re talking about a typical price range for wedding celebrant services. But I think the meat of the question is [00:40:00] this, what influences where a celebrant falls in the range? And before you answer, I’ll give a little bit of my answer. I think the modern day 2024 price range for a celebrant is about 800 to 2, 500, which isn’t to say there’s people either side, but that’s the.

main part of the bell curve. So Sarah, how do you, what do you think? What’s your understanding of the messaging when people are on that scale? Let’s say we’ll stick to 800 to 2, 500 as an example. Okay. So if you and I are presenting to Jack and Jill as a celebrant and I’m 800 and you’re 2,

What’s your understanding of So we both identify as a settler.

I’m charging 800. You’re charging 2, 500. What else is not being said when we set those numbers?

Sarah: I tend to find that the people who are charging [00:41:00] less, are often trying to justify their price by this is how much it costs me to run my business, so that’s why you should pay me this much. Whereas the people at the top end are all about, this is the value I can provide to you as a couple. So they’re much less about. This is why you need to pay me this much and more about this is what you get When you buy me

Josh: When you call my pimp and book me in

Sarah: you book me, that’s better Yeah So Yeah, so I think that The difference is, can be in terms of the way people are marketing themselves.

But I also think that There are differences in, so if we’re talking about like for so if we’re talking about capital city, so we’re not talking about regional, rural, talking about capital city, say we’re talking about Melbourne, there are some celebrants who charge 800.

There are some celebrants who charge 3, 000. What’s the difference? Why are they charging different amount? There [00:42:00] are differences, I think, in genders and in ages. So I think different gender, like male celebrants can charge more because there’s less of them. There’s, that’s the supply and demand sort of thing.

If you want a male celebrant, there’s they can charge more. I think that older celebrants are more likely to celebrants and therefore charge less than. younger slash middle aged counting myself as middle aged celebrants who are doing this as their profession and therefore may need to charge more to be able to pay the mortgage.

I think there are differences in, I’m going to say it, differences in aesthetics. I know as a larger, celebrant woman who uses a walking stick. I have been the stick is bit less of an issue. Certainly my size, I firmly believe has come into some couples. [00:43:00] Purchasing choices. I have watched couples faces fall as they walk in and see me for the first time.

Now they’ve seen pictures on my website and my social media. So I don’t know as a surprise, but I felt that there is a proportion of couples out there who are making choices based on aesthetics. And I think that, there are some aesthetic profiles that can charge more because people will pay more.

That’s not all couples. A lot of couples don’t give a shit what you’re done with but there is a proportion, maybe 10%, who are like, I’ve got a certain view about what my wedding is going to look like and everybody has to fit into that. I also think that there are, and these are all things that I talk about when I talk about pricing with my students, there are also, differences in terms of, doing this, like I talked about with many older celebrants viewing celebrancy as more of a community service, because if they’ve been around for a long time, when celebrancy started [00:44:00] 50 years ago, it was a community service.

And you can only charge 5 for it. And that was in the act, how much you’re allowed to charge. Whereas, in the last 10 or 15 years, there’s been much more of a movement to make celibacy into a profession and a career that you can actually make a full time living from. And so the intention behind your celibate practice, I think also informs your pricing.

And also what else do you have a partner who makes enough money that you can live on? are you, independently wealthy for whatever reason? do you only do this for family and friends? Like the intention and what else is going on in your life, all of those things will inform differences in price as well.

Josh: I don’t disagree with you at all and it’s funny because that’s all stuff I wish I had written. I went on a slightly different angle this is in no way every circumstance, but I [00:45:00] feel that there’s this kind of marriage between value slash perceived value, which is the same thing, I guess you could argue, married with the confidence of delivering that value.

And so the very, very top of your. price shot is the person who believes they’re bringing the most value and they are most confident they can deliver that value. And then there’s this kind of stepping down where not that the 800 person or the lowest price person is bringing less value, nor are they the least confident of that.

But it is there’s a union of that in some sort. And it might not even be the lowest of confidence, but just not as confident and maybe Not as much value as perhaps the word I was trying to say, but yeah, it is hard because also there’s colleagues of yours and mine and I’ve talked and I know I see that work and I’m like, Oh, are you charging that mate?

You should definitely be up in that a bit more if only because there is market segmentations in perhaps capital cities and more metro markets. [00:46:00] I don’t think you are what you should be, but it’s such a nuance and unique conversation. And moving on to the next question.

Sarah: What are the typical components of a winning celebrant package and how do they affect the cost? And see, okay, so that’s a really interesting question because a lot of people do charge differently depending on https: otter. ai Oh God, that sounds exhausting.

Josh: you imagine rocking out to a wedding with a red carpet?

Sarah: My, and then there are people who charge more or less based on how many people, how many guests you have. They might charge less if there’s 10 guests than if there’s 500 guests. I personally, rate my different charges on how much work I’m going to have to do. that is based on the script, on the ceremony. So my legals only is only the legal words. My short and [00:47:00] sweet is a pre written standardized script that they can, make changes to with vows and music and rings, but readings, but it’s standard. I don’t have to write it and I don’t write their story.

The premium is whatever bells and whistles they want completely tailored to their requirements, including their story. I don’t really care how many people are out. I do have, for my legals only, I do have on my website, a maximum of 10 guests. But when people say to me, oh look, like I had in January, this couple who were both getting married for the second time, they had kids, they were having the big wedding, 100 people, the whole thing, and they’re like, We really just want to do the legals though.

We do not care about the ceremony. It is not important to us. We just want to get married. And I’m like, as long as you tell your guests that it’s going to be really short and not interesting, I am totally on board with that. What I don’t want is to be turning up to a room full of guests who are expecting a half hour to get married.

Romantic, [00:48:00] genuine, authentic, personalized ceremony and delivering a three minute legals only because that makes me look bad. So I literally turned up and I had people coming out to me going, I hear this is going to be the shortest wedding I’ve ever been to. I can’t wait. So they had done exactly what I asked them to and they had told all their guests it was going to be super quick and just the legals and we were getting it done.

And they were like, yes, we’re on board with that. So I don’t really care how many people are there. That actually doesn’t change the amount of work I have to do. The amount of work I have to do is in the writing and the interviewing and the. Whatever else that’s where the work is. And so that’s where the difference in my prices.

Josh: Yeah, That’s good. What extras and upgrades might a couple need to consider in their celebration budget? How much do they usually cost? Example,

Sarah: So I include a rehearsal in my premium[00:49:00]

Josh: MC, that kind of

Sarah: don’t include it in my short and sweet because I don’t think people need it for a short and sweet, but if they want it, they can pay an extra couple of hundred bucks. I’ve never had one rehearsal for a short and sweet in 10 years. I don’t MC because I want to be at home on the couch eating pizza by the time it gets messy.

I don’t want to be there. And yes, travel fees are a thing which you don’t have to pay because you don’t have to book a celebrant who’s far away from you. You can either book a local celebrant and pay less, or if you really want to book someone who you really jive with for whatever reason, you might have to pay a travel fee. But other than that, there’s not a lot of add ons.

Josh: Can I talk about the pizza? Just cause it still happens. I’m guessing it’s industry wide. I’m guessing it’s not just a Josh thing, but people and the kindness, the nicest couples. I’m very lucky. I have the nicest people generally book me as a celebrant and they’ll I’ll say, so we stick around afterwards, do you want [00:50:00] to stay for the reception?

And in that moment, I have to understand that they think. That’s a really generous offer. I’m like, mate, unless I’m being paid, the last thing I want to do is hang out with your cousin. I have chosen a wife of my liking that I would like to perhaps see before I die. we have given birth to two children who I really like.

The last thing I need to do is to sit with your mate from work and

Sarah: only ever been to one reception

Josh: talk about

Sarah: awful. It was my second year. She begged me because a bunch of people had dropped out in the week before the ceremony. I think she asked me five times and eventually I caved and I went, I ended up on the misfit table with I don’t know why he was at the wedding, but he was.

and like some teacher from primary school. Like I ended up on the table of people who literally didn’t have anybody else to talk to. It was awful. And I will never do it again. And I am, I’m very open with people. I’m, I always [00:51:00] say, thank you so much for the lovely invitation, but I don’t know anyone.

And I would like to spend the evening with my own family. They don’t know that I don’t have a partner at home. That doesn’t matter. I might be spending the time with my Netflix

Josh: Yeah.

I have, This question, cause we’ll bring this podcast on in the close to near future, but I’m going to ask this question and I’m going to hook into another thing, which this is me teasing that there’s going to be a hook. But the question is how to factors like wedding date, location and ceremony complexity.

Sarah: We’ve covered complexity, but I know there are celebrants who certainly do charge differently based on venue. Because they’re like, if you’re paying 300 a person to get married at Stones, you can pay me more. And that’s fine. And they don’t have their prices on their website, so they can do that.

So if they’re like, it’s a Saturday in October, it’s the busiest day of the year, and you are getting married at, yeah, at Stones, and I know you’re paying 350. [00:52:00] Fine. No problem. I don’t want to be thinking about that every day because I don’t have enough bandwidth to go, how much should I charge this person?

It’s just on my website. Just look at my website and you’ll know. But yeah, there are certainly celebrants who charge differently for date and venue. And we’ve talked about ceremony complexity.

Josh: Yeah. All right. I’m going to come back around to that in a second. Just ask one more question from the list that I poke about gaming, because I think this is just interesting. How many hours do you Sarah typically spend on a winning from the initial inquiry through to the lodgement paperwork, like Jack and Jill inquire book, Mary,

Sarah: If

Josh: how many hours?

I don’t know. You’ve got have you got three packages? I think you’ve got three. And I’m guessing that kind of varies across the three.

Sarah: I think I’ve worked it out at about 10 to 12 hours, but I do have to caveat that with the fact that I am not normal, [00:53:00] which we all know. I write very quickly, so I can write an entire

Josh: changes everything.

Sarah: the couple’s story in 45 minutes.

And I know that a lot of celebrants take four or five, six hours. I would say for an average celebrant, somewhere between 15 and 20 hours is probably a good kind of average amount of time that you can think of.

Josh: Yeah, I put on average 12 hours. I only really have the one package. so about 12 hours is what the kind of buying of my time. I will say I don’t love the way, and you talked about this a little earlier when some celebrants are saying this is what it costs for my business.

I don’t love the idea of, a per hour, like I’m essentially in on charging per hour just because me charging per hour and someone else, there’s different value being shared there. There’s

Sarah: And I also, hang on a second, just back to that per hour [00:54:00] thing

Josh: I’m going to do the whole crayons where I was talking about, oh, sorry.

Sarah: In the first year, you might think about a per hour and base your total package cost off that. But I would hope that as you evolve in your celebrant journey, that you actually get quicker and more efficient at doing things.

So if it takes you less hours to do something that it did in the first year, does that mean you should get paid less? No, it doesn’t. You should get paid more. Yes, you can raise your hourly rate.

Josh: Yep.

Sarah: again, the, yeah, the value that’s being exchanged is different and you should get better and quicker and more efficient as you evolve through your business.

So it should take you less time, I would hope, as you get systems in place and efficiencies and all those sorts of things. So yeah, hourly rate, I think is good to think about at the start when you’re first thinking about your pricing, but not as you work through your solvent career.[00:55:00]

Josh: So the the hook I wanted to make around was it’s to another podcast called the wed. co podcast. I linked it to it on the Celebrant Institute website. You can use your own searching through YouTube or podcast app or Google. Wed. co podcast. Where’s my voice is

Sarah: was

Josh: today.

Wed. co podcast. I don’t know why it’s so hard. Yeah, but There’s two things that I wanted to point people to in that, and one was that question that we asked before, how do factors like wedding date location affect celebrant pricing? Because what I actually wrote to Polkadot is something, I don’t know if I’ve ever talked about it on the podcast before, but it’s something I’m a little thing I’m trying to make a thing, which I don’t know.

I actually don’t have faith in me making anything because I don’t know whether I can change the world this much. But anyway, I think that everyone’s world will be easier if instead of getting inquiries for, Hey Sarah, are you available for such and such date? But instead people say, Hey Sarah, you’re our kind of celebrant.

We’re going to find a date that works with you. And then you have photographer. This is a little with his wedding method, I call it where people find their team and then find a date [00:56:00] based on their team. And the reason point.

Sarah: much, much harder.

Josh: it’s, and I know all the

Sarah: married for four years. If they’re looking for a date that fits three different providers.

Josh: No, that’s not true. if you’re looking for three or four different providers, you can probably get married in

Sarah: If you’re happy to get married on a Wednesday.

Josh: anyway. Exactly. Anyway, I talk about this in the word code podcast. But that’s not the main reason. One of the main reason I wanted to point people there is because we were going to talk about on this episode, but I feel like we’ve run towards the timeline a little bit quicker than we imagined that I have become a little bit infamous in wedding videographer circles for a social media post I made on my social and also tag the celebrity institute.

About not allowing videographers to tape microphone tape recording instruments to a celibate microphone. I went into great depth about it WEDCO podcast. Happy slash embarrassed, but mostly [00:57:00] happy to say a lot of celebrants have heeded this wisdom and they’re telling videographers not to post not to tape things to their microphones.

And the reason I’ve said not to do that is well detailed in the WebCode podcast. And so I wanted to point people to there so that if you’ve ever thought that maybe videographers taping things to your microphone is not a good idea, I’m in agreeance with that, but I actually go into great detail about it on the WEDCODE podcast, and it’s a reason why Settlement should know their PAs better, we should know our microphones better, and understand how radio and audio works, and videographers should too, and videographers taping microphones to transmitting microphones should know that’s going to be an interference.

So anyway. That’s all on the Webco podcast. So the boys there are videographers and they I don’t know if they agreed with me, but they heard me and I explained myself fairly well. And I will say as well, I’ve posted on the Celebrant Institute website about the new microphone I’m using a new road [00:58:00] interview pro.

And so I’ve gone and shared about that on the Celebrant Institute website, and I think it would be a good microphone for people to have if they want to record their ceremonies and really good audio and maybe even use it for content for their own social media. So there you go.

Sarah: Cool. Love

Josh: I reckon that’s a podcast

Sarah: it is too. I think we’re done. Yeah. Yes.

Josh: Please share this with other celebrants. I’d love to hear that more celebrants are listening to this podcast. Also, if you’re not a member of the Celebrant Institute, it’s some of the best 12 a month you’ll ever spend. Go to celebrant. institute to become a member. Please send us any topics or information that you’d like us to cover in future episodes.

The more you email, the more we’ll podcast and record and the more fun we’ll have. So yeah, it’s been a pleasure podcasting with you again.

Sarah: You too. Yay. Bye everybody. We’ll talk to you soon.