Completing your celebrant training is certainly an important milestone, but it does not automatically make you an authorised marriage celebrant.
If you want to legally solemnise marriages as a Commonwealth Registered Marriage Celebrant in Australia, you must first apply for registration with the Australian Government Attorney-General’s Department. Your application is assessed individually, and registration is neither automatic nor guaranteed simply because you have completed the required training.
Fortunately, the process itself is relatively straightforward once you understand what is required. In this guide we’ll explain who is eligible to apply, what you need to provide, how the application is assessed, and what happens once your registration is approved.
Make Sure You Meet the Registration Requirements
Before submitting an application, you need to satisfy the eligibility requirements set out under Australia’s marriage legislation. The Attorney-General’s Department states that applicants must:
- Be at least 18 years old
- Hold the required qualification and/or skills
- Be considered a ‘fit and proper person’ to become a marriage celebrant
For most aspiring celebrants, the training pathway involves completing the Certificate IV in Celebrancy (CHC41015) through a registered training organisation. The qualification must include the marriage celebrancy units required by the Registrar of Marriage Celebrants.
At the Celebrant Institute, for example, the Certificate IV in Celebrancy includes the three necessary units for students who subsequently want to apply for registration as a Commonwealth Registered Marriage Celebrant. Importantly, however, completing the qualification itself simply makes you eligible to apply – it does not automatically grant registration.
There are also a couple of alternative pathways. The Attorney-General’s Department recognises specified university celebrancy qualifications (which are no longer offered), while a separate skills pathway exists in particular circumstances for people with relevant celebrancy skills including fluency in an Australian Indigenous language.
Preparing and Submitting Your Application
Once you have received your Certificate IV in Celebrancy, you can begin the registration application.
The Attorney-General’s Department recommends applying online using its Marriage Celebrants Portal. Once you create an application account, you have 90 days to submit your application before it expires.
A few pieces of documentation are required here, so it’s definitely worth preparing everything carefully. During the application process, you will need to provide your qualification and other relevant information, and attach a number of documents including:
- Your Certificate IV qualification and transcript
- A completed consent form for a Nationally Coordinated Criminal History Check
- The required identity documents
- A photograph of yourself holding the appropriate photo identification
- A current CV
- Two completed referee reports
Those referee reports must meet the Attorney-General’s Department’s requirements, rather than simply being generic character references. Among other things, they must be on the provided template, be independently completed, signed and dated, and include contact details for the referees.
You do not need to arrange and submit your own completed police check. Instead you provide the required consent and identification documents, so that the criminal history check can be conducted as part of the application process.
The application fee is $400 at the time of writing, and is non-refundable. A limited exemption exists for eligible applicants in certain remote areas, but this has its own application process and must be approved before the marriage celebrant application is submitted.
How Your Application Is Assessed
Submitting all the paperwork is not the end of the process. The Registrar of Marriage Celebrants must then be satisfied that you meet the requirements for registration, including the requirement to be a ‘fit and proper person’.
The Attorney-General’s Department considers a whole range of factors when making that decision. These include your knowledge of marriage law, your standing in the community, your criminal history, your commitment to informing couples about relationship support services, and whether becoming registered could create a relevant conflict of interest and benefit another business you own, control, or operate.
The department may contact you or your referees, or request additional information while assessing your application. You should therefore ensure your contact details are current, and be sure to respond promptly to any communications.
The Attorney-General’s Department has up to six months to assess a completed application once it has been received with payment. These applications cannot be fast-tracked.
If your application is successful, you will be notified in writing. You will then also need to pay the applicable annual celebrant registration charge for your first financial year of registration, which is separate from the initial application fee.
If your registration is refused then the department must tell you why, and you can engage in a process for seeking review through the Administrative Review Tribunal.
What Can You Do While You’re Waiting?
Again, there is an important distinction here between finishing your celebrant course, and actually becoming registered. Until the Attorney-General’s Department has approved you as a Commonwealth Registered Marriage Celebrant, you cannot:
- Accept a Notice of Intended Marriage
- Solemnise a marriage
- Advertise your services as an authorised marriage celebrant.
The Celebrant Institute specifically highlights this point for its students. Graduating from the Certificate IV is certainly an essential step, but there may then be a wait of several months while the registration application is assessed. That makes it sensible to view qualification and registration as two distinct stages of the process.
You can, however, use this period to continue developing the broader skills and knowledge that will be useful once you are eventually registered. Completing the Certificate IV is best seen as the beginning of building a professional celebrancy practice, rather than the end of the learning process.
Taking the First Step Towards Registration
Registering as a marriage celebrant in Australia involves more than completing a course and filling in a form. You need to meet the eligibility requirements, obtain the appropriate qualification or skills, prepare a detailed application, satisfy the Registrar that you are a fit and proper person, and wait for the assessment process to be completed.
For most aspiring celebrants, the first practical step is undertaking the Certificate IV in Celebrancy. The Celebrant Institute’s Certificate IV in Celebrancy (CHC41015) includes the marriage celebrancy units required for graduates who want to apply for registration, alongside broader practical training in running and delivering a professional celebrancy service.
Once you have successfully completed your studies, you can then submit your application to the Attorney-General’s Department, and take the final step towards becoming a Commonwealth Registered Marriage Celebrant.
