Over a decade ago (a decade and two months actually) everyone’s favourite celebrant-shaped human and oracle – Sarah Aird – reached out to me with a software/technology question and that was the beginning of a decade long text-message-thread/phone-call-marathon/email chain/beverage-exchange/business-partnership that Sarah Aird and I call our friendship.

This morning another Australian marriage celebrant association had a political meltdown (there’s always seems to be a celebrancy-flavoured community breakdown happening somewhere in Australia) and I was reminded of why Sarah and I joined forces to create the Celebrant Institute.

Our relationship bloomed early on the love of a few common threads:

  • screenshotting and sharing with each other the wild stuff happening in Facebook groups for weddings, wedding industry, and celebrants
  • desperately trying to find the right piece of software or computer hardware that will finally soothe our nerdy souls
  • a deep desire to be the best celebrant we could individually be
  • raising the professional level of celebrants and what the marketplace expects of us
  • making celebrancy our full-time careers
  • memes

In October 2017 I shared a Google doc with Sarah where we could share all of the topics we’d talk about on a podcast for celebrants, and that podcast still publishes today at celebrant.fm.

In late March 2018 Sarah spurred the idea that we would start what you now know to be the Celebrant Institute. What was the pitch?

I have LOTS of content I can get up on the website before we even start – years of questions that I’ve answered for people. So people are paying not only to be able to ask questions, but also to have access to the searchable content (which is all available in the Guidelines but we know people don’t like to look there). What’s the easiest way to present a searchable database of content? Blog posts?

People email in their questions, we respond to them by email, new questions get a new blog post, questions that have already been answered get added to the post that’s already written, and we do a monthly digest of the questions we’ve answered that month.

Then began a ride that I supported Sarah on in accredited training eventuating in Sarah buying her own RTO in 2020, just a few hours before a little global pandemic set in. that RTO is now named Celebrant Institute RTO and I’m really proud of the training Sarah delivers there. I talk to new or aspiring celebrants every week and our students are smarter, better-prepared, and far more likely to graduate and become celebrants. Sarah runs a great ship over there.

What are we?

I shared an idea with Sarah towards the end of last year and again this week and she (rightly) canned the idea because it’s not what we do and I think in a world and economy where things are changing more than they ever have, we can benefit from people who are experts, passionates, about their thing. People that are narrowly focused on single issue.

What’s ours?

  • We give no-bullshit, honest, helpful, contextual, correct answers to questions celebrants have, or should have. In support of that we share the answers here on the blog and in a monthly email, plus we make a podcast when we have something to say. If we don’t have something to say, we don’t say anything so as to not add to the noise. If we don’t know an answer, we’ll be honest about it and endeavour to find out.
  • We interface with the Attorney-General’s Department and BDMs on your behalf, and we advocate for modern, useful, fresh, and helpful marriage laws and regulations.
  • We charge a monthly subscription fee to ask those questions and read the blog posts.
  • Do we have a Facebook group where you can ask a question, get ten wrong answers, then have the fight for the right answer? No.
  • Do we have insurances? No. (We recommend Duck For Cover but you can also do your own research)
  • Do we do this for free? No, I wouldn’t hire a free business coach/mentor or a free security guard. If something is worth something, you pay for it.
  • Do we make you vote in AGMs or attend meetings? No, it’s just Sarah and I running a for-profit company (Celebrant Institute Pty Ltd), slogging away at the forefront of celebrancy, trying our little hearts out to make a better world for you, us, and the people that aren’t even celebrants yet.

We’re so glad to have been doing this in some small way or another for a decade now, and we’re so glad you’re here.

I’ll no doubt write something similar on the respective anniversaries of everything else we’ve done, but on this Saturday morning as I prep for a wedding, I wanted to say thanks to Airdy for being my mate, and I’m really glad that we have had the chance to answer questions for hundreds of celebrants; lead OPD , workshops and seminars for thousands of you; and to write a monthly email and publish a podcast for tens of thousands of you.

And if you want to run, attend, join a celebrant community or online group, go for it, just come to us for the legal and business help, and you guys do the coffee and the catch-ups.