In this enlightening episode of the Celebrant Talk Show, host Josh Withers delves into the captivating world of new celebrants with guest Tori Brown from Grace and Soul Celebrancy. A recent graduate of the Certificate IV in Celebrancy at the Celebrant Institute, Tori shares her unique and inspiring journey towards becoming a celebrant.

Throughout the conversation, Tori opens up about her personal experiences that shaped her path, including a life-altering tragedy and her unexpected venture into public speaking. Her story is a powerful reminder of the profound impact of life events on our career choices and the importance of embracing life’s precious moments.

Josh and Tori explore the transformation from fear to confidence in public speaking, the significance of creating lasting memories for couples, and the challenges of establishing oneself in a competitive market. This episode not only offers an intimate look into the life of a new celebrant but also serves as a valuable resource for anyone considering a career in celebrancy.

Tune in to this episode of the Celebrant Talk Show to discover how Tori Brown transformed adversity into a passion for helping others celebrate their most cherished moments. Whether you’re a budding celebrant or simply interested in the intricacies of this unique profession, this episode is a must-listen!

 

Transcript:

Josh
– Welcome to another episode of the Celebrant Talk Show. My name is Josh Withers, I’m your host today. And I’ve got a really exciting episode as part of our series talking to new Celebrants, Celebrants that have graduated from the Certificate IV in Celebrancy at the Celebrant Institute. And today’s is another rip-off. If you wanna listen to more episodes, celebrant.fm is the website to go to to find links to subscribe to your podcast app. And of course also to listen to episodes just on the web. And if you’re interested in the Cert IV, if you’re interested in studying to become a Celebrant, plus also if you actually are a Celebrant today and you’d like more help and guidance and mentoring in your business, then we have a membership program for you at celebrant.institute.

Tori
My name is Tori Brown. I own Grace and Soul Celebrancy, based on, of course, the study that I did with the Celebrant Institute. I am located at the moment in the northern Gold Coast, which is obviously a very beautiful part of Australia. When I became a Celebrant, I’m only a very new Celebrant. I’m a little baby Celebrant. I completed my study in May 2022. I finally got registered 11 weeks and five days from submission of my documents. And that was in August last year, in 2022. And so now I have been a Celebrant for around eight to nine months. So yeah, very much in the baby stages, very much still in the realm of figuring out business, understanding what this Celebrant life looks like, and yes, thinking about the future and what that might look like for me.

Josh
– When I went to school, there was absolutely zero little kids who wanted to be a Celebrant. I think the hot topics were pilot, a lot of firefighters. There were a couple of service people, kind of army whatnot. Couple of mechanics, we’re talking grade four, grade five here. Zero Celebrants. So it’s not really one of those careers that someone’s dreamt about being from, when I was a little kid. So why? Why did you become a Celebrant? What’s your Genesis story?

Tori
I suppose my genesis story is probably too pronged,

Josh
(upbeat music)

Tori
and this is going to get pretty deep pretty quickly, so I apologize. When I was 16, I was in a car accident, which also took the life of my younger sister, who was 13 at the time. That was obviously a very life-defining time in my life, but it also gave me an incredible key to understand that life is so incredibly precious and very short, and it can be taken away from you in the blink of an eye. I suppose from that respect, I then had, at a very young age, an insight into life that most people don’t get until they’re a little bit older. And so from then on, I made a pact to myself, if not with her, then for her. And so it’s pretty much been go from there. So I finished school, went to university, I bought a house, I’ve moved up here, and everything that I do, I’m just full speed ahead. I’m sure you can ask all of my friends, and they’ll say the same thing. The actual reason why I became a celebrant is that I was asked a significant amount of times to be MC for my friend’s weddings. And truth be told, I absolutely hate public speaking. It makes me paralyzingly nervous. I don’t even know if that’s a word, but it feels like it is. It makes me so incredibly nervous. I get dry in the mouth. I get this red rash all over my chest that then develops up my neck and over my face. And so to be honest, I absolutely– of course, I couldn’t say no. I felt like I couldn’t say no to my friends. And I do have an aura, I would say, when I walk into a room that everyone gravitates towards me. So I do have the personality for it, but my public speaking was just not up to scratch. And I felt that. I felt it in every part of my being. And I’m also what I would probably class as a perfectionist, so I wanted to make sure I did a good job. Ultimately, the only thing that really could make me do better is to put myself in the firing line and continue to practice public speaking. So I was looking at Toastmaster classes or other ways that I could do it. I started to put my hand up at my full-time job to do workshops and stuff to really put myself in the cauldron of fire. And then I was attending a friend’s wedding. And to be honest, I was sitting there, and the celebrant was– I would say the standard of the celebrant was very low, very, very low. And I thought to myself, surely I could do this. Surely this could be something that I could do. Number one, fix my fear of public speaking. Well, not fix it, but help me expose myself more to this. And number two, you obviously capture people in the most incredible time in their life. They’re so excited. They’re excited for the future. They’re in a big old love bubble. Their families are so excited. And for me, that’s really what the essence of all that is. And I suppose that links back to the original part of the story, which if I’m not sure if you’ve been in this situation, but when you lose someone that’s very close to you, you realize the– what is the word? I suppose you realize how important creating memories with those closest to you is. And for me to be a part of creating a seamless memory for someone on their special day, surrounded by their family and all their closest friends, that’s the greatest gift that I can ever give. And yeah, if that’s my piece of what I do for the world is to create a little bit of sunshine and allow people to have beautiful memories with their nearest and dearest, then that’s all I could ever hope for.

Josh
– Yeah, I do understand that.

Tori
[MUSIC PLAYING]

Josh
I haven’t lost someone to the same circumstance that you have and I’m deeply sorry for your loss, but it’s also definitely worth noting as you have that, that I feel like any situation in life, whether it’s just something really mediocre, like being handed a coffee or something much deeper and more important, that there’s always two ways you can kind of rebound from that. And I look at my own childhood and my brother and we’ve both kind of rebounded separately. Like when you throw a tennis ball to the ground, it’s not guaranteed to go left or right every time. And so that’s a phenomenal path that you’ve taken. And what a Genesis story, ’cause I feel like you talked to most celibates, I don’t know if you’ve talked to many, but most of us saw a wedding

Tori
[MUSIC PLAYING]

Josh
and thought one or two things, that was terrible, I can do way better. Or that was awesome, I can do that. Which are both valid and awesome ways of becoming a celibate, but for yours to be emboldened

Tori
[MUSIC PLAYING]

Josh
with something much more, I was gonna say important, but I don’t wanna take away from other people’s stories, but just something that’s more valuable is really beautiful. So congratulations, good on you. The question I’ve got now though, is a little bit more practical. There’s a difference between wanting something and getting it. All of us can drive past a Maserati and think that’d be cool. But to have your own is a completely different task. So what do you do? Do you ask Siri, how do I become a celibate? What are those steps you took to become, well obviously you studied with the Celibate Institute and then applied, but yeah, how did you figure out what to do? (upbeat music) – The rest is history, that’s beautiful. Yeah, and much love to all those other celibates. We call a word of mouth what it really was or into the house held a gun to the head. So come on, mate, someone asks you, no. That’s cool, I love it. The search for isn’t what a lot of people think it is ’cause I suppose when people think about becoming a celibate or an officiant for the Americans, they think about Joey from Friends or just, you know, the numerous people in pop culture that have just applied for a license online. What was your expectation of the search for versus actually doing it? (upbeat music) – Yeah, we do find that most people are kind of surprised, not just at the study, ’cause the study is the study, and you’ve been to university, so you’re aware of what study is. Me, not so much. Every time I approach something like that, like, “Oh, wow, you guys really need me “to know a lot of stuff here.” But the other surprise is just with what is contained within the role of being a celebrant. What was, was there something strange for you in regards to the role of a celebrant, like the common one is, “Oh my gosh, “you can marry your uncle.” Any other weird ones for you? (upbeat music) I like that. Becoming a celebrant, you said it took almost exactly three months, well, you missed out on a few days there, but the three month limit. How did it feel that second that you get that notice that you are a celebrant? (upbeat music) What’s your go to market plan? You obviously thought about it through doing a study and waiting for the application to be approved. But what’s your thing that you’re bringing to the market that makes you different and unique from other people? And then how does it kind of, how does that roll out over the next one, five, 10,000 years? (upbeat music) – Yeah, 100%. That’s obviously the biggest differentiator between Celebrants is we are selling ourselves. It’s funny, I talk to a lot of Celebrants in Europe through mentoring and coaching sessions over there and they get really big on all the trinkets and the stuff and I’m like, man, there’s enough people offering trinkets and stuff, but it’s like a one in three trillion chance you exist. That between your parents meeting and falling in love and then to all of a sudden to have a child and then once they decide to have a child, that all of that stuff works out. If you don’t know what that means, kids get on Google. And then for the fact that you were born and that you survived birth and you go through those first few years, like that’s a one in three trillion chance. Like you are a unique individual. You’re like no other. Even like if you or someone else sat at my feet and you kind of don’t sit like that’s a metaphor. No one actually has to sit at my feet. (laughs) But if you kind of attended all my weddings with me and we sat in the office for 40 hours a week and just kind of me sharing all of me, you still aren’t gonna be me. You might be heavily Josh influenced and some of my see you at a wedding, you go, hey, they’ve studied under Josh, but you’re still gonna be you. And so that’s not only your biggest strength, but it’s literally all you’re selling. And that’s kind of beautiful to be liberated from that point that you don’t have to have, I don’t know, the cool things that cool people have. Just you being you was great. And yes, there’s accessories, get a good PA system, maybe have a car that is a kind of you’re respectable to turn up in. (laughs) Yeah, maybe get a haircut. I don’t know, things like that. But at the core, you’re just you. And so I’m glad you recognize that. How are you going now? What’s your current status? Anything I can help or talk to? (upbeat music) – Where I’m at, so that’s, sorry. Yeah, so that’s, I’m still sort of understanding, still trying to figure out, as you would probably know coming from the Gold Coast, the Southeast Queensland market is desperately oversaturated and also that means that the pricing is pretty low in comparison to other parts of the country. But as I said, I’m not willing to, I’m not willing to bargain on my pricing and I know the value that I bring to my couples. So I’m standing pretty staunch with that. And yeah, the celebrant community here is incredible as well. I feel really lucky. – I will say that in an oversaturated market like that, there’s still opportunities, particularly when, and I can say this ’cause you’re not doing it, and so I apologize to anyone that hears this and is doing it ’cause you might be offended, but looking at a market like that and going, “Well, I’ll just go cheaper,” is the laziest method of trying to conquer that market. Only, there’s room for low-cost things. Jetstar is a thing. Solly’s or Crazy Clark’s or whatever $2 store, they are things. There’s a market for that. But if you notice those operations, particularly if you look at Jetstar, it’s a highly systemized, there is a big corporate structure behind being that cheap. There’s a whole system there. And so people take the lazy route and actually it’s more work. It’s harder, it’s worse for them, it’s yuck. So the easier route in the long run, which is the harder route in that first step, is to actually say, “I’m actually going to be a highly valued member “of this society that provides high value.” And high value doesn’t just mean dollars. It means all the other things it’s going to provide. But it also means dollars. Because everyone else is entering the market and going, “Well, I guess I’ll just go cheaper.” So everyone’s going cheaper and the market, not everyone in the market wants cheap. I like to fly Qantas. And that’s not some kind of status symbol. It’s just like, “I’m aware of the value I get “for the particular purchase, “and particularly for traveling with the family. “I’ve got status and you get bags and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.” There’s a reason for not choosing the cheap option there. And so if you are providing value and if you can communicate that value well, then there’s room at the other end of the market, as opposed to everyone racing to the bottom of the market. Because in the end, if you win that race, guess what? You’re earning the least amount of money. Congratulations. Yeah, that’s… [silence] Yeah, no, it’s much better to be operating the higher value end of the market. It’s just better for your soul, better for your joy, better for everything, better for everyone, because your couples are getting better product because you don’t have to do 400 weddings a year because, yeah, the match is just better. And all it takes is that one simple decision to say, “Hey, I’m going to do better. I’m going to charge more,” etc. And everything just kind of ricochets from there. So good work. All right, well, look, I just want to congratulate you on becoming a Sullivan. It’s the best job in the world, and I’m so eager and excited to see people join the profession, and particularly the fact that you’ve entered it with a goal to be better and to be high value because I’m known, renowned for saying that there’s enough average Sullivans, or below average Sullivans as well. What we need are more excellent, awesome, passionate Sullivans. And so thank you for bringing that to the job.

Tori
Thank you so much, Josh. I really appreciate it.