What does a Celebrant do for their money???

In Australia, celebrants are people who conduct formal ceremonies in the community, particularly weddings, which are the main ceremony of legal import conducted by celebrants. They may also conduct extra-legal ceremonies such as naming of babies, renewal of wedding vows and funerals.A Celebrant can do many things but most importantly they facilitate in making a marriage legal. There more to a Ceremony than having a Celebrant just turn up and do the paperwork.

When you engage a Celebrant to marry you and your fiancé you are getting somebody who has successfully completed a Certificate IV in Celebrancy $1500, applied to the Attorney General and been declared a fit and proper person and a person of good character and registered as a Commonwealth Marriage Celebrant $650. This could take a year or so to complete.

Once a person becomes a Celebrant they must undergo yearly Ongoing Professional Development (OPD) roughly $180, pay yearly registration fees to the Attorney Generals Department approximately $240, pay association membership fees, Public indemnity insurance $220 (depending on the association). This is just to stay registered and operational.

On top of all that is the set up and ongoing costs of PA system, Official Stationery from an accredited supplier, general office equipment such as computer, printer, ink, internet, phones, paper, gifts, certificates, decorations, table, chairs, fuel, tolls, vehicle, clothing, advertising, websites and promotions to name a few.

So what does a Celebrant charge? Well that is up to the individual celebrant who determines their own fees structure. It is really hard to make a good living off being a Celebrant as some can charge as little as $350 and some can be towards the $1000. If A Celebrant was to make a profit and live full time off the earnings they would have to charge well over $1000 per ceremony and do 1-2 Weddings a week just to make it worth their while. So for someone who charges around $550 like myself, in order to make minimum wage which is approximately $36300 before tax a year, I would have to do 2-3 weddings a week to come out with some sort of minor profit.

Many people believe that a Celebrant's role is to turn up on the day and perform the ceremony, fill out the paperwork and that's it. "You only have to be there for an hour max, Why am I paying so much?" Well believe it or not there is a lot more that goes into preparing a marriage ceremony and making it legal.

There is the initial meeting, filling out the Notice of Intention to Marry, checking of identification and papers, provision of an information pack, correspondence in relation to desired ceremony, collation of information, getting to know the couple through questionnaire, creation of draft ceremony, email back and forth till it is right, creation of legal documents to be signed, rehearsal, attendance at ceremony, conduct ceremony, complete legal paperwork, send off legal documents to register ceremony. Each ceremony can involve 10-20 hours of a Celebrant's time so $550 which includes the application for the marriage certificate ($56), is not really that much to expect for an extremely professional and dedicated Celebrant to conduct one of the most important days in your life.

I understand that some people want something a little simpler, and don't want to stand up for to long, but if you expect a Celebrant to cut their fees to the bare minimum you cannot expect a lot of effort to go into the creation of a ceremony.

Celebrant's work really hard and really enjoy what they do so it can be an insult when people expect so much for so little. It's even harder when you discover other Celebrant's are charging even less to just get the job.

So next time you hear someone say "they just turn up on the day and do the legal stuff" correct them and just mention a few things I have said here and hopefully people will understand what it is we do to make a Wedding Ceremony a beautiful occasion no matter what.