So, you want to be a celebrant?
“Being a successful Celebrant is going to be one of the great joys and privileges of your working life. You will bond and connect with people who have remarkable stories to celebrate and you will help them find the words. To be truly remarkable, to deliver a service that is outstanding, you will need to constantly invest in your own training and development. And to thrive and prosper from this profession, you will need to develop an appreciation of your worth and the value you will add to your clients.”
These are the wise words on the front page of the Celebrant Coaching and Training Academy website.
I was lucky enough to be Dinah’s first pupil when she was designing her coaching program. I’ve been an Independent Celebrant now since February 2019. I cannot express how much I love my work. Or how grateful I am to have received training and mentoring from Dinah
So I was very honoured, when, she asked if I could be her first graduate interview for her new blog series. Interview with a Celebrant (you can read the full interview here Interview with a Celebrant: Berni B – Full Life Celebrant (celebrantcoaching.com) )
An Extract from the Interview
“Tell me a bit about what inspired your journey into becoming a Celebrant.”
I’d been wanting to be a celebrant for ages. I’d been to many drab/grey Welsh Methodist funerals, and they were so boring and really told you nothing of the personality of the deceased. Followed by the obligatory ‘beige buffet’ at the local hostelry. Then I went to my uncle’s humanist service and the great alternative living and then deceased wakes we had. It showed me there was a better way to say goodbye. A more memorable and authentic solution and I wanted everyone to have access to that.
I think I’d met you (Dinah) shortly after you arrived and mentioned it. You had the same interest; difference was you could afford the time and had the resources to train and I was all talk and no action.
You trained and realised the shortcomings in the training, (lack of business management and marketing for example (crucial to a self-employed entrepreneur), and I already had so much admiration for you and your extensive mentoring skills, that when you said you were going to create a training program I gladly offered myself up as a tester client for the product roll out!!!
Having titled this blog, it occurred to me that I’d written a blog before with this title, way back in November 2020. Every word remains true today.
