Every Couple Needs a Miranda: 6 Ways a Celebrant Elevates Your Perfect Day
I had a call recently with one of my couples who are getting married in Hampshire in just a few weeks. Emotions were running high, there was a lot to think about, and they needed a little handholding. Completely understandable, and the kind of conversation I love having.
By the end of the call, something shifted. They said, “This is why we hired you. Every couple needs a Miranda!”
I absolutely loved that. But it also made me think, because I wonder how many couples booking a celebrant actually know what they’re signing up for. And I don’t mean that in a negative way!. I mean it in the best possible sense, because the reality of what a good celebrant does goes so much further than simply standing at the front and saying a few words on the day.
1. The Real Work with a Celebrant Happens Long Before the Big Day
Here’s something people are often surprised by. The majority of the work I do as a celebrant happens in the months, weeks and days before your ceremony. The ceremony itself, as wonderful as it is, is the icing on the cake. Everything else is the baking.
From the very discovery call, I’m getting to know you. Your story, how you met, what makes you tick, what makes you laugh, what matters most to you. It requires deep listening and good note taking. Because every word I say on your wedding day needs to feel like it could only ever have been written for you, not lifted from a template and dropped into a different couple’s ceremony.
Sometimes that time is short and other times it’s over months or years. When John and Chris got married last year, they only booked me three weeks before the ceremony and we had to meet over Zoom as they lived overseas. In fact, we only met in person the day before their wedding! You can read all about it in my blog HERE.
By the time we get to your day, I know you. And that matters more than most couples realise until they’re standing there, in front of the people they love, and everything just flows. Preparation is key!
2. Your Vows Are Ready Long Before You Need Them
One of the things I feel most strongly about is making sure your vows (if you are going to include them) are done and dusted well in advance of the wedding day. Not the night before and not the morning of!
That means they’ve been thought about, talked through, edited, and printed in beautiful vow booklets, so that on the day, you’re not scrabbling around trying to remember what you wanted to say. You just open the booklet, look at each other, and speak.
This is one of those things that sounds simple but makes an enormous difference. The last thing you want to be worrying about when you’re about to get married is whether your vows are good enough. If we’ve done the work together beforehand, and I’ll always make sure we have, you’ll know they’re exactly right.
3. A Celebrant Always Arrives Early
On the day itself, I’ll arrive an hour or two before the ceremony. Not to say hello and have a cup of tea, but to work.
I’ll walk the space and make sure everything is set up as it should be. I’ll check in with anyone who has a role in the ceremony so they know exactly where to stand, when to move, and what to do. I’ll test the music and sound. And if the weather isn’t playing ball – because this is the UK and we both know it might not be, – I’ll already have a Plan B in place. Too hot, too rainy, too windy, we’ll have talked about it and we’ll have options.
By the time you walk into that space, everything has been checked, tested and sorted. Your only job is to show up and enjoy it.
4. Your Ceremony is Conducted by Someone You Actually Know
This one might be the thing that matters most and yet it’s the thing that’s hardest to put a price on.
When a registrar presides over your ceremony, there’s a very good chance you met them about fifteen minutes before you said your vows. They are often wonderful, but they don’t know you. They don’t know your story, your sense of humour, the moment you both knew this was it. They’re working from a form – because they have to.
I’m working from everything you’ve shared with me across months of conversations.
I became a celebrant partly because of our own wedding 21 year ago, which went wrong in pretty much every way possible. We were let down at the last minute, and the person presiding over our ceremony – while a family member – had a prescriptive approach to the ceremony and included elements that we didn’t agree to. It was a formality, not a celebration. And our legal registration ceremony in the register office was also impersonal…yet somewhat hilarious when I was accused of being a bigamist in front of all our family and friends…yes it’s a true story! I left knowing I never wanted another couple to feel what we felt.
That experience is woven into everything I do. Every ceremony I write, every couple I work with, I’m thinking about how to make this feel like the day you always wanted. Not a box ticked, but a moment you’ll remember for the rest of your life.
5. A Celebrant Makes Space for the Couples Who Need It Most
I particularly love working with couples who are a little more nervous, or who are neurodivergent, or who have feel like big social situations don’t quite fit them. If there’s one thing I know how to do, it’s create a space where people feel safe, seen and completely at ease.
A wedding ceremony doesn’t have to look a certain way. It doesn’t have to follow a script you didn’t write. It doesn’t have to be loud or big or full of traditions that don’t mean anything to you. It just has to FEEL like you.
Here in Hampshire and across the UK, I work with couples from all walks of life, all kinds of relationships, all kinds of stories. And the thing that never changes is the moment at the end of a ceremony when I look out at a group of people who are genuinely moved. Not because something fancy happened, but because something real did.
6. When Things Go Wrong, A Celebrant Fixes It Before You Even Notice
Weddings are complicated, and sometimes things don’t go to plan. A reading goes missing. The sound cuts out. Someone has a panic attack in the car park five minutes before the start. The buttonholes turn up to the wrong venue. I have seen it all over the years.
Here’s what you need to know: a good celebrant is cool under pressure. They are calm and solution-focused when something goes sideways. Because we’ve thought about it already. We’ve run through the what-ifs. We know the venue, we know the people, we know the ceremony inside out, so when something needs to be adapted on the spot, we adapt it.
No one needs to know. You certainly don’t need to know, at least not until you’re looking back on it later with a glass of something in your hand and laughing about it! In the moment, what you’ll see is someone who has it handled. That’s my job. The unflappable person at the front who makes it look effortless, even when it isn’t.
That call a few weeks ago ended with my couple feeling calm, clear and excited, rather than overwhelmed. That’s what I do. Not just on the day, but in every conversation leading up to it.
If you’re planning your wedding ceremony and you want someone who will take it off your plate, make it personal, and show up completely prepared so that you don’t have to think about a thing, then perhaps you need a Miranda too!
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