Ideas Archives - Silver Bee Ceremonies

Garden Wedding Ceremonies – how to smash your own garden ceremony

Garden wedding ceremonies seem to be the thing for 2022, and you won’t be surprised to learn they were pretty popular in 2021 as well. Choosing a garden wedding gives you so many options to celebrate your day in just the way you want. Whether you’re looking to create a laid-back party vibe or a glamourous alfresco affair. There is plenty of inspo out there to draw on but here are my top tips and ideas for garden wedding ceremonies…

If you have space, create a separate area that’s just for your ceremony. An enclosed area gives you an intimate feel with a ready-made backdrop. And you’ll be surprised how many people can fit into a relatively small area! If the garden is more open, define your space with low level bunting and natural flower displays.

Create a focal point for your ceremony which you and your celebrant will stand in front of. This could be an existing tree that you can up-style, or a pergola that can be adorned with artificial flowers if there aren’t any in bloom at the time of your ceremony. Alternatively you could hire or make your own wedding arch or order a flower hoop backdrop – the photos will be stunning.

Garden-Wedding-Arch — Courtesy of Katy Holland Photography

So you’d love a garden wedding, but don’t have a garden, or can’t bear the thought of using your own – no problem. There are gorgeous houses that you can hire that have gardens just perfect for garden wedding ceremonies. Search for venues in the location where you want to marry. Some will provide you with a blank canvas for you to dress as you wish and others will provide a partial or full service, so you can let someone else do the organising. The Copse at Kidmore End is just dreamy. While The Old Rectory Estate near Reigate has fabulous different garden spaces to use as your day unfolds.

Having a garden wedding ceremony gives you the opportunity to add some unique touches to your ceremony. If you are getting married in your own garden, or your parents’ garden, you could include a tree planting to commemorate your nuptials. Having a wishing tree is a lovely way of involving all your guests. They can add ribbons, ornaments and wishes for you both to an existing tree before the ceremony starts. A flower exchange is also perfect for a garden wedding. You and your partner exchange a flower at the start of the ceremony and then place this in a vase. Roses are often used to represent love but you could choose your favourite flower from the garden. Family members can also join in by adding their flowers to the vase.

Garden-Wedding-Ceremonies — Wishing Tree

Live music is a gorgeous addition to any ceremony. Think acoustic guitar and talented singer performing your special tracks as you walk up the aisle and as you sign your marriage certificate. Check whether they will bring their own PA system with them, most artists will. And whether they’ll need a power supply. It’s also a good idea to talk to your celebrant about microphones. If your space is quite open then using mics ensures no-one will miss anything. Your celebrant may have their own wireless PA system that they will be happy to bring along.

Including your family pet in your garden wedding ceremony is a must! Naturally this works best with dogs. They can take on the role of ring bearer or bringing up the ribbons for your hand fasting. Arrange for a friend or member of your family to be responsible for your pet during the ceremony. They can also steer them in the right direction when the time comes. Even if your pets can’t take an active role in your ceremony, you can dress their cage or treat them to a wedding collar so they are part of the celebrations. Don’t forget to include them in the photos too.

Dogs-at-Weddings — The gorgeous Ghost at Laura and Sam’s wedding

Be prepared to embrace nature! Garden weddings are gorgeous but bring some elements that you can’t control. Insects are part of outdoor life. So be ready for a bumblebee to take a liking to your bouquet or an ant to crawl up your trouser leg. I had a tiny spider crawl into my ear at one of my ceremonies this summer! We might also encounter a nosy flock of geese flying over just as you are about to exchange your vows or a gust of wind that takes your words away. But it’s all part of the fun, so we’ll pause for a moment and carry on.

We’re in England, you know what’s coming next – make sure you have a wet weather plan. In case the weather gods aren’t with you on the day, you’ll need a space for your ceremony that can accommodate all of your guests. Your reception marquee or tipi would be a great back up plan. Using your dance floor is the best option and the chairs can quickly be rearranged to seat everyone.

Find out more about my wedding celebrant services, and how to make your wedding ceremony the highlight of everyone’s day on my weddings page.

Choosing the Right Wedding Celebrant

You know that you want a wedding celebrant to lead your ceremony for your special day, and with the personal nature of celebrant led ceremonies why wouldn’t you? But finding the right celebrant can feel like a difficult task as there are plenty of us out there!

So here are my quick tips to help you find the perfect celebrant…

A great place to start is on the wedding website directories. There are a few dedicated sites for celebrant searches, The Celebrant Directory and Humanist Ceremonies. While sites like Hitched and Bride Book have great listings for celebrants too.
Search for wedding celebrants who live reasonably close to you or your venue. Many celebrants will travel long distances but you’ll pay extra for this and there will be someone local-ish who will be right for you.
Come up with a longlist and do a bit of stalking! What do you think of their own website and social media presence? Have they got plenty of testimonials and endorsements? Who are they accredited by? Does their style match yours?

Arrange a consultation with your chosen few

Select 3 or 4 celebrants who you like the look of. Drop them a line to check their availability for your date and ask for a Zoom consultation. Most celebrants will be happy to arrange a free no-obligation chat, and they know you’ll be chatting to other celebrants too!
Use your consultation time to see how you get on and whether you’ll be a good fit for each other. Have they left you with some great ideas and feeling excited about your ceremony? Have they listened to what you want and guided you when needed? If you can answer ‘yes’ to these questions then you’re on to a winner!

Also check out how they work, and what future meetings you’ll have as part of their fee. You should see a draft of your ceremony script so you can agree everything your celebrant is going to say. And talk to them about your vows too. How will they support you with creating personal vows that mean the world to the two of you? I have a ‘how to’ guide for my couples to set them in the right direction, plus extra help for those with writers’ block!
Finally, your wedding celebrant should be suggesting a rehearsal for your ceremony. This helps everyone who is going to be involved in the ceremony to know what’s expected of them. You can step through each stage together and practice your entrance. It’s great for settling everyone’s nerves and I like to do this the day before the ceremony if possible.

Sealing the deal

If you think you’ve found the right celebrant get them booked ASAP. The date is only secure in their diary once you’ve signed your agreement and paid the deposit. Although most celebrants will hold the date for you if you express your intention to book, it’s best to get everything firmed up as soon as you’ve made your decision.
And you’ll want to check their agreement feels reasonable too, what is their policy around changes due to COVID-19? Because you just never know what’s around the corner!

And that’s it. Good luck with your celebrant search and have some fun with it too.

If you’re not really sure why choosing a celebrant led wedding is the best choice you’ll make for your wedding day, check out my Celebrant Led Weddings blog for all the deets.

Celebrant Led Weddings – Why Bother?

Currently in England celebrant led weddings aren’t legally binding. So why do thousands of couples every year choose to have their wedding ceremony officiated by a celebrant instead of a registrar?

There are of course numerous answers to this question. Here are a few of the main reasons couples choose to tie the knot with a wedding celebrant leading the proceedings.

Getting personal

Celebrant led weddings dispense with any of the ‘must have’ elements. So your ceremony can include anything you choose and couples love the personal feel celebrants bring to ceremonies. One of my favourites is to include the couple’s love story. Telling how you met, early dating anecdotes, that romantic proposal and your hopes for the future. And reading out secret words you’ve written previously about each other is a really special moment.

Adding symbolic gestures into a wedding ceremony is also really popular. And I love conducting hand-fastings for my couples. Here your hands are bound together with ribbon while a blessing is made. Did you know this is where the phrases tying the knot and binding agreement originate? It’s a gesture steeped in history too. If you’re bringing families together a sand blending is a visual treat for everyone. Or you may like to involve all your guests in a ring warming. They take it in turns to imbue your wedding rings with love and wishes and the rings are ‘warmed’ when you come to exchange them.

Naturally you can include poems, readings, songs, exchange of your wedding vows and your wedding rings. But these can all be in any format you choose and you can write your own vows to share with each other. Your celebrant can help if the thought of having to write something fills you with panic!

Time is on your side with celebrant led weddings

There are no time constraints with celebrant led weddings. You won’t be rushed through for the next booking. So, without making it so long that your guests get fidgety, you can take as long as you like. I’d suggest that 45 mins is long enough with 35 mins being about right. Plenty of time for lots of personal and memorable elements without everyone straining to get to the fizz and canapes!

This means you can add extra elements to your ceremony that might take a bit of time. How about getting everyone on their feet to sing – karaoke style – to your favourite song. It’s an amazing moment with everyone singing their hearts out and sounds fab. You’ve also got time to involve friends and family more in your ceremony. There are lots of options here. Your parents could give you a blessing or your friends could share a memory or marriage tip for the two of you, which can be quite entertaining.

Location, location, location

Aha, the reason most couples choose celebrant led weddings – ‘cos you can marry anywhere you choose! There are no constrains as long as you have the land owner permission. I’ve conducted ceremonies in a woodland copse (so romantic), a family farm which added to the many memories already held on the land, country estate hotels like the stunning Wotton House near Dorking in Surrey, a private island on the Thames where the groom arrived by speed boat, a trendy wine bar in London, and numerous back gardens. I’m still waiting for an invitation to conduct a ceremony on a remote mountain pass or a vineyard in the Dordogne, but I am sure they will come!

Most couples have a single venue where you have your ceremony and celebrations together. This makes it easy for all your guests and great fun too. If a festival style wedding in a field with a festival bar and food, billowing bell star tents and dancing under the stars appeals, then a celebrant led wedding is certainly for you.

You’ve done the legal bit already

Maybe you married abroad or during lockdown without all your friends and family with you to celebrate. Having a celebrant led wedding followed by a wedding breakfast let’s you share your wedding with everyone you choose. And no-one has to miss out on the special moment that you say ‘I do’, or the after party! It doesn’t matter when you did the legal bit. You can re-create your ceremony or create something completely new for your celebrant led wedding. Read more about this in my Re-weddings blog.

But most couples who decide on a celebrant to lead their wedding do so because their ceremony will be just as they want it. Your legal wedding could take place in the days or weeks beforehand at the registrar office. Invite just a few of your nearest and dearest sharing the day with you. You can save exchanging your wedding rings for your celebrant service, and just do the legal bit. This can cost as little as £50. Or you could opt for having the registrar marry you at your wedding venue, assuming there is a licenced area, after your celebrant led wedding.

The choices are endless really, and that’s why you should bother!

Conversational Funeral – is this the ‘new black’ for small funeral services?

At a time when small and intimate funerals are unfortunately a necessity, opting for a Conversational Funeral seems like a really warm and inclusive way to celebrate a loved one’s life. Let’s unpack it a bit further…

What is a Conversational Funeral?

Although there appears to be a fairly set structure for a funeral service, you can actually spend the time in any way that you choose. Your Funeral Director may have a strong view that you need three pieces of music, a eulogy, tributes and some poems or readings to fit into the 30-minute timeslot allowed in most crematoria. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

If there is just a few of you attending the service who knew the person well, you might want something more relaxed. This is where Conversational Funerals come in. The time you would normally spend in a ‘service’ is instead filled with chatting about the person, relaying some of your favourite anecdotes and memories. By sitting together in a (socially distanced) round or a horseshoe shape you’ll be inviting eye contact and encouraging conversation between you.

You can choose to have a celebrant assist you with the service. They can manage the time and ask questions to get the conversation rolling if needed. Such as “What was Donna like a school?” or “I gather Donna was a real sun worshipper, where did she go on holiday?”.

What should it include?

The short answer is, it can include anything you like. But setting a structure to the conversation can help get things going. It can also bring in everyone present who might have known the person at different times in their life. You could talk about childhood stories they used to relay, their working life, their family life, and their passions with each person adding their own nuggets of information. Or you may opt to just talk about the memories that come to mind when you think of them and let the conversation take its own course. Objects you associate with the person can be great conversation starters here. Try: “Whenever I think of Donna, sherry and Christmas dinner always comes to mind.”

You may want to include some music during the conversation and this can also invoke lots of memories if they were a music lover. And I’d probably still opt for some music at the start and end of the service. It sets the scene and cuts through the otherwise often silent moments. You might choose some of their favourite songs or a gentle instrumental as background music. Another idea is for everyone to choose a poem or reading that either reflects the person you are celebrating or you think they would have enjoyed.

Where could I have a Conversational Funeral in Surrey?

Generally a Conversational Funeral would replace a standard funeral service, so if the person is being cremated you could have the conversation in the chapel at the crematorium. However, some chapels have limitations on how you could arrange the furniture, particularly if they have pews. So you would need to check the suitability of the space first.

It might be nice to have your Conversational Funeral in a less traditional setting. You could choose somewhere like The Pavilion at Clandon Wood Natural Burial Ground in West Clandon, Surrey. Here you could place the coffin in The Pavilion and lay out the chairs as you choose. The conversation could either be followed by a burial or a direct cremation at a local crematorium. Or why not hold it at your loved one’s golf club, or even in a small function room in their favourite pub?

What do I need to consider?

Conversational Funerals really only work for small numbers of people, 15 would probably be the maximum. It’s lovely with just 3 or 4 people who knew the person well, while 6-8 is the ideal number. So, if you have lots of people planning to attend, I would recommend deferring the conversations. Wait until you are able to get together at a memorial service in the future and let the conversations flow.

If you do choose to hold the Conversational Funeral in a crematorium, you’ll be limited to their usual time allocation. This is generally 30 minutes including entrance and exit time. It would allow you around 20 mins for conversation. You can say a lot in this time but it may go quicker than you think! You could decide to take a double slot at the crematorium which would give you around 50 minutes. Or choose a venue that doesn’t have the same time constraints.

Finally, I would recommend you consider whether you are happy to manage the Conversation yourself. Often it’s helpful to have a Funeral Celebrant with you to lead you through the time together. They can also manage the music for you, and conduct a committal if you would like one.

If you would like to talk about arranging a Conversational Funeral further please do give me a call on 07786 268446. You can find out more about my services on my funerals page.

Re-wedding, getting married all over again!

‘Re-wedding’ seems to be a word made for 2020 and 2021!

What a year we’ve all had. Those couples who had their big day planned, their hearts set on committing to each other witnessed by their friends and family are amongst those my heart goes out to. But some of you chose to carry on, often with a small registry office service with just your parents as your witnesses, and I salute you for your determination not to let COVID get in the way of true love!

So does this mean you can’t have the wedding you originally planned? No, no, no. Get your wedding planning head back on. Start designing your re-wedding with family and friends at the centre of your plans.

Your re-wedding venue

Once restrictions are lifted, you can once again have the ceremony and reception of your choice. Whether that’s a festival style wedding in a summertime field, a rustic country barn setting, or a gorgeous hotel on the banks of the Thames, and everything in-between. Certainly your first port of call will be the venue you originally chose. Hopefully they’ll transfer your deposit to your new date, but you have an opportunity to decide on something different. Maybe your experiences of the past year have changed your thinking about what’s important to the two of you and what’s important for your re-wedding.

Celebrate in your own style

I suggest taking a bit of time out to think about what you’d really like for your re-wedding. Consider the sort of venue that feels right and the atmosphere you’d like to create. Maybe your guests would love a relaxed party vibe with some games the best dance tunes rather than the wedding breakfast you had originally planned. After a bit of deliberation, you might decide that you got it right with your original plans. If you want your day just the way you had planned it, that’s great – job done! But there’s no harm in a bit of reflection.

Your re-wedding ceremony

And what should you do about your wedding ceremony? You are married, and you’re wearing your rings to prove it. But all your friends and family missed those special moments when the two of you made your commitments and promises to each other. To make up for this, many couples are planning a celebrant-led wedding ceremony for their re-wedding. And these promise to be even more special than their legal service.

Wisley_wedding_ceremony_singing — Image courtesy of This and That Photography

This time you can choose exactly what you’d like included in your wedding ceremony and involve your family and friends too. You can create your own wedding vows centred on what you’d like to promise each other, and choose your own words for your ring exchange too.

You might like to add some symbolic gestures such as a ring warming ceremony. Here your guests take turns to hold your wedding rings and charge them with love and wishes for the two of you. Or maybe a handfasting with ribbons tied by your family as you make promises to each other would bring a fab visual element to your ceremony, you can read more about handfasting here. Another great way to involve all your guests in your re-wedding ceremony is to get everyone on their feet singing. Pick an easy song that everyone knows like ‘It Must Be Love’ from Madness and do it karaoke style! I guarantee everyone will get into it and you’ll create a really magical and fun moment.

If you’d like your re-wedding to feel like ‘the real thing’ you can also sign a marriage certificate with witnesses signing with you. This is a great moment for some fab photos too. And don’t forget to think about how you’d like to be introduced at the end of the ceremony. Are you going to be ‘Mr & Mrs’ or maybe you just want all your guests to ‘big it up for the happy couple’.

Choosing a celebrant

Your celebrant will be happy to talk through ideas and suggestions and to create a ceremony that reflects the two of you as a couple and the vibe you’d like for your re-wedding ceremony. If you’re not sure how to find the right celebrant, the Celebrant Directory will have the perfect person for you and lots of great tips too. Or you could, of course, just give me a call!

Good luck with your planning, and do drop me a line if you have any questions.