While formal qualifications like the NOCN Certificate or the "City & Guilds accredited programme" replica aren’t required, quality training remains essential. Celebrancy isn’t a regulated profession like law, medicine, education or gas engineers so any private training provider can offer a celebrant training course. What matters most for successful professional celebrants is being taught and guided to create meaningful, memorable and personal ceremonies. Much of this begins with your inherent ability and skills to connect deeply with clients whether they are a bereaved family or an excited engaged couple.

At Celebrant Training School, we focus on providing online practical training to equip you with the core skills needed to be an excellent celebrant and the marketing and business know-how to market your celebrant services, sell yourself and get bookings.

Some celebrant training providers are known to suggest false and misleading things about the NOCN Level 3 Certificate in Civil Celebrancy in the UK. One of the biggest myths is that when marriage law changes in England and Wales that holding this academic qualification might be required. It is unethical and wrong to suggest this. I have trained a number of local council registrars to become celebrants and I frequently check this out with them. They normally laugh! Read more about this and other celebrant qualification myths in a previous and alternative blog post here. 

Some people might assume that funeral directors prefer celebrants with an academic qualification, like the NOCN Level 3 Certificate in Civil Celebrancy. However, this is not the case.

Funeral directors prioritise a celebrant’s personality, professionalism, social skills, and ability to connect with grieving families. They look for celebrants who they can trust to demonstrate compassion, sensitivity, and an ability to make families feel understood and supported. They also want to work with celebrants who are well organised, helpful and efficient.

Professionalism is an important  matter of trust. Funeral directors will entrust the reputation of their funeral home by recommending a celebrant to a family. Its also about working with a third-party you can trust to help make their job easier especially during the busy winter months. They do not want to have to a manage a disorganised and unprofessional celebrant. 

Funeral directors have come across many newly trained celebrants who proudly show their academic qualification, be it the NOCN certificate in celebrancy or the "City & Guilds accredited "replica, only for them to be a disaster because they don't have the practical skills needed. Their academic qualification has assessed their essay writing ability, but it has not assessed or developed the breadth and depth of the practical skills that are essential to be a successful professional celebrant.  

For many newly trained celebrants, its their background in fields such as teaching, social work, or nursing that is their biggest asset. If a newly trained celebrant can demonstrate their competency in a previous profession, it is these transferable skills and experiences that funeral directors will value most.

Our training focuses on the practical skills of funeral and wedding celebrancy. We you through the steps a professional celebrant would need to take in meeting clients, putting together a draft order of service, writing the personal elements of a ceremony (e.g. a funeral eulogy or a wedding's "love story") before teaching you how you put together a complete and deeply personal funeral service and/or  wedding ceremony. We demonstrate how to prepare for delivering your first funeral service or wedding ceremony and what you do once you have delivered it. We teach you the up-to-date protocols and expectations of professionals working in the funeral and wedding industries. 

But your learning does not stop there...you are then shown exactly what you need to do (and what not to do to avoid expensive mistakes) when setting up your new celebrant business. We show you what you need to prepare and do in order to get your first bookings as a celebrant. After you have delighted your clients, we then show you what you need to do to grow your business with glowing testimonials.