What Qualifications Do You Need to Be a Celebrant?

Nov 3
If you’re considering a career as a celebrant, you may be wondering about the qualifications required to get started.

In the UK, there is no formal qualification necessary to work as a celebrant. This allows people with the right training, personality, and passion to thrive in the field without needing an academic certificate.

In this blog post we dive into the topic of what funeral directors and engaged couples really look for when booking a celebrant. 

Unlock these answers with the right celebrant training and you will be successful as a professional celebrant. 

No Formal Qualifications Required – But Quality Training Is Key

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. 

What Matters to the People Who Book Celebrants?

1. Funeral Directors

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.

2. Engaged Couples

For wedding celebrants, engaged couples focus on a celebrant’s personality, their creativity, and the connection they make with them. Couples will need to trust a celebrant before booking them. This feeling will come from how the celebrant engages with the couple, builds rapport and communicates their understanding of the couple's vision and needs for the ceremony. An academic qualification does not do this.

All the research from Hitched and Bridebook, the UK's biggest wedding planning websites, is that the two most important factors for couples when choosing their  wedding suppliers (like wedding celebrants), is 1) online testimonials & reviews from happy couples and 2) price.

Celebrant Training School suggests newly trained wedding celebrants perform initial ceremonies pro bono for friends or family to build experience and gather positive testimonials. In addition, recent graduates are advised to adopt a competitive pricing strategy during their first year.  As wedding celebrants gain experience, they can adjust their pricing as they attract more clients based on their growing portfolio of successful ceremonies and glowing testimonials. 

Why Choose Celebrant Training School?

1. Practical Skills for Real-World Success

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. 


2. One-to-one practical skills assessment, development and mentoring

Every trainee celebrant is different: from different backgrounds; having different life and work experiences; with different goals and ambitions. At Celebrant Training School we pride ourselves on helping each individual achieve their goal of becoming a successful professional celebrant. 

Each funeral and wedding beginner course contains 2.5 hours of one-to-one live practical skills assessment and development. Honest and constructive feedback  helps every trainee build their skills to become an outstanding celebrant. Advice and guidance is given to support the celebrant's own personal and unique business plan, ambitions and timings. 

As your principal trainer and coach, I am a successful and busy funeral celebrant working across urban, suburban and rural communities in Sheffield and the Derbyshire Peak District. I have also been the most recommended wedding celebrant on Hitched in the last two years. I work with couples from around the world to deliver wedding ceremonies in the North and South of England and also  abroad. 

3. Flexible self-paced online training

Online learning does not involve expensive travel and accommodation costs. Our trainees love how they are in control of the pace of their online learning. With the bitesize instructional videos,  you can play them when you like, how often you like and you can skip over certain topics if desired. Each video has downloadable notes you can print off and annotate. This means you are in control of how and when you do your learning.

Some people choose to blitz their training and complete everything in a week. Others choose to complete their training around work or family commitments and so complete their training over weeks or months. Once enrolled, students can decide when they want to start their courses. They can take a break from their course if life demands it. There are no deadlines when their training must be completed. 

When it comes to the live one-to-one practical assessments, again, trainees get to choose exactly when to do these. Whilst trainees can only book into doing their live practical assessments at certain points of the course, they book their slots using a Calendly link on the online learning platform. This means as long as I am available, assessments can be done during the day, in the evening, during the week or at weekends, whatever is mutually convenient. 

4. A supportive celebrant community

When trainees complete all the live practical assessments, they get invited to join our growing celebrant community. We have separate WhatsApp groups supporting funeral celebrants and wedding celebrants and have online workshops for people to network, share experiences and develop their skills further. 

There are also opportunities to meet up face-to-face and wedding celebrants are invited to shadow me as I deliver ceremonies across the country. 

Celebrant graduates really appreciate connecting with other newly trained celebrants from across the country as they start their business and get their first bookings. Participation in our community is free for graduates of Celebrant Training School and purely voluntary, People value being able to ask their peers questions, provide support and motivation for each other and share experiences. Starting a new self-employed business feels and is tough and so having others alongside you on the same journey (and who are not your direct competition in your local area) is really appreciated. 

5. Funding Options

Our best celebrant courses are available as single payment options or as payment plans. Practical celebrant training does not often qualify for government funding. Instead, we offer flexible payment plans to make your training journey accessible. You can spread the investment of the individual beginner courses and our wide range of course bundles over 6 or 12 months. 

Is celebrant training right for you?

Before choosing to become a professional celebrant and investing time and money into training, it is important to first assess whether you have the  skills and experiences needed to become a celebrant and if you have never run your own business before, have you the mindset and the aptitude to be self-employed.

To help you with this decision, we have provided some free celebrant training. These two discovery modules will help you explore what the job of a celebrant entails and the skills needed. There are assessments you must pass before you are invited to enrol onto the main courses. 

FREE Funeral celebrant training: enrol here. 
FREE Wedding celebrant training: enrol here. 

With Celebrant Training School, you can gain the practical training needed to start your own celebrant business. It is varied, creative and rewarding. 

If you have completed either the free celebrant training and you are 2-3 weeks away from wanting to enrol onto some training, then I invite you to join me at our next Celebrant Success Workshop.  

Whether you’re looking for celebrant training near you, free celebrant training options, or online courses that allow you to learn on your own pace, Celebrant Training School is here to support you.
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