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When it comes to weddings, we have a lot to say. We’re passionate about curating beautiful and meaningful micro weddings and elopements for our lovely clients. We’re just as passionate about offering advice and sharing inspiration. Read our blogs for insights into planning your own (tiny) big day that’s fun-filled and totally unique.
Wedding Celebrants Celebrate! Marriage Officers Officiate!
When people discuss wedding planning, they usually enquire about the venue, dress, number of guests and honeymoon plans! The ceremony itself is an afterthought, or likely not given a thought at all! It is seen as a box to tick before getting to the ‘good part’ of the day. Flowers and menus are chosen months, even years prior, and the ceremony style or choice of marriage officer comes behind the aesthetic details.
Sound familiar?
Until fairly recently wedding ceremonies followed a typical pattern, and were usually led by a religious minister according to the structures and traditions of their or your particular religious affiliation. It’s no surprise that little thought is put into a process where couples don’t have much say in the tone, theme or what is included. But, times they are a changin’ and modern nearly-weds are looking for modern ceremonies that resonate more with their modern love stories.
Enter the Civil Union Marriage Officer or the much friendlier title: Wedding Celebrant!
Civil Union Marriage Officer in the South African context.
The simplified explanation! A legally qualified, non-religious marriage officer, licensed to perform ceremonies and register marriages of both heterosexual and same sex couples. A Wedding Celebrant is a sub-set of Marriage Officers. It is a title not often used in South Africa, but it’s the most accurate descriptor of my ceremony style so I’m claiming it! Celebrants focus on delivering totally personalised and creative wedding ceremonies. We do not deliver cookie cutter ceremonies and are violently allergic to cliche!
My bespoke ceremonies are totally personalised and hugely meaningful. Instead of focusing on the religious or legal aspects of the wedding ceremony (though we do need to do the legals), celebrant led ceremonies land the focus squarely on you and your particular love story. By gathering anecdotes and some relationship history and understanding your future goals a ceremony is crafted that invokes feelings of joy, authenticity, and celebration. When done well, your ceremony will set the tone for the party that follows. Cheers to that!
All Marriage Officer styles are different. My aim is to tell your story in a manner that invokes the funnies AND the warm and fuzzies! My style is calm, but fun, and genuine. I am honestly curious about people and adore meeting my couples and hearing about their love stories. I love writing and delivering ceremonies in equal measure and think that my obvious enjoyment inspires good vibes from your guests from the get go!
The Process:
We’ll have a Zoom to confirm we like each other! I’ll get an idea of the mood you would like to set at your wedding, and you can decide if you think I can deliver it! Or you can skip this and go straight to my google reviews!
I’ll pop you a short contract and invoice, both required to secure your date.
A few months out from your date you’ll need to complete a questionnaire, separately, no peeking at each others’! And to submit it to me, separately! It asks for a little background about yourselves, and asks some quirky questions and some a little more serious. You will also need to complete a form providing details for the legal registration of the marriage. It’s a teensy onerous, but must be done.
Then we’ll meet. In IRL in Sandton over wine or water. I don’t drink coffee! Or on Zoom. This meeting helps to fill any informational gaps that may be left after your form filling exercises, and it’s always good to see my couples interact with each other prior to the big day . During this meeting we’ll also talk about what you’d like to include in your ceremony, your options around vows. I will make suggestions of rituals or ‘moments’ to include that I think will resonate with you.
Then, armed with all the information I’ve gathered, I’ll write you a totally bespoke, original wedding ceremony. Boom!
Then roll on the big day! You can expect me to arrive about 30 mins before your ceremony, ready with all the feels to get you happily and legally hitched!
Wedding vows are tradition, not law
Didya know that you don’t actually have to exchange wedding vows during your ceremony
Gasp!
Wedding vows are tradition, not law. But if you choose to include vows in your ceremony, and overwhelmingly my couples do, here are some things to think about.
Some couples recite them word for word after me, the classic repeat-after-me format, and that is a perfectly valid, perfectly meaningful choice. Some couples write every word themselves. Some do a blend: a portion together, a portion personal. And some choose not to include spoken vows in their ceremony at all.
There is no wrong answer here. What matters is that whatever you choose feels like you.
I have to say though I do love an intentional promise. There is something genuinely moving about watching two people look each other in the eye and speak their oath. If you’re a bit terrified about it all, this one is for you.
Before diving into the how, it’s worth a quick honest look at the why, and the why not.
The case for personalised vows:
- Writing your own vows forces a kind of intentional reflection that the rest of wedding planning rarely demands. You have to think carefully about what you actually love about this person, what you’re genuinely promising, and what you want your commitment to sound like.
- When it lands, it is often the most memorable moment of the entire day. Guests feel it. You feel it. The person standing opposite you really feels it.
- Personalised vows make your ceremony uniquely yours, something no other couple has said or will say.
The case for repeat-after-me:
- Emotion is unpredictable. Standing at the front of a room with every person you love staring at you is not the most controlled of environments. For some people, having words handed to them in the moment is a profound relief.
- It removes a significant source of pre-wedding stress, no writing, no performance anxiety.
- There’s something beautifully universal about traditional wording that has joined millions of couples before you. It doesn’t need to be reinvented to be meaningful.
Neither is better. They’re just different, and the right choice is the one that suits both of you.
If you’re going to write your own: six things worth knowing
- Get on the same page as your partner — before you write a word
Agree on tone, format and length before anyone puts pen to paper. If your partner is going for light, warm and gently funny, and you deliver a Shakespearean ode to the magnificence of your union, the imbalance will be felt. By you, by them, and by everyone watching. Neither approach is wrong; they just need to be calibrated together. A quick conversation upfront saves a lot of awkward re-writing.
- Keep your audience in mind
Your guests are deeply invested in celebrating your love. But lengthy inside jokes and hyper-personal references that only two people in the room understand can quietly shift the energy from inclusive to exclusive. A few personal touches? Wonderful. A vow that reads like a decade of shared WhatsApp history? Save that for the speech.
- Start early, and start scrappy
Don’t sit down a week before the wedding expecting to produce something polished. Start making notes early: snippets of memory, words that describe your partner, future goals, things that make you laugh together. Let them accumulate. Then start building. Write a few versions until one flows naturally. And then practise, practise, practise. You want to appear natural and present, not unprepared and panicked. BUT, there is no need to memorise your vows, at all! That is waaaay too much pressure.
- Give the vows the time they deserve
Wedding planning has a way of consuming enormous energy on the aesthetics: the guest list, the flowers, the dress, the music — while the actual ceremony gets squeezed in. Step back for a moment. In the grand pie chart of what your wedding day is actually about, the promises you make to each other should be occupying a generous slice. The florals will wilt. The vows will last a lifetime.
- Use inspiration as a starting point, not a script
There is a vast and wonderful archive of vow inspiration online. Poems, lyrics, templates, real examples from real weddings. Use them. But remember: you are writing personalised vows. If your guests could Google the exact paragraph you just recited, something has gone slightly sideways. Let what you find online spark your thinking, then make it yours.
- Completely stuck? Try this structure
Sometimes the blank page needs a little scaffolding. If you don’t know where to start, try working through this loose framework:
Name what you love about them.
Not vaguely (“you’re my best friend”) but specifically. The thing they do. The quality you rely on. The version of yourself you become around them.
Make your promises.
Concrete, personal, and ideally a little brave. Anyone can promise to love and cherish. What will you specifically promise?
Use a song, lyric or poem as a foundation.
If you’re really stuck, build around something that already holds meaning for both of you.
End with a mirrored line.
Something your partner can echo in their own vows for a moment of cohesion. “Thank you for choosing me.” “Yay for us.” “And here we are.” It doesn’t need to be profound. It just needs to be yours.
Whether you repeat after me, write your own, I’m here to make whatever you choose feel intentional and right.
Your ceremony should feel like you. Every bit of it.
Enjoy some wedding vow inspo on our Pinterest boards here. Or reach out and I’ll send across some of my faves.
xx