A couple who have just got engaged search “humanist celebrant Dublin” or “wedding celebrant Ireland” within a few weeks, usually late at night with a venue shortlist open in another tab. Before they send an enquiry they want to know whether you are free on their date, whether a ceremony with you is legally binding or only the lovely part, what kinds of ceremony you do, what you sound like, and what you charge. A funeral director ringing on a Tuesday for a Thursday service wants something else entirely: can you do it, and can the family trust you. Websites for celebrants in Dublin have to serve both without one drowning out the other.
Is it legal? The first question
If you are on the Register of Solemnisers, say so on the first screen: the ceremony you conduct is the marriage, you sign the Marriage Registration Form with the couple and their witnesses, and the couple’s separate job is to give the registrar their three months’ notice. If you are not a registered solemniser, say that just as plainly: the couple completes the legal part with the registrar and you create the ceremony they will remember.
Both are honest and both work. What loses couples is a page that leaves them guessing, so they ring to ask, and the celebrant whose page answered gets the enquiry instead.
Three kinds of enquiry, three kinds of page
Weddings are the main event: humanist, secular, spiritual or interfaith, bilingual ceremonies, elopements and small ceremonies, vow renewals. List what can be woven in, such as hand-fasting, a sand ceremony, a unity candle, readings, vows the couple write themselves, children or a dog taking part. Naming ceremonies for babies, with guide-parents and siblings, are a different search and a different page. Funeral and memorial ceremonies usually come through funeral directors at two or three days’ notice, and that page should speak to the family about how you meet them, how you write and read the eulogy, and ashes ceremonies later on.
Each is searched for separately. A couple does not want to scroll past a funeral paragraph, and a bereaved family does not want confetti.
Showing your voice
A celebrant’s page is an audition. A two-minute video of you at a ceremony, with the couple’s permission, or an audio clip if you prefer. A short sample of an opening you wrote. Photographs from real ceremonies, taken by the couple’s photographer and credited. A paragraph on how you work: the first meeting, the questionnaire, the draft, the rehearsal, the day.
Instagram shows the happy moments, and the site holds the practical answers and the voice. The two do different jobs, which we have set out in do you need a website if you have Instagram.
Dates, deposits and the diary
Enquiries come in a wave from Christmas to Valentine’s Day, for weddings twelve to eighteen months out, nearly all on Saturdays between May and September. The first question is always the date. An enquiry form with a date field lets you answer yes or no in a sentence, and a booking page for a twenty-minute first call turns the yes into a meeting without six messages about when suits.
The date is held when the deposit is paid. A card link goes out with your agreement, the balance is due before the day, and your terms sit on the page in plain words. Say which counties you travel to and how travel is charged, without the number if you prefer. The mechanics are in how to take deposits online in Ireland.
After the ceremony
A celebrant lives on reviews and on the photographer’s gallery. The day after the ceremony, a short text with your Google review link goes to the couple while they are still floating. Each review names the thing that mattered, the way you told their story, and that is what the next couple is searching for.
What we need from a celebrant
Your ceremony types and what each includes. Your prices or from prices, and your travel area. Whether you are a registered solemniser, and through which body. A bio and a photograph of you working. A video clip if you have one. Two or three ceremony photos with the photographer’s credit. Your deposit and cancellation terms. Half an hour on the phone.
Plan and price
Complete fits a celebrant taking wedding bookings: €1,499 to set up and €100 a month, VAT extra, no contract, with the deposits, the booking page for first calls and the review follow-up. A celebrant doing mostly funeral work through funeral directors can start on Essentials at €499 and €50 a month. The two plans are compared on the pricing page.