From Hotel General Manager to Celebrant: What 110+ Ceremonies Have Taught Me

A little over a year ago, I was driving to one of my first ceremonies when the phone rang.

“Could we change the music?”

“Of course. No problem.”

And genuinely, it was no problem.

After more than twenty years working in hospitality and hotel management, last minute changes do not particularly faze me. When you have spent years managing weddings, events, teams, timings and everything else that happens behind the scenes, you learn very quickly that panicking rarely fixes anything.

Something has changed?

Right.

What is the problem? What needs to happen? Let us sort it.

That part of becoming a celebrant felt very familiar.

Other parts surprised me completely.

Going from hospitality to celebrancy

Hotel life can be incredibly fast paced.

There are always people needing something, decisions to make, timings to manage and problems to solve. You spend a lot of time directing people because everyone has a role and everything has to come together at the right time.

Becoming a celebrant was almost the opposite.

Suddenly I had to slow down.

And listen.

Properly listen.

I remember leaving some of my first ceremonies wondering whether this was really for me. I had gone from the constant pace of hospitality into something much quieter and much more intimate.

Then, a few weeks later, I was preparing to conduct a funeral.

At first there were perhaps ten or twenty people in the room.

Then more arrived.

And more.

Eventually there were around 150 people there.

I could almost feel my confidence growing as the room filled.

That was when something clicked.

I had spent years standing in rooms full of people. Large groups did not intimidate me at all. They were familiar territory.

Over time, the smaller intimate ceremonies became just as comfortable.

Now, when I get up on the morning of a ceremony, I do not wonder whether I want to do this.

I know I do.

I thought being a celebrant was about delivering ceremonies

It is. But that is only the part everyone sees.

When I worked in hotels, there was a person or department for almost everything.

Sales. Accounts. Marketing. Operations. Administration.

When you run your own business, suddenly you are all of them.

I knew that before becoming self employed, of course.

I am not sure I fully appreciated it until I was actually doing it.

Thankfully, my hospitality background gave me an understanding of how those different parts of a business work.

And during my first twelve months as a celebrant, I have continually changed and refined how I work.

Because the biggest lesson has been this:

The ceremony is not about me.

My job is to serve the people who have asked me to be there.

More than 110 ceremonies have taught me to listen

Over the past twelve months, I have conducted more than 110 ceremonies across weddings and funerals.

Perhaps the greatest thing they have taught me is how important it is to really hear people.

There is a difference between listening to what somebody says and understanding what they are actually trying to tell you.

In hospitality, sometimes you simply cannot listen to everyone. There are too many moving parts. You have to make decisions, give direction and keep things moving.

Celebrancy is different.

Sometimes the most important part of the conversation is something somebody almost did not say.

Funerals have taught me this particularly well.

When I meet a family, I prefer to meet them in their own home whenever possible. There are often several people there, and I watch the people who are not doing the talking as much as those who are.

Sometimes the quiet person sitting at the side of the room has the story that captures everything.

A phrase.

A memory.

Grandad's cap.

The walking stick.

Something he always said.

Those tiny details are often what make a ceremony feel like their person.

And when I use that detail during the ceremony, I know exactly who in the room gave it to me.

That same listening matters with weddings.

The circumstances are different, but the goal is very similar.

I want people to feel comfortable enough to be themselves.

Why I love Zoom calls with couples

I have discovered that Zoom works incredibly well for wedding planning.

Couples can sit at home with a cup of coffee. They can be in their pyjamas if they want. Nobody has had to drive anywhere or sit formally across a desk from me.

They relax.

And when people relax, they talk.

At the beginning of a call I can sometimes see the nervousness or uncertainty. They do not know what I am going to ask. They may not even know exactly what their ceremony should include.

Within five or ten minutes, I can usually feel that disappear.

The conversation changes.

They start telling me stories.

They interact naturally with each other.

That is the good stuff.

For funerals, being physically present with the family works best.

For weddings, sitting comfortably together on Zoom often works beautifully.

Different circumstances.

Same result.

People feel comfortable enough to tell me what actually matters.

Couples do not need more information. They need the right information at the right time.

This has probably shaped my workflow more than anything else.

When someone first enquires with me, the process starts.

I have created a journey that carries the couple from that first enquiry right through to their wedding day.

There are emails, reminders, questionnaires and checkpoints along the way.

But I deliberately do not give them everything at once.

Why would I?

Their celebrant is only one part of their wedding.

At the same time, they could be dealing with a venue, photographer, florist, band, invitations, outfits, accommodation, family questions and fifty other things.

The last thing they need from me is another enormous list.

So I break everything down.

One thing at a time.

Legal paperwork when that needs attention.

Ceremony ideas when the time is right.

Readings.

Music.

Vows.

Final details.

Bit by bit.

Even my questionnaires are designed to make life easier

I hate filling in long questionnaires.

So I do not expect couples to enjoy them either.

Wherever I can, I use tick boxes.

If I need a full name or address, obviously somebody has to type it.

But if I can get the information I need by giving you options to click?

Click away.

I do not want couples doing unnecessary work.

That is what they are paying me for.

The process has changed considerably since I started.

When I first built my workflow, I thought I knew what couples would need at every stage.

But I had not tested it yet.

More than 110 ceremonies later, I have.

I have watched where people need more guidance, where they need less information and where a small reminder at the right time saves unnecessary stress later.

And I am still refining it.

You do not have to remember everything on your wedding day

By the time the ceremony arrives, my aim is that everything has already been covered.

You will know what is happening.

But you do not have to remember what is happening.

That is different.

That is my job.

I will guide you through it.

Hopefully, by then, you are simply thinking:

“Oh yes. We have done that.”

“Oh yes. That is sorted.”

“Oh yes. Roisín has that.”

Then, poof.

We are there.

Wedding day.

No stress.

Well, perhaps a tiny bit of adrenaline.

Because let us face it...

YOU ARE GETTING MARRIED.

And please do not panic about your vows

This is one thing couples can really overthink.

Personal vows can be absolutely beautiful.

If writing and saying your own vows feels right for you, wonderful.

But standing in front of everybody you know and reading something intensely personal is not everybody's idea of a good time.

That is okay too.

Your vows do not have to become a performance.

There are traditional options. There are simple options. And many of the things you want to say to one another can be woven naturally into the ceremony itself.

Sometimes it is considerably easier if I say it for you.

There is no prize for making your own wedding ceremony unnecessarily difficult.

AI has become part of how I improve my business

I also use AI.

And I am very open about that.

I do not see AI as a replacement for listening to people or understanding their stories.

I use it as a business and development tool.

I can talk through an idea, review my workflow, question whether I am asking the right questions during interviews, explore different wording and reflect after ceremonies on what worked well and what I could improve.

Sometimes I quite literally talk to it.

After a ceremony I might explain how I felt it went and use that conversation to assess what I could learn from it.

It has become another way of continually developing how I work.

But there are boundaries.

I am extremely careful with personal information. I do not put unnecessary identifying information, addresses, phone numbers or sensitive personal details into AI.

Technology can help me organise my thoughts.

It cannot replace the human conversation that creates the ceremony.

What weddings and funerals have taught me about people

One of the things I was least prepared for when I became a celebrant was the gratitude.

In hospitality, providing excellent service is expected.

As it should be.

But there is something different about being trusted with a wedding or funeral ceremony.

People come up afterwards.

They say thank you.

Families tell you that you captured somebody exactly as they remembered them.

Couples tell you that the ceremony felt like them.

It is not about needing praise for doing the job well.

It is knowing that you got it right for them.

That matters to me enormously.

I still get butterflies

I hope I always do.

Before a ceremony, there is still that little rush of adrenaline.

There should be.

A ceremony matters.

Whether I am standing in front of a room waiting for a couple to get married or preparing to tell the story of somebody who has died, the people in front of me are waiting to hear something that matters deeply to them.

The moment I stop feeling the significance of that is probably the moment I should stop doing it.

But nervous?

No.

More than twenty years in hospitality taught me how to handle people, pressure, timings and unexpected problems.

My first twelve months as a celebrant taught me something different.

Slow down.

Listen.

Watch.

Ask the right questions.

Use people's own words.

And remember whose ceremony it actually is.

If I could go back and speak to myself before that very first ceremony, when I was still wondering whether I had made the right decision, I know exactly what I would say.

This is so worth it.

And after more than 110 ceremonies, the biggest thing I have learned?

It is not about me.

It is never about me.

My job is to serve them.