Which Celebrant Training Course?

Search for either “Celebrant Training” or “Celebrant Course” and the results can be baffling.

There is a large range of celebrant training courses out there, provided by organisations calling themselves “college”, “institute”, “academy, “fellowship”, “society” or ”school”. They are all private training providers and each uses a different marketing technique to convince would-be celebrants to train with them. Some offer membership, some offer what, at first feels like, a useful qualification, others are less academic and more practical and not all offer one-to-one sessions.

The academic NOCN Level 3 qualification (which you don’t need) is, in my opinion, a waste of time. As a teacher of Level 3 qualifications for 23 years, an ex-headteacher and now successful professional celebrant, my view is that it is very badly written. It gets students to write essays about things that wont help them in their future career (e.g. the history of Celebrancy in the UK)  and it misses out on teaching and assessing key and essential competencies (e.g. how to create a draft order of service and how to set up and launch your business so you actually get bookings).  

Some offer a “City & Guilds accreditation” but this again appears to simply be a marketing tool. The accreditation no longer exists with “City & Guilds” and so is therefore at least 7 years out of date. The syllabus simply mirrors the academic NOCN qualification and so has all the same weaknesses, but cheaper as it is a correspondence course only. Check it out yourself by searching for “celebrant qualification” on the City & Guilds website. You will find it does not actually exist!

Some courses offer face-to-face class based learning which are very sociable, Some are residential and are therefore a lot more expensive and have to cut out content to cram everything in the limited time. Class-based adult learning runs the risk of “death by PowerPoint” and being “talked at”.  With a high chance of being in a very comprehensive group, there will be people in the class with lots of experience as creative writers and public speakers, others will have little or none. There is usually little or no pre-screening, participants simply have to pay the enrolment fee. Whilst participants might have lots of enthusiasm and good intentions, the resulting learning experience for everyone is likely to be frustrating: too fast or too slow.

The alternative is a more person centred learning experience where the trainee celebrant is in control and get real constructive one-to-one development. Celebrant Training School was designed with the inadequacies of the long established training providers in mind.

·        Instructional videos trainees can fast forward if not needed or replay as many times as they like.

·        Downloadable notes with each video to use and annotate as they trainees want.

·        Both written and practical assessments that walk you through the real competences required when working as a celebrant – not writing essays or completing coursework.

 Every trainee is different and will have their own individual strengths, areas that need developing and their own circumstances will present unique commercial challenges for them.

A class based approach will severely limit one-to-one input and development, there isn’t normally the time and instead trainees just get their egos stroked with shallow and meaningless feedback.

In contrast, Celebrant Training School has created one-to-one development opportunities on Zoom which mean that they are honest, constructive and feedback is deeply personalised. Learning is maximised, mentoring, advice and development is unique to every trainee.