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We are living in an interesting time in the history of civil celebrancy.
There are so many pressures - to be a creative and innovative celebrant, to be articulate and knowledgeable regarding the legal aspects of celebrancy, to develop and maintain a small business focus, and to attend to professional learning in a timely fashion… But the list goes on. You need to understand about sound systems and their use, have a bit of the comfortable performer in you, understand copyright with music and poetry, be able to create and maintain your own website, be in charge of a dynamic advertising campaign with you as the prime focus, maintain your knowledge of local community relationship organisations… oh my, where does it stop?
There has also been a move in recent years to establish mentoring programs, but this is fraught with anxiety on the part of both the mentor and the person being mentored. What does it mean exactly? A mentor is usually a wise and trusted counsellor or teacher, someone who knows the rules of the game and who is willing to share their knowledge, skills and expertise with those with less knowledge at this stage, fewer established skills and perhaps much less expertise.
In speaking to one well-established celebrant, one with a lot of experience, she was bemoaning the fact that with the influx of newly registered celebrants in such great numbers, that rarely a day passes without a request for her to be someone’s mentor, to guide them through the establishment of their business and to show them how to be a good celebrant. But this is a well-established celebrant who has been burned, and burned badly. She very willingly gave her advice, copies of her forms and her expertise freely, and allowed two neophyte celebrants to film her performing a ceremony for their own professional development. She has since discovered that they have used all that she gave freely, to develop their own bigger and better versions, and to make matters worse, to begin training other celebrants critiquing her performance as part of the training. She never gave her consent for this but because she did give original consent, verbally, she has been told a legal case could be ugly, embarrassing and not certain. Will she mentor anyone ever again? Not in this lifetime.
That is a worst case scenario.
A good case scenario is another well-established celebrant in a regional area who ‘walked’ through a less experienced celebrant, sharing the process of planning a marriage ceremony with a couple, who shared her tips and timely advice and who was happy to co-present a wedding ceremony with a couple who were ecstatic to have two celebrants. While not every single aspect of celebrancy was shared, and the fee in this case was negotiated between the two of them, the wise mentor ensured that a professional standard of development and delivery were modelled. She also ensured that Sensis had the newer celebrant’s contact details so the new celebrant was included in the phone book advertising, shared website details of some excellent wedding resources (though the final choice belonged to each celebrant), and generally pointed the newer celebrant in the right direction at pertinent times. Are they now business competitors? Technically yes, but when the wise mentor needed website advice, it was a logical move for the relationship to shift, and the IT competent mentored celebrant was pleased to repay some of her karmic debt.
So what is the moral of this story ? Your opinions invited.
Nancy Batenburg
Authorised Marriage Celebrant
Darwin NT.
Editor's Note: Letters and Opinion pieces on this article are most welcome.
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