Kindred spirits
It seems that hand fasting, jumping brooms, keepsake wreaths and all things wedding have featured in many of my Insta posts over the last six months. So, it seemed the right time to write a blog about how I came to train as a celebrant and how that fits into the life of The Orchard.
I trained as a celebrant just over four years ago with the Fellowship of Professional Celebrants (FPC). I hadn’t been dreaming of becoming a celebrant, or even given it a thought really! The idea took me totally by surprise! Looking back, it was the right step at the right time and just that universe doing its thing!
The chain of events leading up to training was triggered at my 60th birthday. We had bought our little haven just four months previously and had a planting weekend to mark both my 60th birthday and to bring people onto the land to eat, drink and plant trees as a way of symbolising a new phase of life for this little plot. So many people joined us, friends and family, colleagues and supervisees, friends of friends even. During the Saturday afternoon, John (my eldest daughter’s husbands’ brother) and Jen, his girlfriend, came to me and asked if we would consider letting them have their wedding ceremony here. They wanted an outdoor wedding that was rustic and to have a ceremony that included a hand fasting and tree planting and many other beautiful elements. My instant response was absolutely yes, Lets do this!! Their next question totally took my breath away as they asked if I would marry them!! I felt so honoured and utterly moved that I said yes and thank you from my heart before I had even connected to any thinking process.
Well, that started a lovely journey of spending time with Jen and John here on the land, hearing their plans and what they were aiming for. Knowing John for a long time and getting to know Jen meant I was able to write from the heart and felt very honoured to do so. I found myself immersed in writing their script and finding poetry and ritual that spoke to them in a meaningful way.
At that time, in our first year we didn’t have a loo, only a portaloo, or even a barn floor actually. January 2020 was continual rain which meant that we had the wedding rehearsal standing in four inches of water inside the barn and all of us in wellies!! None of that took anything away from the process, in fact I believe it added depth, meaning and fun to what we were co-creating. It also had us pulling out the stops to get a floor down in the barn in time for February 29th 2020.
As the process with John and Jen unfolded, I began to notice similarities to the counselling process where, listening well, getting into others’ frames of reference and understanding what and why things felt meaningful for them were key. This meant everything that I wrote or suggested came out of their inspiration and not my view of what might be good for them. At each discussion, I noticed their process as they came nearer and nearer to what truly represented their journey up to now and what would be significant as they stepped over a threshold into the next phase of their life together.
I had been aware all along that I had accepted a huge responsibility as well as a great privilege by saying yes to conducting John and Jen’s wedding. As the process went along, I realised that I was loving the experience and had become invested that they should have as near a perfect ceremony to their dreams that I could create. At the back of my mind though, there was this little nagging voice that insistently told me that it wouldn’t be a proper and real wedding, because I wasn’t a minister or a real wedding officiant of any kind and so their wedding would be less than it should be. Well, I know I can be plagued by my own self critic and that I have a very noisy internal police officer that continually checks that I am doing things ‘legally’ and above board. I also know that I am not one to be brow beaten by my internal voices which means that I don’t shout louder than they do, but I find another way around. My solution was to find a celebrant training and get myself on it and equipped and ‘legal’ before the wedding happened.
Well, I bloody loved it. From being part of a like-minded learning community again, to taking on new information about all things ceremonial, to creating and sharing resources, learning about the role of celebrant. But most of all I learned that all my years as a therapist, supervisor and trainer of experiential encounter groups made a damn good foundation to becoming a celebrant.
Jeez, hadn’t I spent over three decades supporting and being alongside people as they found their way through, stepped over thresholds, let go of the old, found ways forward and celebrated new beginnings. Hadn’t I been a supportive steady part of and witnessed hundreds and hundreds of rituals and symbolic rites of passage over my time. I began to see how similar and complimentary the two roles are for me and that my years as a therapist have shaped the kind of celebrant that I am.
Having now worked with three other couples over the last eighteen months, from first meeting them to conducting their ceremony, I am now capturing what feels important to the process and I am learning about the way I do things.
For me, the process starts right at a first enquiry, where a couple has heard about The Orchard perhaps through a friend or colleague and makes an initial contact. That first conversation sorts out a few key things, for example the size of wedding party we can accommodate and the type of celebration we can provide and those we can’t. If those things are a match, then I will invite the couple to come for a visit where we walk around the 5 acres sharing through conversation what their dreams and visions are and what we are about here at The Orchard.
This is such an important meeting as they are getting a feel of the land and are trying out different spaces that they can visualise as the perfect place to say their vows. It is also a time of us connecting and them getting a sense of whether I am the celebrant for them.
If the couple decide that here is their place and that I am their celebrant, then we plan in another visit. I try and book this for as near to an exact year before their date. This way they get to see The Orchard in the season that they will marry and can be so helpful in choosing the exact place to hold their ceremony. For example, the woodland is full of bluebells and woodruff in late April and May while being covered in fallen yellow elm leaves in October. The oak garden is full of ripening food and smothered in flowers in any direction you look, from March into September. Every area has a different vibe that changes throughout the year.
There may well be other visits as part of the preparation. For example, one couple were also acknowledging their blending of families in their ceremony so we scheduled a visit where we they brought the children and together, we propagated lavender plants, which loved ones planted together as a ritual and celebration of family as part of the wedding ceremony.
Then there is the script reading which is one of my favourite visits. This is where I read through the whole wedding script for the couple to hear. This is always incredibly moving as they experience and connect with all the elements I have hopefully captured. I have found that this adds to the depth of meaning and intent on the actual wedding day.
Another very important element is the wedding rehearsal, where family and friends join the couple in a run through of the day. I of course don’t read the script on this occasion; that is a secret between the couple and myself. No, this is about participants getting comfortable at The Orchard, getting stage directions and having a practice at their roles, or reading their words, or singing and hearing their voice in the space so they can be confident and relaxed on the big day. We have a tea break in the barn with homemade cakes where final details are ironed out and we get to know each other better. This makes for a much more relaxed and unstressful coming together on the actual day.
What I now see is that all my training and experience as a therapist means that I am tuned into and support the couple’s experience and emotions as they journey towards and through this massive threshold into the next phase of life together, culminating in their carefully crafted wedding ceremony. So you see how compatible my life as a therapist is with my life as a celebrant. They are indeed kindred spirits.
I do not advertise myself as a celebrant, or The Orchard as a wedding venue. This wasn’t the reason we began this venture, rather something that emerged as a strand of the life of The Orchard. It isn’t about being commercial and building an empire, although I do have to earn my crust.
The Orchard is about protecting and stewarding this piece of land for wildlife and from future development. It is about sustainability by producing food and produce to live in an ethical and ecological way. Everything is reused or reclaimed, we are learning about the old ways and the yearly cycle of planting, tending, and harvesting our crops, about foraging and keeping bees and rescued hens, and making our own compost, leaf mould and fertilisers.
The Orchard is also the haven in which my counselling practice is held. Where clients can be cocooned by the land through a talking therapeutic relationship with me and my two faithful four legged co-workers. Or in a group process through creative workshop retreat days where well-being and reclaiming balance are central.
However; It turns out that The Orchard is also a place that will hold a wedding ceremony for those who are drawn here by our ethos and our love of the land. For those who are looking for a ceremony that reflects their connection with nature and allows them to include the elements and rituals that truly symbolises their journey and their joining together. The very special icing on the cake for me is when they bless me with the privilege of being their celebrant and helping them to craft the ceremony that speaks truly of them and takes them over a threshold into the new phase of life.
