Workshops
Professor Nick Hopkins is Commissioner for Family Law at the Law Commission of England and Wales. He is lead Commissioner for the Commission’s project on weddings law. He was appointed Commissioner in 2015 following a career as a legal academic. He holds a Chair in Law at Reading University.
Elizabeth Welch is a lawyer on the Property, Family and Trust law team at the Law Commission for England and Wales. She was previously involved with the Commission’s 2015 scoping work on weddings, and was the lawyer leading the recent review.
The Passing Over Ceremony - a Transition Through the Grief Process
This ceremony is an intimate and deeply healing service that you the Funeral Celebrant can offer to your clients. Dawn will take you through the basic format of this unique ceremony, that acts as a platform for the bereaved to feel free to talk about their life with the Beloved Deceased. As the Celebrant, you can create a beautiful and secure environment for those that have gathered. Each person is invited to move gently, in a healthy, compassionate interactive and supportive way, and begin their journey through the grief process.
Dawn Kinsella is Priestess of Avalon and Director and founder of Sacred Celebrant's Academy. She conducted the first legal Pagan marriages in England and Wales at the Glastonbury Goddess Temple. In addition Dawn is a Gnostic Student/Goddess Ceremonialist, Temple Musician, Hypnotherapist and IEMT (Integral Eye Movement Therapy) practitioner. Also a Civil Celebrant, Dawn holds the Diploma in Naming and Couples Cerebrancy. She is a Sacred Celebrant and has conducted many handfastings, renewal of vows and baby naming ceremonies over the years. Dawn has had articles about her role as Priestess and officiant for legal marriages in publications such as Pagan Dawn and Wild Hunt magazines, plus radio interviews and publications across Europe. Dawn leads the accredited Advanced Practice Spiritual Celebrancy course offered by Civil Ceremonies.
This session will urge you to take care of yourself as a funeral celebrant and provide some tools to do just that. This work places heavy demands on you emotionally and...self care is most definitely not optional.
Lorraine Inglis
Lorraine has a background in nursing with over 20 years of experience both in the UK and New Zealand. Having worked as a Specialist Nurse and a Practice Nurse, her knowledge and life experience underpins everything she offers as a funeral celebrant, bringing true empathy and compassion to her role. Lorraine is involved with the training of new funeral celebrants as an assessor and is passionate about self-care for funeral celebrants. She co–hosts the Reflective Practice sessions offered by Civil Ceremonies and co-facilitates online workshop sessions encouraging students to maintain a healthy work life balance, caring for their own mental health and well-being. She is a strong advocate of reflective practice as a means of ongoing learning and informing future practice.
Nicki Hallett
For many years Nicki worked as a Palliative Care Nurse Specialist, caring for patients as they approached the end of their life and supporting their families throughout that time. In the course of this work, she came to recognise that the farewell after a death should be as important and memorable as the circumstances and care leading up to death. After leading a very successful and award winning training programme for healthcare professionals to develop their knowledge and skills in delivering end of life care, Nicki felt there was a need to improve the families' experience following a death - observing the same respect, dignity and care she had offered their loved ones during life. Having trained to become a Civil Funeral Celebrant with Civil Ceremonies Ltd in 2013, Nicki has worked exclusively on writing and leading bespoke, individual and sensitive ceremonies that meet the wishes of her clients, by utilising the listening skills, compassion, empathy – and sometimes humour – that had been invaluable during her nursing career. Nicki is passionate about improving the public’s perception and expectations of funerals, and making the dialogue surrounding death a normal part of the conversation of life.
Most funeral celebrants will be familiar with the Obitus systems in crematoriums where they work. They will provide you with a comprehensive update on both the music and visual image systems that you may need to work with.
Obitus are dedicated to helping venues, funeral directors and officiants provide families with a more personal and positive bereavement experience. That means music, visual tributes, live streaming and all the associated AV equipment. Our team of 120 happy people proudly work with over 260 funeral venues and 6,000 funeral directors, supporting around half of the UK’s funerals each year.
Phil Cook, Commercial Director
Phil is an experienced product/commercial/marketing leader, with a career spanning NatWest, Bupa and Three mobile. He joined Obitus in 2022 with a remit to help further support venues, FDs and officiants to use and engage with Obitus services. He loves that what we do makes such a positive difference at an especially difficult time in peoples’ lives. Outside of work Phil enjoys spending time with his wife and 2 young boys, and is an avid tennis player.
Karen Wilks, FD & Officiant Training
Karen has worked in customer-service and training roles her whole career and also ran her own successful driving school. For the last 2 years she has been an important part of the Obitus Team, first in Customer Services and most recently as part of our dedicated FD and Officiant training team. Karen is passionate about delivering excellent customer service and making sure we put families first. Outside of work Karen enjoys spending time with her husband, 7 children, 14 grandchildren and Scrappy the dog.
In the wedding industry, Instagram is where you need to be on social media. If you are a new celebrant or have years of experience the tips and strategies Dom will give you will be invaluable in getting your wedding business seen!
Dom Harness is the Operations Director for hugely successful luxury and outdoor wedding specialist Wedding Planners, Harness and Co.
Operating since 2004 Dom looks after, amongst other areas, their marketing, website and social media strategies. As well as a wealth of experience in running their own wedding business, Dom brings with him the knowledge and expertise obtained with over 20 years working as Business Development Consultant for a huge global consultancy. This has seen him working with both automotive retail giants and small businesses alike.
Dom uses the benefit of that experience, working at large scale along with his wedding industry experience to help enable small wedding industry businesses to downscale and capitalise on the very latest social media strategies and marketing.
In this session Gary Hayes will discuss the reasons why niching your celebrant business could be the way forward for you. He will look at the pro’s and any, perceived, con’s of doing so.
Gary is a full-time celebrant and the founder of Fab Ceremonies. After successfully qualifying as a funeral celebrant and establishing himself in that role, Gary went on to train as a wedding and couples’ celebrant with Civil Ceremonies. Gary is also a tutor with Civil Ceremonies helping to train upcoming wedding and couples’ celebrants.
After a career in teaching, lecturing and public speaking in a variety of contexts, and having a love of performance, Gary decided that celebrancy was the next step in his varied career.
Fab Ceremonies is based in Liverpool, although Gary is proud to be a cockney! Growing up in Southeast London in the 60s and 70s led Gary to embrace the re-emerging Mod Culture of the time, Fred Perry’s, Parka’s and of course Vespa’s and Lambretta’s remain part of Gary’s life. Hence ‘Fab’, a nod to the Fab 4!
‘I decided from the outset to niche my business because it felt natural and is authentic to who I am, I just knew that it was the right thing to do’ says Gary. The decision to niche Fab Ceremonies was not a difficult one. ‘There are enough couples who are like you and who like you to keep you busy, whatever your style or niche’
Everyone wants to get gender language right and it is very important as a celebrant to use the right terms and especially use pronouns in the right way. Jade is an accredited diversity and equality tutor who will guide you through current gender language.
Jade Dalton
Jade is a Priestess of Persephone and holder of the Underworld energy, Sister of Avalon, Maieutic Luminary Leader, and a certified Sacred Celebrant. She is a full-time Priestess, Goddess healer, and psychic reader, as well as an Accredited Equality and Diversity tutor.
Aura Life believes that the changes the funeral industry is currently experiencing through the growing desire for Direct Cremation, will not lead to a loss of work for funeral celebrants. Instead the changes could actually lead to more creativity, greater diversity in the potential client base and more opportunities for Celebrants to write and lead Celebration of Life Ceremonies after cremation has taken place. In short, we hope our presentation will allay fears and encourage celebrants to actively embrace this period of innovation within the industry.
Paul Jameson
Exec Chairman and Founder
Paul is a start-up entrepreneur with a proven track record and successful exits in a variety of businesses.
In 2017, Paul was diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease, a terminal illness. To support his family he wanted to ensure his end of life wishes were known, his affairs were in order, and his life story was written — and was surprised to find there was very little available to help him. This was the spark for the creation of Aura.
Dave Jameson
Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder
Dave is a marketing specialist with expertise in digital, content and social media. Experience includes working as Senior Strategist at Vice Media Group.
Dave has a Masters degree in Strategic Marketing from Imperial College.
Kim Greenacre
Celebration and Commemoration Lead - Aura Angel
Kim trained with the UK Society of Celebrants in 2015. After obtaining her diploma in Family Celebrancy, Kim worked locally, nationally and internationally and helped numerous families commemorate and celebrate life.
Michelle is the founder of the Sustainable Wedding Alliance, a purpose driven organisation driving sustainable change in the wedding industry. The Alliance works with businesses of all sizes to help them to understand sustainability, what it means for them, and how they can develop long term sustainable strategies that will benefit people, profit and planet. Businesses that become members are assessed on their sustainability processes and procedures, and receive a personalised action plan to make appropriate changes. Membership also includes accreditation, for those businesses who achieve a minimum standard.
Michelle is passionate about creating a more sustainable wedding industry, through education, support and accreditation.
Michelle is an Associate of the Institute for Environmental Management & Assessment and has a Foundation Certificate in Environmental Management.
Any questions about the Law Commission Proposals? Or any other wedding related issues? Then the Wedding Celebrancy Commission ‘Drop-In’ Session is where you will find answers. Just come along and ask us anything!
The Wedding Celebrancy Commission seeks to be the central organisation providing representation and support to wedding and family celebrants in the UK and to supply information to couples, families and external organisations seeking a greater understanding of celebrancy.
The following organisations are represented on the Executive Council of the Commission:
- Civil Ceremonies Ltd
- Association of Independent Celebrants
- United Kingdom Society of Celebrants
- International College of Professional Celebrants
- Fellowship of Independent Celebrants
- Fellowship of Professional Celebrants
A question so often asked by funeral celebrants is ‘How do I get a funeral director to ask me to create and conduct a ceremony for a client? Followed by: ‘How do I get them to use me again?’, ‘How long do I leave it before approaching them again?’, ‘I haven’t heard from them since I did a funeral for them, I had great feedback so why haven’t they used me again.’
We are delighted that Ruth will use both her celebrancy and her marketing experience to explore with you what you can do to get that important foot in the door and keep it there! There will be food for thought in this helpful session.
Ruth Jewell, Funeral Celebrant
"I took the life changing decision to retrain as a Funeral Celebrant four and a half years ago. Prior to that I had held a variety of different job roles, each of which had included some marketing. However, I knew that I needed to hone my skills, so signed up to every free piece of training possible, alongside networking and tapping marketing professionals for hints and tips.
To supplement my Celebrant income I also work alongside a friend, supporting her Marketing business, which has given me further insights into how to utilise a variety of marketing mediums for my own business.
I am very much looking forward to sharing my hints and tips at the Celebrant Convention, and helping other Celebrants to get both feet firmly planted inside the doors of their chosen Funeral Directors!
When I am not delivering service, supporting families or promoting my business I love spending time with my family, especially our four year old granddaughter. In any spare time I enjoy crafting, reading, walking, camping, gardening, decorating, spending time outdoors, catching up with friends, trips to the theatre and cinema, but most of all spending time walking along the seashore in Cornwall with my husband."
Living Memorial soil blend is scientifically proven and offers a sustainable way to use cremation ashes. Protecting our environment and memories of our loved ones for generations to come.
When ashes are buried in the ground or scattered in large amounts, they alter the composition of the soil, causing long term damage and impacting future growth and regeneration. Living Memorial soil blend, when mixed with cremated remains, has been scientifically proven to neutralise toxicity, releasing nutrients that allow plant life to flourish. This is something that celebrants can be directly involved with.
Simon Holden
Simon is the CEO of Living Memorial and responsible for the introduction of Living Memorial soil blend here in the UK. He is passionate about the environment and has extensive experience in the application of research and development. Simon is also the CEO of The Woodland Burial Company where our use of the soil originated in 2018.
Leo Walton
Leo Walton is the company’s Chief Operatng Officer and is accountable for the strategic direction and business administration side of Living Memorial. With a background in science and engineering, he oversees all aspects of research, development, production and distribution.
These ceremonies are increasingly requested and, as a celebrant, there is no reason why you cannot offer these ceremonies to clients. Jade will explain the ceremonies to you, including content and pitfalls to avoid. As an expert in Gender Affirming Naming Ceremonies Jade will give you an understanding of these ceremonies so you can be confident in offering them.
Jade Dalton
Jade is a Priestess of Persephone and holder of the Underworld energy, Sister of Avalon, Maieutic Luminary Leader, and a certified Sacred Celebrant. She is a full-time Priestess, Goddess healer, and psychic reader, as well as an Accredited Equality and Diversity tutor.