A Bit About My Qualifications as a Wedding Officiant
Professional Training in Crafting an Inclusive Ceremony
So you want a ceremony that makes everyone happy, most importantly the two of you. You’ve come to the right place. I am certified as a Life-Cycle® Celebrant, with a concentration as a Wedding Officiant, by the Celebrant Foundation & Institute.
The ideals of Celebrancy started in Australia, 40 years ago, growing out of that country’s Secular Humanism movement. (Good question.) Guided by reason and compassion rather than religion or superstition, Secular Humanism posits that there is more in common that unites humanity than divides it. For you, this means I have specialized training. There, I learned the intricacies of hand-crafting an inclusive ceremony that highlights those virtues everyone gathered together shares as members of the same identical human race. Though I am happy to honor the wisdom traditions of your family members to make all present feel comfortable.
Ultimately though, I make the ceremony all about you — and how I may best serve your entwined vision as advocate, facilitator and center-of-calm.
All that said...yes, I am indeed ordained! Since 2008. Talk about "Interfaith." The list is checkered, i.e., Oaxacan Native American sweat lodge, Tibetan Buddhist empowerments, Peruvian Munay-Ki rites, Melchizedek mystery school ordination, Catholic mysticism, etc. That’s not the half and wasn’t learned in a seminary overview course on world religions, but sincerely lived from the inside out. Although now, I’m more like Switzerland ... neutral. My only real practice is that of discernment. But the point is, I can draw upon my diverse spiritual background to fashion one eclectic ceremony.
Yet it takes more than knowledge, training or even lifetime experience. It takes a certain creative talent. Mine is being able to distill what makes you as a couple...you. And then I write rings around a compelling yet lightly humorous narrative that celebrates your particular brand of coupledom.
Going even further than that...I tell your falling-in-love story in the imagery and symbolic language of your own irreducible hearts.
Finally, just in case you need me to officially state it, I am deputized by the Commonwealth of Virginia to officiate and solemnize your marriage.
And it is my complete honor to do so.