How I start the ceremony: celebrant housekeeping

In any outline of a wedding ceremony you’ll see, there’s usually a bit missing: the celebrant housekeeping that happens before the walking down the aisle bit begins. It’s a pretty important section of the ceremony that is often overlooked! So what happens during the celebrant housekeeping? How do I get the ceremony started?

Fill the seats

The absolute first thing I do during my celebrant housekeeping is fill the seats. At most weddings there’s only enough seats for about a third of the guests to sit down. Even with such a small number of chairs, there’s always empty seats when I go to start the ceremony. People feel weird about sitting down. They always assume there’s someone who needs the seat more than they do! So my first job is to fill the seats. Your photos will look way better with people sitting in the chairs, I promise. Plus you might have paid for the chairs – you don’t want that cash to go to waste!

So I’ll get on the microphone and start filling the seats. In order of desperation (if no one is sitting down), I’ll say things like:

• Before we get started we need to fill the seats. Please come and sit down.
• Is anyone pregnant or old? You definitely get a seat!
• X and Y paid good money for these seats, don’t let them go to waste
• You don’t want X and Y to think you don’t love them, do you?

If I’ve still got empty seats I’ll ask whichever one of you is standing up with me to start picking on people to sit down.

Finally I admit I will give up. We do have to get the ceremony started at some point! However I will at least ensure the seats along the aisle are full, even if that means people have to move along from where they’re already sitting.

I had a ceremony once where there were exactly enough chair for the number of guests. There will still two blokes who insisted on standing at the back. They shook their heads even when I pointed out the seats that were available for them. Sometimes it’s just not possible!

Unplugged ceremony announcement

The next part of my celebrant housekeeping, if you’ve requested it, is my unplugged ceremony announcement. To be honest a bride found this wording online many years ago, I have no idea from where, and I’ve used it ever since. It is pretty perfect in my opinion!

On this special occasion, X and Y would like to invite you to be truly present. So for the duration of the ceremony, please turn off your phones and put down your cameras. They’ve hired an amazing wedding photographer who will be capturing the way the wedding looks, and so they’d like you to sit back, relax, and just enjoy how the wedding feels. Of course, they will be happy to share their photos with you afterwards!

Social media instructions

If you’ve given me any instructions about social media, they come next. Maybe:

• After the ceremony, feel free to take all the pictures. For you Instagram and Facebookers out there, please make sure you tag all your pics with #weddinghashtag.
• After the ceremony, feel free to take all the pictures, but please don’t upload anything to social media until the couple have had a chance to.
• After the ceremony, feel free to take all the pictures and upload them to your socials, but please take care not to upload pics of other people’s children.

Beware, it is highly unlikely people will abide by a request to not upload any pictures to social media at all. This is especially so once they have a few drinks in them!

Permission

It’s fair to say that in Australia we can be a bit useless at knowing how to react to our emotions in public. I like to include a little paragraph at this point of my celebrant housekeeping that gives your guests permission to feel all their feelings out loud. I’m pretty sure I stole this from Melbourne Celebrant Tim Manger many years ago, and it’s worked well for me ever since.

Before I start the ceremony, I’d like to make sure you all know we’re here to celebrate today. So I want you to know that you are allowed to laugh at any time, applaud when you feel the urge to do so (or when I tell you to), and even feel free to shed a tear if you feel the need. Most of all enjoy the day and revel in the love!

It breaks the ice. I always get a chuckle from the guests, and it gives them permission to do all the things!

Mobile phones

In the final part of my celebrant housekeeping I ask the guests at all ceremonies (whether unplugged or not) to silence their mobile phones or other noisy electronics, and tell them it’s time to get the ceremony started! I ask if they’re ready for a wedding, and if they don’t whoop and holler loud enough I’ll ask them again! Then it’s time for the music and the processional, and the regular wedding ceremony outline begins.