Personalised & Totally Unique Wedding Ceremonies For Fun-Loving Couples
About Me...
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Those who know me say I'm positive, warm, easy-going and full of life!
Hi, I'm Jess!
I Love weddings, love making people happy and love my job!
When I am not conducting wedding ceremonies I am singing in my local choir, playing hockey, hanging out with my friends and going on adventures with my husband, two boys and cocker spaniel. I love being outside and my happy place is in the Alps either skiing in winter or hiking during the summer (it is so breathtakingly beautiful!)
It was three separate occasions which led me to make one of the best decisions I ever made...to become a celebrant.
It all began in 2012 when I got engaged, to my now husband Rob. We wanted to get married outside, and we had found the perfect setting, an area of woodland at my father’s house where I grew up. When we realised we couldn’t do it legally (crazy huh?) we learnt about Humanist weddings, which allowed us to have our wedding ceremony where and how we wanted, and we could even choose who married us!
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​We met with our celebrant, and he helped us create a wedding ceremony that reflected us, our values and what was important to us. Our celebrant was there to guide us along the way and in the end produced an individual, hand-crafted wedding script unique and personal to us.
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​A Humanist ceremony is not yet legal in England, so we decided to have our legal ceremony the day before in a registry office with a few family members to witness. For us, this wasn’t our real ceremony - the ceremony celebrating us coming together, to us this was just the legal formality. We wanted to save everything for our ceremony in the woods the next day, so we opted for the minimum that we could; no music, no ring exchange, no readings, just the legal part, we even got married in shorts, t-shirts and flip flops, much to the registrar’s horror! Equally horrified were our parents who at first found it all a bit strange and didn’t ‘get it’ but once they experienced the actual ceremony the next day they completely ‘got it’.
​The following day we got married in the woods, at my father’s, in front of all our family and friends and it was perfect! We had our friends playing music, a ring-warming ceremony, readings, a ring exchange and a handfasting ceremony. It was fun, relaxed, and so us!
I wanted to become a celebrant to help others have amazing ceremonies exactly how they want.
Two years after our ceremony, our best friends got engaged and asked me to conduct their ceremony. They too wanted to get married outside and wanted a more personal ceremony. I was completely touched. The fact they trusted me with something so important and meaningful to them was daunting, but such a great honour and it proved to be one of the most rewarding experiences of my life.
Then in 2018, I became a mum to the most beautiful little boy (totally not biased). I loved the idea of a naming ceremony to welcome him into the world and to make our family even bigger by introducing Guide Parents for him. Being an only child, my friends have become my family, and a naming ceremony allowed us to officially make them part of our family.
I wrote the script and performed the ceremony in our garden in front of our family and my son’s new Guide Parents. As my best friend quotes “It was the best day I have had in ages, even better than my wedding!” (Let’s hope her husband doesn’t visit this website. And no, I did not conduct her wedding!)
It was after that day, after so many compliments on what a beautiful ceremony it had been, that I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to become a celebrant to help others have amazing ceremonies exactly how they want.