What is a Celebrant?

A celebrant is a trained professional who will plan, write and deliver a ceremony for any occasion.

Iris Rose Ceremonies Celebrants can create ceremonies including:

  • Wedding Ceremonies
  • Naming Ceremonies
  • Renaming Ceremonies
  • Adoption Ceremonies
  • Vow Renewal Ceremonies
  • Divorce Healing Ceremonies
  • Celebration of life Ceremonies

The Best Things About Celebrants…

  • Celebrants can hold ceremonies anywhere without restriction.
  • Celebrants can plan, organise and deliver a ceremony exactly the way you would like it.
  • Celebrants can write a bespoke ceremony for you so it is completely unique. We can even write special words/vows.
  • Celebrants can stage manage your ceremony on the day, so everything runs smoothly.
  • Celebrants can share their knowledge about any symbolic elements you could choose to make your ceremony perfect!
  • We can even work abroad!

History of Celebrancy

The original concept of Civil Celebrancy was established by the Australian Commonwealth Attorney General Lionel Murphy. It all started in1973, when on the 19th July he appointed Mrs Lois D’Arcy, as a Civil Marriage Celebrant. It was much later, when civil marriage celebrants started the performance of other ceremonies such as Funerals and Namings that the term was shortened to Civil Celebrant. The civil celebrant program is almost entirely the result of this one man’s vision. Murphy told Dally Messenger the story of how he was opposed by his own staff, the public service, his fellow members of parliament and officials of the Labour Party but he defied all, and, on July 19, 1973 he typed the first appointment himself, found the envelope and stamp, walked to a post box and posted it.

Actually, the enabling legislation, the Marriage Act, had been passed in 1961 but Murphy’s personal involvement in using the Act’s powers and bypassing the bureaucracy made him a legend. Lois D’Arcy, in a 1992 address to celebrants, recollected Murphy’s own account of his authorising the first appointment: “What other person in such a high position would have done such a thing. No one other than Lionel Murphy!”

Murphy’s ideas about marriage reform (and even divorce reform) was part of his grand plan to free Australians from their restrictive laws. High Court Justice Michael Kirby remarked in 2000: “Lionel Murphy was a big figure on the stage of Australian public life. He pursued with energy, imagination and determination a vision of Australian society which was not warped and gnarled and inward-looking. It was one which reached out to everyone, particularly the disadvantaged.”