Dear Bride & Groom,
You are planning to organise a destination wedding in France and wish to mark your union with a secular wedding ceremony. You would like to use the services of an English/French speaking professional wedding celebrant based in France but you have no idea how much it will cost you.
You have surfed on the net to find out more about going rates but offers and packages are so varied that you are still unsure how much you need to spend to get a good quality, professional celebrant service.
Secular wedding ceremonies are still a rather recent concept in France. As a consequence, no rules or regulations in terms of training, methodology, service levels and rates have been put in place to this day. For this reason, in addition to the distance and language barrier, the current lack of financial benchmarks makes it difficult for couples to make an informed decision.
Offers vary significantly from one vendor to the next as you can find rates going from 300€ to over 3000€!
The lowest propositions often come from wedding planners who offer their planning service and throw in the wedding ceremony at an extremely low rate, more as a commercial gesture than a truly professional service. I have no doubt that some of them do a fairly good job, however may I point out the fact that planning a wedding and taking care of a wedding ceremony are two radically separate jobs requiring different skills therefore a good planner is not necessarily a good celebrant and vice-versa!
Besides, a secular wedding ceremony is neither a show nor a mockery. In fact, it is quite the contrary: As wedding celebrants since 2009, couples who come to us feel strongly about expressing their sincere wish to commit to each other. Although it is merely symbolic, they consider their secular wedding ceremony as their REAL wedding. For that reason, your wedding celebrant ought to display charisma, authority and professionalism. If he or she is seen running around like a headless chicken to sort out logistics issues minutes before celebrating your wedding ceremony, the credibility of the service will undoubtedly be diminished.
Let’s go back to the price: Some celebrants offer very low prices simply because they lack experience and underestimate the sheer amount of work and time that the preparation of a truly personalised wedding ceremony requires.