Latest / Beyond The Ceremony: Modern Celebrancy. Unfiltered. / Beyond The Ceremony Podcast Episode 15: Shawn Miller Young Hip and Married

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Beyond The Ceremony Podcast Episode 15: Shawn Miller Young Hip and Married · Beyond The Ceremony: Modern Celebrancy. Unfiltered.

• Unknown Speaker 0:00 Welcome back to another episode of beyond the ceremony. I am your host, Laura Crockett, I am a celebrant and a mentor at the Academy of modern celebrancy, and I'm very excited because on today's episode, we are joined by officially our first international guest. Please. Can we welcome the fabulous SEAN MILLER from young hip and married in Canada. Hi, Sean. Hi, nice to meet you. Finally, in person, I've been a big fan for a long time. Oh, bless you. Thank you so much. Honestly, it's so lovely to have you here when you when you kind of got in touch to say that you wanted to come on the podcast. I was so excited, because I love everything that you seem to be doing, and I've had, a little look through your website and through your socials and things, and it all looks great fun. And like I said, it's lovely to know that the podcast has gone international, so you officially win the title of our first international guest. Fantastic. I'll take it. So tell us a little bit about you then, Sean, so tell us whereabouts you are and a little bit about your kind of celebrant journey, I guess. Yeah, so I'm based in beautiful Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. What's the west coast of Canada, for those who don't know? And I got into this kind of by accident. Actually, I'm a formerly trained life coach. Oh, wow. So I trained at the coaches training institute down in California. I got my Master Practitioner on NLP from University of Santa Cruz, and then I got into life coaching. And from there, I started doing relationship coaching. So I got married very young. I got married at 22 and as I got into coaching, that kind of actually led me into doing relationship coaching. And so I was doing relationship coaching, and I had a friend of mine who was an officiant. So we in Canada, the celebrants typically go by the word officient So officiating weddings. And we were like, Hey, should we do a wedding show together? And he was like, you know, you can do the coaching, the you know, premarital coaching, I can do the officiating, and we're like, this sounds fun. And we did our first wedding show in September of 2010 Unknown Speaker 2:09 and that show was a huge hit, and people started asking us if we can marry them. And the team kind of started organically, grew from there, and I actually ran the company for two years before I started doing any wedding. So I was just doing the coaching side, and I was just doing the coaching side, but because I was running the company and posting on social people saying, hey, could Sean marry us? Could Sean marry us? And then in 2012 I did my first wedding, oh my gosh, as an officiant, how was it going from the kind of business side to actually doing the wedding yourself. How did you find it? It was lovely, absolutely lovely. I loved it. I had a background in professional speaking, from coaching and from growing up in the church, and so I was very comfortable speaking. And I did my first wedding, and I fell in love with it and had a look back. Oh my gosh, that's amazing. That's the thing. It's like the bug, isn't it? We say that over here. That you like, you get that bug, and that's it. Once you've done your first wedding, you're hooked and you just want to keep going to weddings. It's a real dope. It's a real dopamine hit. Yeah, real dopamine hit for sure. Yeah, absolutely. So tell me a little bit then about how it works. In Canada, do you guys do the legal side as well, or is it like in the UK, where you don't like to talk to us a bit more about that. We do do the legal side. So in my province, British Columbia, you either can be a government official, so they're called Marriage commissioners, so they're commissioned by the government to do weddings, and the government sets out their what they're allowed to say and where they're able to do weddings, and what they can charge. And then we have the religious workers. So, you know, Pastor, Priest, Rabbi, reverend. So I hold a non denominational religious workers representatives license, simply meaning, so instead of adhering to Catholicism or Judaism or Christianity, I represent couples based on what they believe as individuals and as a couple. So I end up doing like interfaith weddings or non faith weddings. So my job is to honor the values and belief systems of a couple, regardless of their backgrounds or where they come from. Wow. And then do you have the same restrictions we have here in terms of venues? So does it have to be a licensed venue where you can do a legal ceremony, or is it yourself that holds the license? I hold the license, which allows us so much beautiful freedom, right? So I've done weddings everywhere you could imagine, local parks and beachsides on a yacht. We have a big, popular helicopter package where couples will come in a helicopter. We'll fly them to a local coastal mountain range. We'll marry them on the top of a beautiful BC mountain, snow mountains like I've gotten the great privilege of marrying couples literally all over our great providence and BC, some of the most beautiful landscape there is. And British Columbia has actually become like a mecca for elopements, meaning people come from all over the world to get married in BC, instead of going to Vegas and doing that kind of like, that sort of thing, they come to. Unknown Speaker 5:00 Here to experience the nature that British Columbia has to offer and get married, you know, outdoors in nature at the, you know, in these beautiful locations that this province has to Wow, amazing. And then we were talking just before we started recording about kind of a typical day for you. And unlike here, where most celebrants tend to just do one booking per day, and that's kind of like their only wedding of the day. It's a lot more than that for you, isn't it? Unknown Speaker 5:25 Yeah, because we're not limited to a venue, right? So a lot of my weddings don't even happen indoors. No, a lot of my weddings will happen in the forest or on the beach or at a park, or we'll do a hike, or we'll take a helicopter somewhere. So we'll some morning, they'll start as early as 5am people want to do a sunrise elopement on the beach. I did a wedding once on stand up paddle boards out into the middle of the into the middle of the ocean. Yeah. And they got married with there was like 30 people on paddle boards. Wedding on these paddle boards out in the ocean. Imagine that the invite able to paddle board, to be able to come to this wedding and witness the ceremony. Unknown Speaker 6:02 Yeah, and a lot of our weddings are very small. We're talking 10 guests or less. Yeah, very small. So that gives them so much flexibility and freedom to just think outside the box and how they actually want to be celebrated. Yeah, absolutely. What does a typical wedding day look like? There like? Because here you would start with the ceremony, which is probably just after lunchtime. Is the most popular time, something around one or two o'clock. Then after that, they would go and have like a drinks, like reception, a cocktail hour. Then after that, they'd go and have their sit down three course meal. And then finally, in the evening, that's where you'd have, like the party, the DJ, the evening food. That's kind of what a typical wedding day looks like here. Obviously, we get so many couples of celebrants who want to do things completely differently, but that's, I would say, the most popular way of doing it. What about over there is that is there kind of a, you know, a typical 50, 5050, for small weddings. So small wedding is what we call an elopement. That's like 20 guests or less. So kind of like gather and wed so these couples don't even really walk down the aisle. We just kind of gather and we'll do a little intro, and they'll get married. So well, 50% of our weddings are small, intimate ceremonies that are called elopements. And then 50% of the larger style ceremony, and the larger ceremonies follows a similar trajectory, yeah, right, where the ceremony will be the first thing that will happen, one, two o'clock or three, right? Well, they'll have, you know, they'll, depends if they're doing a first look, right? So they'll do their ceremony, cocktail reception, then the big party afterwards, amazing, amazing. And then, in terms of, you talk about, obviously, your team. So you're not just you. It's not just Shawn Miller, who goes on, you know, it's just you that does the ceremonies. You've got a whole company and so many celebrants. So talk to us about that, like your team of officiants, Unknown Speaker 7:50 yeah. So we have a big team of officials, I think right now, it sits at about 36 different people that work for a company, which is great. And we're across multiple provinces, so we're in British Columbia and another province next to us, called Alberta, and then we also operate in this United States. So we have celebrant down in Los Angeles, we have some in Portland, and we're actively looking to grow. And so what we're able to do is a lot of people who get into this line of work are amazing celebrants, right? They love the business of love, and they want to celebrate people, but for most people, it's not a full time thing, and that's kind of daunting. They don't quit their job to do this thing, and they don't want to learn social media and marketing and ads, and they don't want to do so they'll come to us and we'll handle all the business side of things, so the social media, the advertising, the bookings, the legal side of things, so we act like an agency, and, you know, we'll bring in the business, and we'll pass them off to our couple, we cover all the admin and all that sort of stuff, and then they get the job of just getting to celebrate the love. And so all of the people that work for us, it's what we call like a side hustle, right? No one does it full time. No one doesn't, you know, on the weekends and the evenings, because they love it, and they get to make some extra money and get to be involved in this beautiful industry. And then on this end, we're able to really support them and do all the business admin aside, which a lot of people don't necessarily want to start a business. Yeah, yeah. And so, because we've been doing it for 15 years, you know, we got 15 years of blog posts and experience and all this sort of stuff. So we kind of have a playbook where we launch into a new city that we know we if we do these type of advertising and, you know, approach the industry in a certain way, we're able to drum up the business, get them busy right away, and then then, you know, they're off to the races, getting to do weddings. Yeah, perfect. Because I think that's exactly the thing. Like we always say, a lot of us in the wedding industry, it's like we signed up for this to do what we want to do. So as the celebrants, we did it because we want to tell love stories. We want to, you know, get to know our couples and share their story. But actually, exactly like you said, it's only about this much of the job that's doing that. Then there's all the accounting, there's looking after your website, there's doing bill. Unknown Speaker 10:00 Your business, your marketing, all of that can take up so much time. And I think, like you say at the AMC, we get some students who come in and know this is a big career change for them, and they want to, you know, start it as a new business. But we do get some that just actually have, you know, helped a friend do their wedding ceremony and really loved it. So they want to get that kind of training and those skills behind them to actually do it as a bit more, like, you say, like a side hustle. And do you, do you think you get many, you know, celebrants or whatever, who come to you, and actually they start like that, and then they think, no, do you know what this is going to be, everything for me, and I want to take it full time, or does it tend to be over there that people just kind of do it as a, I guess, a hobby that pays you Unknown Speaker 10:41 Yeah, yeah. And so we've been very intentional about that. We got a lot of people wanting to apply for us, and if they're trying to make a career change, we typically will point them in the right direction, perhaps to yourselves or a different training program. But we're not looking for people who want to make a career change, because, again, that has happened to us in the past, where someone's joined our team. You know, we've spent two years and a lot of money building them up. Because, as you know, the longer you do this line of work, the easier it becomes, because every wedding you do, you're in front of 100 people, exactly, yeah, so you you build a notoriety and a popularity and and so well, you know, from the business perspective, you know, that's not advantageous for the company to spend time, energy, money, mentoring, building up advertising, building a new city, just to have that individual, you know, use our company as a launch. We want it to be we want to hire people who have a career that they love or that's fulfilling, but they they want to do this line of work because they love it and they want a little side hustle, so we try to mitigate that risk from a business standpoint, straight from the game? Yeah, absolutely no. That makes total sense. And then what would you say in terms of like yourself, obviously, you started off with your friend who was the efficient what were the first steps that you took where you thought we want to grow this business? Was it because you realized there was a lot more demand there, or was it just something that you wanted, you know, to give something to other people? Was it just a purely business move like, what was your your kind of driving force? We were turning people away? Yeah, when we started in 2010 unfortunately, there were still many Unknown Speaker 12:17 officiants, you know, celebrants that wouldn't marry queer people and and, yeah, yeah. And so because people hold a religious license, and perhaps their religion isn't a support of it, even if the individual is, the licensing body might not be. And so they weren't allowed. And so we didn't like the fact that we were turning people away. So what was happening is people would want us to marry them. We're sorry don't have availability. And they're like, Oh, please, like you have anybody. And we're like, okay, we need to grow. It was never an attention. It was never it was never a goal to start an agency or to start a company that could, you know, officiate people for people, but because of the need and because people were really wanted us to work with them that kind of we grew out of necessity. Yeah, absolutely. And then, how does it work for your couples then? Because obviously, if they're coming to you as as you know, it's a group of celebrants, do they get to choose who it is that they that they have to marry them? Or is that something you choose for them? Like, how does that all work? No, they get they always get to choose. So we're big on choice, meaning, you know, we're only going to say the things you want us to say. We're not going to include elements of your at your ceremony that you don't want us to say. And again, people will build a connection with someone, you know. They'll see someone at a wedding, or they'll be recommended by a local vendor. And so they'll come to us and say, you know, we want to get married on June 7. Who do you have available? So we'll give them a list. Okay, we have, you know, these four officiants available. They'll kind of go on their profiles. They'll have a zoom call with them, have a connection, you know, field test. And then typically, after that, maybe they meet with 123, sometimes it's like, okay, yeah, you know, Sean's our guy. We're going to move forward with Sean or, you know, or sometimes they meet with multiple people our team, and like, you know, this is not a good fit for us. And then we'll, we're happy to pass them on to our other colleagues in the industry that don't work for us. You know, at the end of the day, people, we really believe that people should get married in the way that they want to get married. They should be represented how they want to be represented. So as much as we want to earn their business, if it's not a good fit, it's not a good fit, and we've always approached it from that perspective, and it's, it's always served us. Well, yeah, perfect. And I think, exactly like you said, people should be able to choose and have that choice, and I think that's what's such a driving force for celebrants over here in the UK, because, although we don't hold the legal license, actually their choices with, you know, if they want to have a legal ceremony, their choices are the church or a registrar, and a registrar kind of has one script that they insert names into. Nothing's really adapted to them. Nothing's made exactly and it just makes you feel like, well, why should you have to do it that way? Your ceremony should represent you and set that vibe for the rest of your day. And and like I say, a lot of the weddings here, it's kind of like it is the whole big day. So. Unknown Speaker 15:00 Actually having a ceremony that feels like them just carries through, and everyone's on such a high after that to through to the drinks reception, the meal, the evening party. Like, exactly like you say, it's just kind of about that choice. And are your celebrants all quite different? Or would you say that they're people that are maybe similar in personality to you? Like, how do you kind of vet people that are joining your team? Unknown Speaker 15:21 The biggest thing is Love for All right, so we're going to celebrate all love in all its forms for all people. Meaning, you know, if people are attached to a certain definition in marriage, or if they're attached to ceremony, should look this way, not a great fit. So we get to be a little bit of a chameleon in that sense. And so we have a saying in our company where we say, we want your wedding to feel better than it looks, right? And so we kind of start from there, because, as you were mentioning, a wedding without a ceremony is just a party. And so we believe the ceremony should service the wedding. And when that happens, right? When, when we're able to deliver a ceremony that's authentic to who the couple are, then when the guests are leaving them, instead of being like, okay, like, That guy can talk like, when does the party billing? Kind of get a drink, you know, they're saying, Man, these two are so perfect together. I'm so excited to be here. Like, what a beautiful couple, right? So when we when we do ceremonies, when we look for people, that's what we're looking for. We're looking for people that are interested in serving right, as much as this is a position of power, which it is right, we were licensing, we're marrying people. This is not about us. This is not the officiate show. This is about the couple. So we're looking for people that want to serve couples and allow them to be celebrated, however they want to be celebrated, and whatever that looks like. Yeah, I love that. That's awesome. So then, in terms of, like, actually writing the script, would it still work in the same way as it would over here, where, you know, your officiants meet with the couple, they get to know them, they write the script. Or do you kind of have, I guess, like, a template that you would use across the company to make sure you kind of all got a similar vibe? Like, do you still have that, you know, one on one, starting from scratch, or is it done slightly differently? Yeah, so we have some different packages. Some couples are interested in having their love story just put out throughout the day. So what we're doing is what we're getting to know the couple. So some couples like, No, we don't want a custom script. So we have some templated scripts that they could choose from, right? So with an elopement, or maybe with a classic ceremony, that's kind of what it is, and we still customize it a bit, so they still get to see the script and be like, don't, please don't say this. Yeah, yeah, we add this in, absolutely. But we're not starting from scratch. We have a custom ceremony, though, where we do begin from scratch. So what we'll do is we will interview our couples, get to know them. We'll interview a couple friends and family members. We'll do a deep dive into their relationship, and then we'll write that ceremony from scratch. But we again, we give our couples a choice. I want to do that. I just want to get married. So we'll send them a script, then make a few tweaks, a few edits, nothing major, and then we'll marry them in that regard. Yeah, so, yeah, depending on the package they choose. Again, it's all about the couple. They get the choice, and then we'll fall we call it the big agenda. So big A agenda comes from the couple we fall underneath that agenda in services them to make sure that their ceremony, their wedding, is everything that they want it to be and nothing that they don't. Wow, I love that. And have you got any kind of standout ceremonies that you just remember, that you're like, I will remember this day forever, like any, like, absolute favorite ceremonies you've done, or some maybe for not the right, I did a Harry Potter. I did a Harry Potter. One had an owl fly the ring down during the wedding ceremony. Oh my gosh, that's amazing. Yeah, it was amazing. So I had to wear like a big, a big raptor glove. And the owl, Unknown Speaker 18:45 the owl game was Hagrid, flew down. I caught the owl on my arm. I had the rings tied around its Talon. I did some flash magic when they did their vows. So I had this flash paper, and then out came the vows. You know, we incorporated a bunch of quotes from Harry Potter. It was really incredible Unknown Speaker 19:05 experience. Yeah, and then many theme weddings, you know, from Lord of the Rings to, you know, Halloween weddings, Unknown Speaker 19:13 you know, steampunk. So those ones often stand out because they're people are just thinking way outside the box. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I think that's the thing. Really. It's whatever fits you, whatever is your thing. Let's just go for it. And really, you know, put your stamp on it. And I think couples are having more fun nowadays. They're experimenting more. They are thinking outside the box. And you know what their aunties tell them that they should have done for their wedding day? Actually, they're not really paying much attention to that now, and they're seeing it be done differently. And what about any like, any like, highlights and perhaps maybe challenges in the role, like, what are your kind of favorite and not so favorite things about doing this job? Unknown Speaker 19:53 Um, man, there's not a lot of not favorite. Unknown Speaker 19:58 I love this business. Unknown Speaker 20:00 The Love, you know, the challenges of running the company, right? That's the big thing, and running a team. You know, I never set out on this journey to run, you know, a big international team. And so that for me, you know, as the founder and owner of the company, is splitting my time between, you know, doing weddings, because people, you know, I've been doing this for a long time. So often people want me to come to their wedding, and I can't say yes to everything. I have four kids and a busy life, and so that can be hard sometimes to say no. You know, that kind of work balance sort of thing. You know, working pretty much every weekend. You know, through I can work every weekend, all year long, if I wanted to and so learning to carve all the time. So I have to book my life like 18 months in advance, you know. So we have weddings booked all the way into early of 2027 Yeah. So we're booking, like, way far out. So that can be a challenge. But really the highlights are getting to just kind of be, Unknown Speaker 21:00 you know, bookmark in these couples lives, you know, to be there, it's such a position of privilege to, you know, be handed a microphone by these two strangers on one of the most important days of their lives, and get this opportunity to help them make their commitments in a way that feels authentic to them. You know, it's, it's such a privilege, and, yeah, it's a real honor. But you know that for me, the celebrancy side of things is does not really pose much of a challenge. Yeah, you know, it was to be honest. You know, there are some days right, where maybe I'm having a hard day, or, you know, you know, the wife and I, we had a bit of a spat in the morning, and then you how to go to a wedding, yeah, and you've got to turn it on so absolutely. Unknown Speaker 21:44 And so, you know, I do a little meditation before I get out the car and go, you know? And, you know, I just tell myself, Okay, I'm in service of this couple, and you kind of have to put your own feelings, emotions, what's going on for you on the back burner, in service of the couple. And I think because I've done it for a long time, that's a skill that I've developed. But when you begin, you know it doesn't matter. You don't get the option to be off. You really don't. And so you have to do some good self managing in that regard. So because you can't show up, this job is so much it's about authenticity. It's about showing up authentically and being present. So if you're in your head, or you're having a tough day, or something's going on like that, can be a real learning curve for people who are getting into this, who are like, Oh man, like having a rough week, or something happens personally, and you don't get to cancel, you don't get to phone in sick, like you get to go and you're on and you have to show up, and so that can be a challenge for people that are just starting out. Yeah, I agree, definitely. And I think exactly like you touched on before, it's it's finding that work life balance, isn't it? Because I think it's like, it's so easy to say yes to them all, because we just love doing what we do. And you know, these inquiries come in, you're like, Oh, well, I meant to be doing that, but I could maybe go and do the wedding and then go and do that afterwards, like it's just so hard to say no, because you love it so much. And you know how much joy the role brings and how much joy those wedding days bring. So I do think that's absolutely something. I'm same as you. You know, two kids, not four. So hats off to you, Sean, because four is incredible. But I think that's the thing I'm learning balancing family life around the role that gets super busy. And obviously this time of year, you know, I'm just on the cusp of a really, really full on wedding season, right up until October. I think is my next free Saturday. But actually it's then like, you know, balancing that with the family. Whereas I think next year I'm going to try and say yes to more weekday weddings and not take us on as many Saturdays, so that I can, you know, have those weekends now and again dotted in with the full family, and it just tops you up and kind of keeps you going through through that busy season. Really Unknown Speaker 23:54 sounds like you need to add a few members to your team? Yeah? I think so maybe that's what I need to do. I think, yeah, I do, I feel like, actually, that is something that I would absolutely love to do. And you know, something that I do feel is next because also, exactly like you said earlier, it's when you get people asking, and you have to say, No, it's the worst thing to have to say, Oh, I'm already booked, or I can't do that day. It's just you never want to let anyone down. Do you want to say yes to it all? And it's like a drug. We just love it. Unknown Speaker 24:21 We love it. Yeah, absolutely. And you know, especially when couples really want to work with you, you know it's, it's hard, it's hard to turn them down. Yeah, absolutely. What do you think something that you've learned from doing this role, what has like being an officiant taught you Unknown Speaker 24:36 love looks, love comes in all different Unknown Speaker 24:41 forms. It truly does. And you know, as someone who grew up, you know, evangelical and really deconverted from their faith, you know, I was taught a very specific way of what marriage is and what love is, you know, from a very young age. And so you're really deconverting from that and learning to celebrate come. Unknown Speaker 25:00 Couples in all their forms, whether that be a large age gap, or queer couples or trans couples or couples of different faith, religions. You know, interfaith weddings are some of my favorite to do. You know, whether it's, you know a Buddhist marrying a Jewish person of faith, or you know, a Sikh marrying a Christian and bringing those two faith based together, and this couple have found love for each other despite, you know, these big beliefs. And so it really has opened my eyes to just the way that love shows up for people. And there's no there's no one way to do it. And so I think that's one of the gifts that it's really given me, is just getting to see the world and getting to know people from on a really deep level. It's taught me so much, and it's been a huge gift for me. It Unknown Speaker 25:51 just makes the world more beautiful because I'm able to see it, see it in all its forms. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that appreciation exactly like you say, and that's why, because over here in the UK, we have independent celebrants, and then we have humanist celebrants. So humanist practice, you know, humanism, which there are a lot of things about humanism that I love and I really agree with, but one of the big things is that it's an atheist kind of culture. So actually, for me, exactly like you said, I wanted to be able to offer ceremonies to those who are, perhaps interfaith couples. And I think having that awareness of that is just incredible. And like being able to see all these, you know, new traditions and new cultures and just Yeah, it's opened my eyes to a whole new world of all kind of that side of ceremonies as well, which is just amazing. Unknown Speaker 26:39 Vancouver is such a beautiful melting pot of cultures. And so learning about different faiths, you know, I've done Persian weddings and Filipino weddings with the Arras and the coins, and, you know, Hispanic weddings with the lasso. And, you know, we've done some Catholic style weddings. And just being able to bring in these traditions for couples and learn them, right? You know, Unknown Speaker 27:02 I've not done this before. May let me look into it, and they get to be my teachers. Okay? This is how you do it. And, you know, me getting to learn, and coming up with a script for them and sharing it with them, and allowing them to tweak it and edit it. But then, no, I have that in kind of my bag of tricks, you know, for next time I get a Persian couple, or whether it be a Filipino couple, you know, and every time I think I've learned at all, there's something else. Unknown Speaker 27:26 There's something new. Is there been a favorite, you know, symbolic element that you've included in the ceremony? Is there something that really stands out? Again, you mentioned loads there, and some of them that I've never heard of. So like, Are there any that you think that was really special? Unknown Speaker 27:42 I feel popular which, I think, which is a beautiful one, absolutely, where we kind of bind the couple's hands together with, you know, the colored ribbon into the cord. The Filipino one is really fun, you know, the coins and the Arras. It's just this beautiful Filipino tradition where they get wrapped together. We've done some indigenous, you know, ceremonies for people here, where they'll get, they'll bring in, you know, an elder to do a smudging and a blanket wrapping. Yeah, it's really powerful, especially because a lot of the weddings we do here are on, you know, unceded territories of the indigenous people. So getting to do a land acknowledgement, and getting to acknowledge the indigenous heritage of the beautiful land that we get to do the weddings on. It's pretty special. And again, you could feel it, you know, there's just something when it's done, right? It's just like, oh, like, this is powerful. And I think the art of ceremony has really been lost. You know, there's, there's not an often a time in our lives these days where we gather around with all of our favorite people. We get to put our devices away, and we get to take part in a ceremony that this, this, you know, as people move further and further away from organized religion, I think the art of ceremony is get is getting lost, right? But it's so fun to see couples coming back to that and really taking a moment to be like something special is happening here, Unknown Speaker 29:09 and then creating the space to make that happen. Yeah, I think that being present is so true. It's like, it's not something that we get to do much nowadays. We're in such a busy world. And I mean, look, everything's always right in front of us all here, ready to go. So I think exactly like you say, just switching off and being in that moment. And I'm so happy because a lot of the couples here will go for an unplugged ceremony. So it's like, at the start, you know, phones away. We don't we literally just want you to witness this with your eyes. And it's so nice having that feeling, because it's the couple's favorite people in the whole world, all in one place. How often is that going to happen? Like it's just, yeah, it's just so special, isn't it? It is incredible. It's incredibly special. It's a real honor. Yeah, it really is. So finally, Sean, before we wrap up, you've been amazing. And I say this to everyone, but I do always find myself getting carried away, and I could just sit here for another hour chatting away. Unknown Speaker 30:00 But what is your one piece of advice that you would give to anyone who's kind of considering becoming a celebrant? Unknown Speaker 30:08 Man? There's so much to do so as you go down this road, you know, you get your training to this sort of stuff. So what I love to tell my officiants that come train with us, it's as much about what you say as it is about how you say it. And so anyone can read a script, right? And scripting is becoming easier and easier and easier. There's so many tools out there to come up with unique and fun wedding scripts, and that's one element, but the way you deliver a script is so different because it's the emphasis, it's the words, it's the heart, it's the soul that you put into speaking those words. And I'll often see it at a at a wedding, when a couple does, picks a friend or family member, do a reading, and this couple will come up and they'll just kind of do the reading verbatim, right? So, but your tonality and your pausing and the way that you speak, you have the ability to take people on a journey. So as you get into this line of work, I always tell my officiates, take time to really find your voice and the message you want to convey through the words that you're speaking. Because when I'm doing say a welcome part of a ceremony that I'm intentionally talking a little bit quicker, I'm adding a little bit more tonality to my voice. We're moving up and down. Welcome everybody who's excited to be here. This is amazing, right? Versus, you know, maybe when we go into the intent to marriage, we're going to slow it down a little bit, you know. And anyone can read a script, but how you say things makes a big difference. You know? We could say, you know, happiness in marriage is not something that just happens. Good marriages, they must be created. Or we could say, happiness to marriage you two is not something that just happens. Good marriages like good relationships like yours, they truly are created. So you the difference in how you say the words makes all the difference. You want people hanging on your words, so you want to practice that skill of delivery, because that is what Unknown Speaker 32:09 distinguishes like a great celebrant from just a good celebrant. Anybody can read a script, but what we want to do is we want to bring life into those words and draw the guests in. You are not imparting information on the guests. What you want to do is you want to, like, reach your hands around in the back room, and you want to bring them in just using your voice and using your words so good, honestly, one of my favorite quotes, and I've got it up on my pin board in my office that every time I'm typing, I look up at it and it says, people may not remember what you said, but they'll always remember how you made them feel. And it's Maya Angelou who said it first. But I just love that, and that is something that I come out of every ceremony and think, yeah, it's that feeling. It's creating that feeling. And they won't remember the words, you know, word for word, but actually they'll remember how they felt in that ceremony. Oh, Sean, it's been so great to have you on. Thank you. Honestly, we could jam forever. Yeah, I feel like you've got to come back for round two. So for now, if people have seen you on the podcast, you know they're hooked. They want to find out more about you. Where can people find you? Unknown Speaker 33:15 Type in young, hip and married. We're easy to find. Instagram, Tiktok. Come to the website. Keep an eye out on YouTube. You know, we're trying to be everywhere, young, hip and married, calm. Start there. Shoot me a DM, would love to connect with you? Yeah, definitely. And if you ever in the Cotswolds, let me know, because we'll have to go and work on a wedding together. Unknown Speaker 33:36 I would love it. I would love it. And you know, we get often asked to come to the UK for weddings, and so now I can have a celebrant in my back and I could send them over to your wife. Absolutely, absolutely. Well. Thank you so much, Sean, and thank you for getting in touch. And it's been lovely to have you on and good luck with everything. Thank you so much for having me. This was amazing. You. Transcribed by https://otter.ai