Namings, vow renewals and everything else
The ceremonies nobody mentions you're allowed to have.
A naming ceremony is a christening without the religion: a chance to say out loud who this child is, who is going to look out for them, and what you hope for them. Grandparents who were braced for a church service tend to be the ones who cry.
The same goes for the rest of it. Thirty years of marriage. A step-family becoming one family. A house you are leaving. A friend emigrating. A divorce that deserves a full stop rather than a silence. If it matters, it is worth marking properly, and it does not have to be solemn to be serious.
New arrivals
Naming ceremonies
For a new baby, an adopted child, a step-child joining a family, or an older child who never had anything. Promises from the parents, promises from the people you choose instead of godparents, and something for the older siblings to do so they are not standing about. Twenty-five minutes, and then cake.
Still here
Vow renewals and anniversaries
Ten, twenty-five, forty years. Couples who eloped and never had the day. Couples who had the day but were too terrified to take any of it in. Couples who have been through something hard and want to say so in front of the people who helped. Your children can give you away, which is worth the fee on its own.
Everything else
And the ones with no name
A blessing for a baby born early who is now four. A leaving ceremony for a family moving abroad. A house warming with actual words in it. A divorce marked honestly so that two people can be in the same room afterwards. Bring me the idea and I will tell you honestly whether I think it will work.
Fees
Agreed before anything is written, with travel inside Sussex included.
Naming ceremony
One child or several, at home or anywhere else.
- A visit to meet everyone, free and with no obligation
- Ceremony written around your family
- Promises for parents and for the people you choose
- A job for each of the older children
- Printed certificate and script to keep
Vow renewal
An anniversary, or just getting through it.
- A first meeting, free and with no obligation
- Ceremony written around your years together
- New vows, or the original ones said properly this time
- Printed script to keep
Something else
A blessing, a leaving, a beginning, an ending.
- A conversation first, to work out whether it needs a ceremony at all
- Fee agreed once we both know what it is
- Some ideas do not need a celebrant, and I will say so
Questions about namings and renewals
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It does the same job without the religion and without the church. There is no baptism and no godparents in the legal sense, though you can appoint guide parents, supporting adults, or whatever you want to call them.
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None, and neither does a christening. It does not change the birth certificate and it does not create any legal guardianship. It is a public promise in front of the people who will hold you to it.
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Yes. A prayer, a blessing, a reading from any tradition. Families are mixed, and a ceremony that quietly includes everyone is usually the one that goes best.
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Any age. Six weeks, six years, sixteen. Older children often want a part in writing it, which makes for a better ceremony than anything I would come up with.
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Twenty to twenty-five minutes, which is about as long as a toddler and a room full of relatives can be relied upon.
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Yes, and it is a common request. The version with your own people in it tends to be the one you remember.
Tell me what you are marking
A date, a place and a line about the occasion is plenty. If it is one of the odd ones, all the better.