The Assumptions We Carry Into Every Consultation
We all have assumptions. Every single one of us. The question isn’t whether we make them. The question is whether we’re aware of them. And whether we’re willing to challenge them. Assumptions in celebrant practice are one of the places where the gap between intention and impact is widest.
Because most of the time, when a celebrant makes an assumption that leaves someone feeling unseen or misunderstood, they had absolutely no idea they were doing it. The assumption was so familiar, so embedded, that it didn’t feel like an assumption at all. It just felt like common sense.
That’s what makes this work so important and so ongoing.
What assumptions actually are
An assumption is a belief we hold, about a person, a situation, or a way of doing things, that we treat as fact without actually checking whether it’s true. Assumptions are often based on stereotypes, past experience, or the simple limits of our own perspective. They are a completely normal part of how human minds work, which is why challenging them requires conscious effort rather than just good intentions.
In celebrant work, assumptions show up in three main forms:
Stereotypical assumptions are the ones we make based on someone’s perceived identity – their race, their age, their gender, their apparent faith or background. Assuming, for instance, that an older couple will want a more traditional ceremony. Or that a same-sex couple won’t want any religious elements. Assuming that a family from a particular cultural background will want to incorporate certain rituals, or conversely, that they won’t.
Cultural assumptions arise from the norms and values of our own background, which we sometimes apply to people from very different backgrounds without realising it. What counts as a respectful silence, an appropriate level of emotion, a suitable way to address people – all vary across cultures in ways that can catch us off guard if we’re not paying attention.
Personal assumptions are the ones rooted in our own individual experience – our family of origin, the ceremonies we’ve attended, the relationships we’ve been part of. If every wedding you attended growing up looked a certain way, it’s natural that this shapes your sense of what a wedding looks like. The challenge is when that shapes what you assume your client’s wedding should look like.
Where assumptions create harm in celebrant practice
The specific harm assumptions cause in our work isn’t usually dramatic. It’s rarely a moment of obvious offence. More often it’s the slow accumulation of small signals. A phrase here, a question framed a certain way there, a structure that doesn’t quite fit. That tells someone their life doesn’t map neatly onto the ceremony being designed for them.
The consultation questionnaire that assumes a linear love story, a conventional family, a clear hierarchy of who matters most. A grieving family who has lost someone to addiction, or suicide, or in circumstances that don’t fit a tidy narrative, who sense that the form wasn’t written with their situation in mind.
The celebrant who meets a couple and unconsciously addresses more of their questions to one partner – perhaps the one who seems more confident, or who matches their assumptions about who makes decisions.
The ceremony structure that assumes a level of physical mobility in its rituals – lighting candles, exchanging rings, standing at the front – without first asking who is there and what they need.
The consultation that doesn’t leave space for the client to bring something unexpected. Where the questions are so structured that there’s no opening for someone to say “actually, our situation is a bit different from what you might expect.”
What it looks like to challenge your assumptions
Challenging assumptions in celebrant practice means cultivating the habit of pausing before you fill in the gaps, and asking rather than assuming.
It means designing your processes in ways that are open enough to accommodate the full range of human experience, rather than implicitly assuming a particular kind of life.
It means being genuinely comfortable saying “I’m not familiar with that tradition. Can you help me understand what it would mean to you?” Rather than either avoiding it or ploughing ahead with your best guess.
And it means, when you realise mid-conversation that you’ve made an assumption that didn’t fit, you acknowledge it gracefully and course-correct. Without excessive self-flagellation, and without making the client feel they’ve done something wrong by not fitting your mental model.
One of the reflection questions we use in our Inclusion and Diversity training asks: Can you acknowledge your assumptions without shame? That phrasing is deliberate. Not without awareness. Not without accountability. But without shame. Because shame tends to shut down learning rather than open it up.
A different kind of listening
The deepest shift that comes from doing this work is a change in the quality of your listening. When you’re genuinely committed to challenging your assumptions, you stop listening primarily to confirm what you already think, and start listening to discover what you didn’t yet know.
That shift, from confirmatory listening to curious listening is, I think, one of the most important things any celebrant can develop. It makes you better at your craft and better at serving the people in front of you. And it’s something you can practise in every consultation, every meeting, every ceremony you create.
Assumptions in celebrant practice will never disappear entirely. But awareness of them, and a genuine commitment to questioning them, makes a profound difference. Not just to the people you serve, but to the celebrant you become.
Our CPD-accredited Inclusion and Diversity module includes a full section on understanding and challenging assumptions, with reflection exercises designed to deepen your awareness. Find out more on the website.
If you’re new to celebrancy and wondering whether values-led training is available, I’d love to talk. Book an Informed Decision Session — and come with your questions.
Warmly, Dinah