and Why I Think You Should Too
Over the past few weeks I’ve been working through my response to “Tying the Knot: Reforming Weddings Law in England and Wales”. It’s the government’s consultation on the biggest change to wedding law in almost two hundred years. It closes on 24 September, and if you haven’t looked at it yet, I want to encourage you to.
I’m not going to give you my answers to copy. The people running this consultation have said plainly that they can tell when responses have been coordinated or templated, and they don’t weight them the same as an individual voice. What I want to share instead is how I thought about it, in case it helps you work out what you think.
Independent officiants deserve proper legal recognition
This is the heart of my response. At the moment, legal recognition for belief-based ceremonies is only really available through registered belief organisations, humanist bodies and religious groups. Independent celebrants, who aren’t affiliated with a single faith or worldview, are left out.
I pointed the government towards Scotland, where this exact model has already played out. Legal recognition there went almost entirely to belief-body-affiliated celebrants, and independent celebrants still can’t solemnise marriages at all. That’s left a real gap for the growing number of mixed-faith, interfaith and no-faith couples who don’t belong to a single organisation but still want a ceremony that reflects who they actually are. Independent celebrants are often the ones best placed to serve exactly that group, and I don’t want England and Wales to recreate a gap that Scotland is already living with.
Training quality should be the real test, not paperwork
The consultation proposes a “fit and proper” test for officiants, but as drafted it focuses mostly on legal knowledge. I pushed back on that. Understanding the legal side of the role is necessary, but it doesn’t teach someone how to recognise coercion, assess whether a location or ceremony is genuinely dignified, or work sensitively across different traditions for a couple who don’t fit one box. Those are the skills that actually protect couples, and they come from proper training, not from a certificate that only covers the legal formalities.
I asked the government to make sure recognition is tied to demonstrable training quality, things like external accreditation and CPD, rather than simply whether someone has completed some course somewhere.
Different people learn differently, and the standard shouldn’t punish that
One part of the consultation asks whether membership organisations should be the ones delivering training. I don’t think they should, and I said so. Training is a specialism in its own right, and it’s better left to providers who’ve built and refined it properly.
I also made the point that training routes need to work for real people, not just one type of learner. Group cohort courses don’t suit everyone. Some people, myself included in how I’ve built my own programme, learn far better through one-to-one or self-paced formats. I asked the government to make sure the standard is defined by what someone can actually demonstrate they’ve learned, not by which format they learned it in. And for celebrants who trained years ago and have real experience behind them, I asked for a fair bridging route rather than forcing everyone to start again from scratch.
Trust trained judgement over rigid lists
A few questions in the consultation propose fixed lists, of acceptable ceremony rituals, of “trivialising” activities to avoid, and so on. I pushed back on this wherever it came up. Lists get tested, gamed and outdated. What actually protects the dignity of a ceremony is a well-trained officiant exercising real judgement about the couple in front of them, not a couple ticking their way down a government checklist.
Officiants are often the ones who notice something’s wrong
Throughout my response, I kept coming back to one point: officiants, especially those conducting ceremonies in private homes, are often the only trained, external person in the room. I asked the government to recognise us as a genuine route for safeguarding concerns to surface, not just registrars, because most couples have far more contact with their officiant in the run-up to the day than with anyone else in this process.
If you haven’t responded yet
You don’t need to answer every question, and you don’t need to have a view on all of it. Pick the parts that matter to your own experience and write a few honest paragraphs in your own words. The consultation closes on 24 September, and you can respond directly at [consult.justice.gov.uk].
This is a genuine chance to shape what this profession looks like for the next generation of celebrants. I’d love for as many of you as possible to have your say.
Warmly,
Dinah She/Her