Are you a celebrant considering
- offering Funerals, Memorials, Pre-funeral Planning, Life Story Recording in addition to your current range of ceremonies?
- being a part-time or full-time celebrant specialising in loss and grief related ceremonies and associated services?
Professional Funeral celebrants is a term usually used to cover celebrants who offer loss and grief related ceremonies and associated services.
The Celebrants Network Inc welcomes civil marriage celebrants who want to expand their range of services to their communities.
However, The Celebrants Network does not require you to be an Authorised Marriage Celebrant.
Specialising as a funeral celebrant may be an option for those authorised marriage celebrants who want to continue to offer services to their communities but who have decided to resign their appointments as Commonwealth Marriage Celebrants.
If this is you, then we encourage you to join our national professional celebrant association.
You will have access to all our member benefits including entry/s in our Celebrant Directory.
We offer a free extra Celebrant Directory entry for Memorial and Funeral Celebrants, who are also marriage celebrants, enabling you to tailor your funeral entry appropriately,
OR
We offer a second entry in addition to your funerals/memorials Celebrant Directory entry for Memorial and Funeral Celebrants, who are not marriage celebrants, but who do offer naming and/or other ceremonies - you can tailor this entry appropriately,
The Celebrants Network recommends that you
- take out Insurance and Copyright cover for your work, and
- continue to do ongoing professional development activities, though not necessarily those that the Attorney General requires of Marriage Celebrants,
eg Learning days, or attendance at conferences or network meetings
The way of the future for professional civil celebrants
The Celebrants Network Inc recognises the special challenge independent civil celebrants have to be able to operate as professionals with remuneration matched to the quality of the services they provided.
Many factors create huge challenges:
- excessive competition for wedding work. The average income of the sector is $6,600 pa gross
- the public's perception that independent civil celebrants are 'over-priced' or not worth their fees
- the lack of community education by celebrants themselves to raise the awareness of the value of personalised civil ceremonies
- the power of the funeral industry to determine remuneration for independent celebrants and act as a gateway to limit access to funeral celebrant work
On the positive side, there are
- changing attitudes in Australian society to the way families deal with death and the farewell of loved ones,
- the baby boomer sector turing age 60 to 2023 and age 80 to 2033 - a 15 year marketing / servicing oportunity, and
- opportunities for independent civil celebrants to expand their role as family and community celebrants so they build positive relationships to bring word of mouth referrals directly to them
The Celebrants Network Inc recommends all professional celebrants:
- be trained in funeral work and
- work with other members on a range of projects to increase public awareness of the range of funeral options they have in creating a meaningful, respectful and beautiful farewell to a loved family member or friend.