A Wikipedia entry :
In the United States and Canada, a celebrant is a person who performs religious or secular celebrancy services for weddings, funerals, child namings, coming of age ceremonies, and other rituals. Some Celebrants are ordained clergy, while others are Officiants empowered by the Humanist Association of Canada (HAC), the American Humanist Association (AHA), or the Society for Humanistic Judaism. (SHJ). In Australia, where Celebrants are commonly hired, they may be certified by any one of a number of Celebrancy training programs.
Celebrants may perform alternative and nontraditional ceremonies in places, and under circumstances where mainstream religious clergy will not. Celebrants, also called Officiants, often perform ceremonies in parks, on beaches, on boats, on hiking trails, in hotels, in banquet halls, in private homes, and many other places.
Laws in each state of the United States vary about who has the right to perform wedding ceremonies, but Celebrants or Officiants are usually categorized as "clergy" and have the same rights and responsibilities as ordained clergy. In Canada and in the US States where same-sex unions are legally recognized, Celebrants and Officiants perform many LGBT weddings.
What is a Celebrant?
“The primary work of a rite of passage is to ensure that we attend to such events fully, which is to say, spiritually, psychologically, and socially.”
Robert L. Grimes
“Ritual carries us into the belly of the change process, encouraging us to embrace it instead of allowing us to become distracted or (to) run away.”
Kathleen Wall and Gary Ferguson
“This is the purpose of creative ritual – increasing balance and connection in ourselves, with one another, the world, and with the larger rhythms and energies that bring stability and light to our lives.”
Renee Beck and Sydney Barbara Metrick
About_Celebrants
