Births, marriages and deaths

One ceremony leads to another…

Celebrancy is the business of family and friends, of ties and traditions, of love and loss, of rituals and meaning-making, of sharing stories and creating memories. Here’s what happens…

BIRTHS

I did a baby naming for the lovely Maeve - my nephew Tom’s daughter. The ceremony was at Maeve’s granny’s house in Girvan. A few years ago, I married Tom and his wife Rachel - now living in London - ‘back home’  in the Rhins of Galloway where both Tom and I grew up. I’ve since married Tom’s best man and another couple of Tom and Rachel’s mutual friends who were at their wedding.

That’s how this thing works. I love that we weave links together that build and layer over the years.

MARRIAGES

Outdoor marriages are fabulous, if high risk.

I married Iain - the son of another of my siblings - and Kirsten on the beach at Port Logan. Kirsten was nearing the end of her pregnancy and looked radiant in her white dress. How far we’ve come…  no more shame-making society… able to celebrate love and childbearing properly - the Humanist way.

I married Mohammed and Anna Marta in the woods of Roslin Glen. An unlikely setting for this Egyptian- and Latvian-born couple. Saying their own heartfelt words of love to each other with friends, fizz and flowers in their hair, this was my ideal sort of ceremony. Properly doing it their own way.

I was thrilled to marry Anna and Kyle in West Brewery. Anna came to stay with us for a retreat week with her new baby a year or so ago. I was first to cuddle her baby to sleep. When she and Kyle later decided to marry, they asked me to conduct the ceremony. What a joy. Their ceremony was carefully planned with baby support built in for other young parents there.

We seed so many connections as we go. We craft our ceremonies with care and love.