The Celebrants

Not so long ago if the word celebrant was used at all it generally referred to a priest or local vicar performing the marriage ceremony or officiating at a funeral. Today just about any milestone occasion worth raising a toast to can be presided over by a celebrant.

Life's markers can include life itself, commitment, interment, memorial unveilings, name giving (replacing the more formal religious baptism), pet namings, civil union ceremonies, renewing vows or (presumably just for two) celebrating elopement. Why, even croning and saging can generate the need to celebrate and if you know what they mean then raise your glass. You deserve to.

The Celebrants Association of New Zealand lists just 17 official celebrants in Northland, including the incumbent mayor of Whangarei, Morris Cutforth. It's a public service for which no training is officially required even if AUT in Auckland provides a sanctioned course. One merely applies to the Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages and undergoes a fairly stringent interview process to become a registered celebrant - but that's only for weddings. Anyone can conduct a funeral or indeed any other celebratory occasion.

Most celebrants, though, have sincere altruistic reasons for wanting to give up their weekends to officiate. One of the region's newest celebrants is well-known Morefm Bay of Islands breakfast host Pete Gentil who, following his own wedding before a celebrant two years ago and in recognising his 'brand' as a master of ceremonies, thought being a celebrant would be a 'happy addition to my portfolio'. In fact, as he explains, there is remarkably little legal requirement for a wedding celebrant to adhere to.

"You have to say 'do you name take name to be your lawful wedded wife (and husband)' and that's it. It is not a legal requirement to actually say the vows and you don't even need to pronounce them officially as man and wife."

By choice, he is only conducting weddings. Christine Impey of Kerikeri, on the other hand, conducts weddings, funerals, naming rights or anything else that might be nominated. She started her celebrant work 15 years ago and carried on when she moved to the Far North almost two years ago. She is a metaphysical facilitator, a healer and can, if asked, incorporate some of those esoteric philosophies into her ceremonies. To her, the 'sacredness' of the occasion is vitally important.

If it's a service, it's also a business. Probably because he's so well known in the Bay of Islands, Pete Gentil has been making contact with established wedding venues and restaurants to tell them he's now available for the work. Christine Impey relies on the My Wedding Guide website.

"Recently I had a call from Canada to conduct a wedding," she says. "They had been here and wanted to come back to be married. Others have come from Australia to be married in the Bay of Islands."

Some wedding venues, like the Fuller's catamaran 'Ipipiri' recommend celebrants and some of the more proactive celebrants are listed on the Tourism New Zealand website.

Maori celebrants have their specifically unique 'branding' as well as their own occasions - Matariki, the Maori New Year, and the unveiling of headstones spring to mind for instance. Tukaki Waititi from Kaikohe will conduct the wedding service in Maori if asked but says his most unique experience as a celebrant concerned a Jewish couple from Australia. He thinks they may have eloped.

"They were married in a plane circling above Kerikeri and then because they were sky divers they just leapt

out afterwards!"

With all this talk of weddings, what about a divorce ceremony? Yes, there is such a thing and according to Time's Newsfeed, the Japanese are leading the way. The ceremony that united the couple is strikingly similar to the one that cheers them apart - the dress, food for guests and a ritual involving rings - symbolically (and probably cathartically) smashing them to bits.

If the role of the priest or vicar has diminished as a celebrant's work has increased, what of the future? Christine Impey believes if celebrants are popular right now, it won't always be this way and that the relaxed mores of contemporary society will see a diminishing need for official or even semi-official blessings of celebration. People simply won't bother.