Once Upon A Wedding Humanist Officiant Service

Today was a big day for me. I did my first Memorial. The Humanist Assoc. of Ottawa is looking to expand Humanistic type services in the area, and asked me if I did memorials. Since these days, I rarely say No to any challenge, I said I would give it a try. A family contacted me through the HAO website to officiate the memorial of their late brother, who died on May 20. I met with his sister, gleaned what info I could, and put together a nice eulogy. Lucky for me, this person ...was a wonderful guy, great brother and Fun Uncle, loved by all. I threw in quotes from Bertrand Russel, greek philosophers, even Jerry Seinfeld, from memory. I got into this ceremony business because of this reason: I always hated religious funerals, where they talked about the religion 99%, and the deceased 1%. I talk about the dearly departed and his family ties 100%. I felt pretty confident, as I have now done over 60 weddings, and have NO problems speaking in front of an audience! All those years I was overly chatty, and talked too much? That was just practice for this phase of my life. Can't wait to do the next one. The 32 weddings I have still to do this summer will keep me in good form. I am marrying off my nephew Bryan to his sweetie on June 16. Gonna be a good summer! See more

Good morning Fans! What a season this has been. 20 weddings in, about 14 to go. Sheesh! Met lots of beautiful happy people, and tried my hardest to bring on a few tears of joy. Drama Queen 101! If any of you have friends out there getting married, please let them know of the range of fees that we charge. $160 at city hall, but you must wait for an appointment, and you can only bring 8 others. So that is a bartender and 7 others! Most charge about $250-450, and provide a good range of services. One charges 580, but only pays the officiant 160. Nice coin for taking a phone call! Some charge 800+. For that, you better get a chapel, custom made script, music of your choice and a whack of other services, or you are being taken advantage of. Cheers!

Secular and Humanist weddings: Best idea since sliced bread!

This is a definitely a thing! I officiated a wedding last year where the groom had a best friend who just happened to be a woman, so she was asked to be a "Groomswoman". She was a big hit at the wedding. A friend is a friend is a friend! We need more stuff like this.

We've teamed up with our patron Stephen Fry to produce this animated introduction to why so many people from all walks of life are choosing to have humanist wed...dings, funerals, and namings from Humanist Ceremonies. The video comes out just as polling released today reveals that 15 million people in Britain have been to a humanist ceremony and that 14% of Britons say they want a humanist funeral when they die. So why are humanist ceremonies becoming so popular? As Stephen says, 'In an age when more and more people live their lives without religion, humanist ceremonies offer a contemporary way of satisfying the timeless need to bring significance to life’s big changes.'