Crafting meaningful ceremonies for life’s most poignant rituals

Sarah Clarke – celebrant

A tour bus shudders to a wheezing halt under drizzling, grey March skies. Two Puerto Rican tourists disembark, and in swoops wedding celebrant Sarah Clarke, with a bouquet of flowers cradled in the crook of an elbow, a photographer hot on her heels.

Clarke had planned the impromptu ceremony in cahoots with the groom as a surprise for his unsuspecting bride. A damp layby in the shadow of Northumberland’s Alnwick Castle perhaps wasn’t the setting Clarke had in mind for her first, official outing as a celebrant, yet it epitomised everything about the job that she loves.

“It’s such a joy for me to give couples the wedding they want, and this was a really special moment,” she says. “Strange and lovely, and odd and memorable. It could have been random and weird, but the groom knew his partner so well. She was delighted – I don’t think I’ve ever seen a happier face.”

Couples are increasingly saying ‘I do’ to a more modern notion of matrimony as they plan their big day. Industry experts have identified celebrant weddings as the number one trend for 2024. The shift reflects both the diversity of 21st century relationships and the richness of multicultural Britain, with creative freedom, inclusivity and meaningful ceremony taking priority over clinging to the past.

Says Clarke: “Have you heard the quote: ‘Tradition is just peer pressure from dead, white guys?’ Some people are realising that they’re really not there to please everybody else. They’re there to represent who they are as a couple. They’re being brave and thinking: ‘Well, actually, we’d really like our day to be a bit different’.”

Clarke might never have found her calling if it hadn’t been for friends, Emma and Ash. She was on a career break from stints in magazine publishing and radio, enjoying raising her twins, when the couple asked her to lead their wedding. Clarke turned to Google for some know-how on crafting the perfect script, and on the day itself had to chill her nerves by loitering next to a sandwich fridge in a nearby cafe. But by the end of the evening, she had unwittingly stumbled upon a new career.

“The whole thing was a delight,” she says. “Interviewing them and writing the script and then leading from the front in my pink suit – I had such a good time.

“Later on, I was dancing to Whitney Houston and people were coming up to me asking how much I charged. Could I do their wedding? Could I do their friend’s wedding? And I realised this was actually a job. I was on such a high, and I knew that if I didn’t seize this opportunity, I’d regret it. I signed up for a celebrant course the very next day. Emma had asked me to do this favour for her, and she basically changed my life.”

Since then, Clarke has led weddings that splice Bengali readings with Scottish kilts, and that combine nods to Christian and Jewish heritage. Besides that layby debut, settings have included a museum, a brewery and stately homes. She’s equally happy officiating over an elegant and sophisticated occasion as she is getting stuck into a karaoke-style singalong.

People are realising that they’re really not there to please everybody else. They’re there to represent who they are as a couple

“I always try and measure myself to match how confident the couple is, or how joyful or serious or silly, so that they can feel comfortable with me, and I can make sure their wedding has the vibe they imagined,” she says.

Clients find her through weddings fairs or on Instagram, and she likes to begin by meeting face-to-face, teasing out how-we-met stories.

“I love asking people what they’re really feeling, what they’re really thinking,” she says. “I like hearing the serendipity of it: the ‘who spoke to who’ first, or how they’d never have met if it hadn’t been for their grandparents being friends.”

She relishes the sense of occasion on the day itself, “the music, the outfits, the flowers and the love,” but also the quieter moments leading up to the nuptials, alone with her laptop. “It might be raining outside but I’ve got a cup of tea, the fire on and I’m writing love stories,” she enthuses.

She’s also been honoured to lead both baby naming ceremonies and funerals, or – as Clarke prefers to call them – celebrations of life. “It can be such a privilege,” she says of officiating at the latter. “You’re let into someone’s whole life, and you end up wishing you’d met them.”

Outside of work, Clarke finds joy in solitary walks on Northumberland’s windswept coast, and in her six-year-old twins. “I know it’s not possible, but I want them to stay at this age forever,” she says. “They’re young enough at six to still be cute and come out with hilarious things, but they’re old enough now that we can do more stuff as a family and go on adventures.”

For now, she’s looking forward to leading weddings for as long as her happy couples are willing to let her. “It just never gets boring,” she says. “The joy for me is in telling guests when they arrive that the party starts now, not when the couple have walked down the aisle.

“The ceremony is such a fun part and it’s my job to make it memorable. It sounds cheesy, but it feels like I was born to do this. I’m just blown away by how fun it is – it doesn’t even feel like work.”

Photography: Sam Bush