From time to time, we run training for funeral and wedding celebrants. The next course is:

Wedding Celebrant Training, Monday 10th February 2025 - Friday 14th February 2025,

9:30am - 4:30pm at The Whisky Bond, 2 Dawson Road, Glasgow, G4 9SS.

Wedding Celebrant Training, 5 Days in-person, £1250 total (£250 non-refundable deposit to book).

With an opportunity for those with the right skills and beliefs to enter our mentor programme and join us.

(Max. 12 places available.)

CELEBRANT TRAINING

WEDDINGS

FUNERALS

HELP OTHERS CRAFT A MEANINGFUL CEREMONY

With our celebrant training

craft and shape a ceremony
lead a ceremony
gain the skills to be a celebrant

What you'll get out of the course

Learn about ritual in society and the role of a funeral
Learn about the rules and options for major life events
Understand how to bring others’ stories to life
Learn how to facilitate and co-create ceremonies
Craft a ritual with confidence
Understand your legal and ethical role
Practice delivering a ceremony
Learn how to shift atmosphere in a ceremony
Learn how to work with families to co-create events.
Get skills, tips and resources for crafting scripts for different scenarios.

On successful completion of the course, you will be equipped to become a freelance celebrant.

The right candidates will be invited to join our small, supportive network of celebrants.

Is this the course for you?

This course is perfect if you are:

a good listener: empathic and open to difference
a good communicator: written, spoken, unsaid
able to present well
good at building meaningful relationships
person-centred
share our Humanist values. (Not sure? Do the quiz.)

Eligibility & Booking

Anyone can take part in the course, but you must share our Humanist beliefs in order to to be able to join us. Following successful completion of the course, eligible participants will be invited to apply. Some will take a year or more to join us, but here is a timeline of the fastest potential progression to join us;

Step 1. Training Course. (February)

Step 2. Interview, Mentor plan and Ceremony . (March)

Step 3. Declarations, Disclosure, Compliance and Applications to Trustees. (June)

Step 4. Added to our group insurance policy to join us as a self-employed Humanist Celebrant. (July)

As A Quiet Revolution is a Humanist charity. We are keen to promote diversity and inclusion.

If you wish to contact us to book a place on our course, please tell us about your passions, your beliefs and what led you to find us. We can’t wait to meet you.

For queries or booking please Email us to find out more.

COURSE CONTENT: Wedding Training

DAY 1: All about ROLE

Introductions, building rapport, active listening, interview/note-taking, range of skills (communication, planning, facilitation, legal knowledge), developing your signature style.

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DAY 2: All about RITUAL

The what, why, how of ritual; ceremony structure and options.

Physical exercises - grounding, articulating, amplifying, addressing an audience, indoor/outdoor delivery.

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DAY 3: All about COUPLES

Enquiries, meeting with couples, chemistry check, couple-centred planning, legal guidance, atypical couples, couples scenarios discussion.

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DAY 4: All about SCRIPTS

Practising interviewing and script writing. Creating a personal ceremony. How to capture a couple in their words.

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DAY 5: All about DELIVERY

Delivering scripts. Script discipline. Compliance.

COURSE LEADERS

The course leaders for our last course are all celebrants with A Quiet Revolution. Barbara co-founded and ran the charity from its beginnings in 2016. Jude, Yva and James took over steering the ship in March 2023. We work together as a team to deliver ceremonies for A Quiet Revolution and to deliver this course for you.

Barbara co-founded A Quiet Revolution.

She is a consultant and celebrant. She works with clients in the arts, public sector and third sector bringing skills in place-making, service design, strategy, planning and user experience. She is a Director of Caledonia Funeral Aid, Scotland’s only not-for-profit funeral director and advisory service. She is a Director of DGUnlimited, Dumfries & Galloway’s arts advocacy agency and a Director of Outpost Arts creative wellbeing powerhouse in Langholm.

Barbara has a double award-winning Masters in Design Innovation from Glasgow School of Art, focussing her outputs on transforming 21st Century Funerals. She innovated the UK’s first platform for end-of-life planning, Final Fling, introduced the first Death Cafes to Scotland and is a qualified Funeral Director. She is qualified in Counselling Skills, Life Coaching and Executive Coaching.

Jude - I’m an independent performing artist and celebrant with A Quiet Revolution. Creative director of The Letter J, vocal and creative coach - facilitating workshops in many spheres - inviting folks to show up in their voice, body and bodies of work. My work is rooted in a love of life’s wild beauty - relationships, connections, community and transformation.

My journey with celebrancy began [as it often does] when death came calling - losing loved ones in quick succession. I wanted to become part of the answer to some of life’s big questions:

How can we do ceremonies better?
Where’s the loving line in storytelling to honour those gone and those going on?
What's the rightful intersection of tone, atmosphere, performance, and ritual?
How can I bring my creative/collaborative experience to the ceremony space?
How may standing closer to the reality of death invite us to be kinder in life?

James’s journey to become a Humanist Celebrant started with his own Humanist Wedding in 2014.

James loves to get to know couples and really relishes the challenge of making couples the centre of their ceremony.

For the last ten years James has been a Humanist Celebrant gaining a treasure trove of knowledge and tips for best practice.

James has a degree in English from Glasgow University and has studied celebrancy in England and Scotland.

As current A Quiet Revolution Admin, James deals with all compliance issues, so is a key contact for queries around joining.

James is also responsible for arranging biscuits for training sessions which is a role he takes very seriously.

Yva comes from a background in language and literature and is passionate about the telling of stories in our milestone moments. Having worked for 15 years in the education sector as an English Teacher and Teaching Mentor, Yva now applies her skills in a full time Celebrant role. Having conducted over 800 funerals, she has extensive experience in end-of-life storytelling.

Her path to Celebrancy began with personal experience of leading a family funeral and she believes absolutely that the right words at the right time can create rituals with meaning and with joy.

Yva’s experience as a volunteer Chaplain with the Marie Curie Hospice Team has given her an important insight into end of life planning and the importance of ownership in ceremonies to celebrate a life. Having worked with people from all walks of life, Yva strives to empower people to embrace the richness in their own stories and create funerals which truly celebrate life’s journeys.