In New Zealand, registered Independent Marriage Celebrants are not audited. There is no requirement to have a performance-assessment regime in place. Marriage Celebrants are free to work in whatever way they want – charge mega-bucks, work for koha, and everything in between.
Celebrants can offer resources, ask questions, listen to your story, or just put your names in the gaps and use the same ceremony that they’ve been using for years. Celebrants are not required to measure client satisfaction, or to seek feedback on whether they fulfilled their client’s service expectations or not.
So, how do you know if they are any good at their job???
This is a tricky situation for people looking for a celebrant, and it is tricky for celebrants themselves, as there is no comparing apples with apples; we are all our own individual kind of fruit.
But one thing to be aware of is that the number of bookings a celebrant gets, or how many followers they have on social media is not a marker for whether they will give the kind/level of service that you are wanting. Before you engage a celebrant, think about what you really want from them – what do you want them to do for you, how do you want them to make you feel? And then search for the celebrant who fits YOUR criteria.
I love this quote by Jennifer Cram, an Australian based celebrant who wrote a thought-provoking article on this topic back in 2020 for the international journal called The Celebrant: www.thecelebrantmagazine.co.uk (Issue Six)
“The celebrant industry seems to regard number of ceremonies performed to be a figure that is not only a measure of relative success, but also one that comes with boasting rights. The higher the number, the greater the success. In reality, this figure is merely a workload statistic that can be influenced (or manipulated) by factors that have nothing to do with service quality.” (www.jennifercram.com.au)
Gets you thinking, right?
But collecting data to assess success is tricky. If a couple don’t know what to expect from a celebrant, then how can they rate whether the celebrant met their expectations or not? Where is the standard service brief? There isn’t one. Independent Celebrants are government appointed, but not governed.
Cram argues that sometimes “the way feedback is sought is nothing more than an exercise to elicit compliments that deliver somewhat murky data.” Meaning, if a celebrant asks for feedback, are they asking the right questions and at the right time for an accurate response, or are they hoping to have their feel-good bucket filled? (I told you she was thought provoking!)
So, this is where I request your help. I’m going to share my feedback questions here and I would love for you to comment with what other questions I could ask a couple after I have worked with them.
(I’ve already identified a compliment ‘grabber’ in there – so I’ve got rid of that one out of embarrassment. Oh dear.)
Leading up to your wedding day what did you value most about my service – my organisation, my attention to detail, my care for getting it right for you, my cups of tea….?
What would you have liked in my service that I didn’t do?
On the big day, what were you most grateful for that I did for you?
Was there anything that I missed/mucked up for you?
What feedback questions do you ask in your marriage celebrant business, or any business for that matter?
When/how do you ask the questions – after a week via email, for example, or via a survey, or over the phone...?
If you’re a couple, what questions would you like to be asked after your wedding day to allow you to give constructive feedback to a celebrant? You’re newly-weds and feeling fabulous, but honestly, a bit of thoughtful feedback is GOLD to a celebrant trying to improve their service.
But, also, my challenge to couples is, what are your expectations before booking a celebrant? Have you discussed with each other what service you want from your celebrant before searching for one, or are you basing your decision on social media presence, likes, recommendations from people who don't know you, or any other non-specific factors? You are all your own individual kind of fruit too.
I am curious about what the expectations are out there. I imagine they are fantastically diverse.
So, please share your thoughts - there is always so much to learn!
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