By Anna Flanagan, Celebrants Aotearoa President
When things don’t quite go to plan
For many of us, wedding season is almost here.
The calendars are starting to fill, rehearsals are being booked and before long we’ll be back into the rhythm of ceremonies, couples, paperwork, travel and trying to remember whether we charged everything after the last one!
We prepare as much as we can, but at some point, something won’t go to plan.
A couple will change something at the last minute. The weather will turn. Technology will refuse to cooperate. Someone will be late. A process we rely on won’t work the way we expected it to.
And sometimes, despite everyone’s best intentions, a human being will simply make a mistake.
We can’t prepare for every scenario, but we can set ourselves up to deal with those moments well.
Build in some margin
Give yourself enough breathing room that one small delay doesn’t become a much bigger problem. Allow more travel time, get somewhere earlier than you think you need to, and be realistic about how much you can fit into a busy week.
Get your Celebrant Kit season ready
- Speaker charged
- Spare batteries packed
- Ceremony accessible somewhere other than your laptop
- Paperwork printed
- Contact numbers saved
- Parking sorted
And while you’re doing your pre-season stocktake, are your professional bits and pieces ready too? Is your name badge still presentable, or have you been meaning to order one? Do you have a folder for presenting and protecting the marriage documents?
If either has been sitting on your “I’ll get around to it” list, now’s a good time to sort it. You can find information about folders and name badges on our website.
Know what your Plan B is
What will you do if the speaker or microphone stops working, or your printer gives up the night before a wedding?
And what happens if you can’t be there? Have you built connections with other local celebrants you can call if you wake up unwell or something unexpected happens?
We don’t need contingency plans for everything, but thinking through the likely ones before we need them can make a huge difference.
And perhaps most importantly:
Leave a little room for people to be human
Busy periods can make all of us a little less patient. When something goes wrong, it’s easy to react to the inconvenience before we know what’s happened.
Sometimes systems fail. Sometimes instructions aren’t as clear as they could have been. Sometimes there are things happening behind the scenes that we know nothing about. And sometimes somebody just gets something wrong.
That applies to our couples, wedding industry vendors, the organisations and agencies we work with, our celebrant colleagues, and to us.
Professionalism isn’t about never making a mistake or ensuring that nothing ever goes wrong, because frankly, hat’s just not possible. It’s about how we respond when it does.
Can we stay calm and find out what happened before assuming the worst? Can we focus on solving the problem rather than finding someone to blame? And when someone has made a genuine mistake, can we give them the same grace we’d hope to receive ourself?
So, as we head into wedding season, check the speaker, charge the batteries and put a spare copy of the ceremony somewhere. Order the folder or name badge you’ve been meaning to get around to.
And when something inevitably doesn’t quite go to plan, a little understanding goes a long way. We’re only human, after all!
