22 Reasons Celebrancy is THE 2nd Career for You!
If you need more reason to consider a career as a Celebrant or Officiant, here are 22 more reasons that we MUST share with you!
1. Following your passion is ageless
Anyone who gets paid to follow their passion is extremely fortunate! Not everyone has that luxury early in their career, and others like to keep their passions for themselves. AARP shares stories of individuals who followed their passion after age 50! No matter your age or stage in your career, if you can't follow your passion, we believe you can (and should) always bring that passion with you!
2. Mental stimulation is good for long term health
Harvard Medical School recommends taking courses and other forms of "mental gymnastics" to keep your brain in-shape!
3. Community is good for long term health
#CommunityOverCompetition is the cornerstone of this businesses! With a practice rooted in ancient human traditions, yet tied to ever-changing trends of the wedding industry, Celebrants and Officiants are dependent on each other to keep-up and slow-down in order to get it right. The used-car salesman or "get-rich-quick" personas simply do not work in this field. When love is in charge, and many sets of eyeballs are physically on you, only genuine and positive attitudes can thrive.
4. Cost of Ritual materials is low
Timeless traditions don't cost a lot of cash! We build memorable ceremonies to celebrate life's most important moments with the help of Rituals. You can perform a ritual with rope, a hammer and nail, a household quilt or scarf, OR whatever items are important to the couple, their families and the heritage they share, or are honoring as part of their diverse story.
5. Training is meaningful and manageable
You spent your entire 1st career making wise investments, so why would you do it any differently this time around?! A Celebrant Academy student is going to graduate at the very TOP of this profession (we KNOW it, but we also offer a money back guarantee!). Our instructors have found the happy medium between Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000 Hours theory, and the Become-An-Expert-In-15-Minutes freebies you often see online. Again, by nature of this business, if you aren't qualified, there is nowhere to hide when you are standing in front of 100 people! Real training for anything has to be done over several weeks, the potential outcomes should cover the cost of the training, and it has to be done in a supportive environment that sets you up for success!
6. It's cool to invest in yourself again!
If you're taking the word "invest" literally, then yes, Celebrancy does allow you to cover the costs of an Associate Celebrant Certificate within two weddings; and a Master Celebrant Certificate would pay for itself within four weddings. But we also mean invest the time in your personal development. Invest energy into wildy-new and diverse friendships that often only online networking can provide. Life is about continual growth in technical and emotional ways.
7. Creativity that serves the greater good
Not to get all Dooms-Day-ish on you, that's not our style, but we do feel that humans are hungry for some sense of the "greater good" that has been lost over the last few years. Officiating is a B2C service, sure, but those C's have become LIFELONG friends. We get birth announcements from past young couples, and we were standing there, looking two 70-year old men in the eyes when our state passed The Marriage Equality Act in 2014. Yes, we're doing something we're good at, but mostly, we're doing some good.
8. Proper training can be done in the evenings
Side-hustlers and retirees have to manage their time differently than traditional 9-to-5'ers! Just as technology has allowed these stages of life to evolve, education has evolved too. Celebrant Academy is taught online in real time, once weekly in the evenings at 8:00pm (EST). And can be viewed on 'replay' if that time is not good for your schedule. Many of the YouTube videos we love to watch are also something we reach for after the dinner hour. Flexibility is a huge perk of a 2nd career.
9. Train in ONLY the areas you need
Everyone comes to this work from a different area of expertise. Perhaps you are/were VP of Marketing, or a copywriter, or a motivational speaker (if so, that is SO cool!). In which case, courses on public speaking or marketing might not be the best investment of your time or financial resources. Maybe Intro to Celebrancy is all you need to get started. We offer individual courses too, AND our instructors take them from other international experts all the time!
10. Teachers are a good fit as they often have a flexible schedule for half of wedding season!
The organizational, leadership and presentation skills of a teacher make them amazing Celebrants and Officiants! October 10 (10/10 in the biz) is THE biggest wedding day of the year, but even if you stop officiating when the school year begins, you would have spent more than half of wedding season working. Your entire summer break would be doing something different but just as meaningful!
11. Make your own hours and set your own pace
Couples are planning their weddings during the work day, at nights, on weekends, on the bus, whenever it is easiest for them. With SO many ways to keep in touch via texting, emails and direct messaging on social media, you can respond to couples and build rapport when it is convenient for you. Celebrants can easily book 3 weddings a weekend, or you can do 3 a month. It's up to you!
12. Connect to modern audiences with appreciation for ancient practices
"Ceremony is essential to humans: It’s a circle that we draw around important events to separate the momentous from the ordinary. And ritual is a sort of magical safety harness that guides us from one stage of our lives into the next, making sure we don’t stumble or lose ourselves along the way."- Elizabeth Gilbert... we just feel modern times need meaningful ceremonies to give us all a moment to reflect on the past, and kick-butt in the future!
13. Pay your healthy-marriage forward to new couple
Do you love love? But did you realize how much work love could be before you got married? Celebrants get to welcome new couples into the community of marriage, and we want to lead them there with eyes wide open. Chances are if you're reading this, you've learned a thing or two about marriage in your life. Now, you can share that with others. ALSO, let's hear it for our second and third marriages! There is no magic number when it comes the how many loves should be celebrated. A church wedding is usually out of the picture for vow renewals or multiple marriages. As a result, a secular ceremony from a Celebrant is in demand from this group of lovers!
14. Support the LGBTQ community in a way that was NOT available in your youth
If you are of retirement age as of 2020, you likely did not grow up in an era when our LGBTQ friends and family were accepted by law or by their communities. We can't right all the wrongs, but we can be a part of forward movement for all humankind. Our Director, Donna's company, Lehigh Valley Celebrants, offers Transgender Naming Ceremonies at no cost. She sees it as one small way they can support our trans friends. Naming ceremonies are joyful occasions to recognize a new chosen name while honoring and relinquishing a given name. (See, it's not all weddings!)
15. Write all the time, but with new purpose each time
The number one side hustle is blogging and other online businesses like podcasting and hosting a YouTube channel. That means a lot of people out there like to write and speak in their spare time, AND they are talented enough to get paid to do it. Great Celebrants are made based on their ability to write and then orate meaningful ceremonies. We LOVE a good blog, and know many good bloggers who are even better when you meet them in person.
16. Become a lifelong learner
Our coursework promotes values that are embraced by Modern Humanism. Humanism is a philosophy of reason and science in the pursuit of knowledge. We are always acquiring new knowledge about the world and consider ourselves to be proud, lifelong learners!
17. Career is well-defined so you can begin as soon as you are trained
After completion of our coursework, you will know exactly what to do next! Sure, your newly acquired skills will get better and better over time, but when it comes to actionable next steps to setting up your business and booking clients-- there will be NO question you know what comes next.
18. Financially significant to a restricted income of retirement
The 2018 wedding market was worth $54 billion. In 2018, the average wedding cost was $24,723, which grew in 2019 to $38,700. Okay, we'll just say it. There is money to be made. (If you take our business course, you'll learn that there ain't nothing wrong with knowing your worth!)
19. Maintain the leadership skills you developed over decades in another field
The words, "I used to be..." will never come out of your mouth!
20. Mobile-friendly and computer-forward, but still use traditional methods of doing business
Our smart phones aren't going away, and you are WAY too young to say you hate technology. Communicating through mobile devices has its place, and so does a good old-fashioned coffee meeting. If you prefer face-to-face over FaceTime, that's just fine! Today's couples are more than willing to meet in a variety of ways. If you choose to drive closer to them for an in-person meeting, they will only appreciate your level of service more-- not see it as a sign of weakness!
21. You're going to live for, like, a really long time
Listen, 25, 45, 65-- whatevs. Retirement doesn't look like it used to. Middle age doesn't look like it used to. Entry-level doesn't look like it used to. There is no roadmap, no career ladder to climb. Your personal and professional life is a series of chapters that start, end and begin again. We're just making a case for filling the pages of your story with something more exciting than you ever imagined!
22. Be a part of others' Life's Celebrations
The need for secular ceremonies doesn't stop at the end of an aisle! Weddings are the start a new union, which may lead to baby naming ceremonies, vow renewals, coming of age celebrations, adoption ceremonies, or end of life celebrations. Life is full of reasons to celebrate!
When you are part of a community like ours at Celebrant Academy-- no ceremony is more important than the next. Every client is your #1 client, every love story sounds new, and every day is a chance to wake up and get to work. You just hit the snooze button A LOT less when this is your job!
If we touched on a pain-point or sparked a question, get in touch with our Instructors for answers! Take it from some of our previous students, Celebrancy is an amazing 2nd career option. Thanks AARP for helping us spread the word!
Go HERE for a look at our exciting coursework!
Our first course - Introduction to Celebrancy and Secular Ceremonies begins in May 2020!
