Marriage celebrants help fill a social gap
Great place for a wedding. Photo: Jane Bellerby
Marriage celebrants in Golden Bay are a diverse group united in their desire to help couples formalise their unity. They are all noticing a trend towards bush, beach and garden settings as places where people are choosing to formalise their commitment to each other.
Pam Pruden, a retired Presbyterian minister, has performed marriage celebrations “on hills, in a cave, on beaches and occasionally inside if it’s raining! There is a lovely satisfaction in going through the process of meeting with a couple, planning what they want for this special day and being able to share it with them,” she says.
Pam, who is also licensed to perform civil unions, says “very few of the couples are opting for a traditional wedding with all the trappings, which can be both expensive and terribly stressful.”
She has a set of resources to help couples plan their ceremony and spends time with them discussing the commitment of marriage. “I suggest they talk about certain points if they haven’t done so already. These include their hopes as a couple, children, family, finance, sexual matters, careers; all the aspects that can make a marriage. Most couples these days have already lived together and some have children, so they have a pretty good idea of what’s involved.”
Joyce Wyllie became a marriage celebrant about 10 years ago because the Aorere Fellowship then had no minister or authorised person to perform marriages.
“I believe passionately in the state of marriage, families and community, and that’s why I do it,” says Joyce. She spends time with the engaged couple, talking about various aspects of marriage and ensuring they are aware of the big step they are taking together. “It’s not just about lovely clothes and a party—this is a serious life commitment,” says Joyce.
Her favourite marriage story to date is about the Milnthorpe Beach nuptials of Gaya Selder and Bing Brabant. “We were all down on the beach and from across the causeway appeared this beautiful black horse. It came and stood beside us, helped itself to a bite of Gaya’s red roses, listened intently to the ceremony then wandered away! The funny thing is that Gaya now owns [the horse] Blue Pearl,” says Joyce.
Golden Bay is becoming a wedding destination for people locally, from overseas and around Aotearoa/New Zealand. Joyce thinks this has a lot to do with the simplicity of having a beach or bush wedding, and for some brides and grooms it’s due to the wonderful memories of special holidays here. “There was one Swiss couple who had a fabulous wedding service in the big cave at Wharariki after holidaying here,” she said.
Schoolteacher Jonny Hanlon started his days as a marriage celebrant when two close friends asked him to help find a suitable wedding venue. They chose the Totaranui Homestead and then a few weeks later asked if he would marry them.
“I went through the procedure of becoming a celebrant, really just thinking it was for their wedding, but it sort of snowballed, and in the past five years I’ve married 15 couples. It’s an honour to do this for them,” he says. He has never officiated at an inside wedding; all have been held in places in our landscape that the couples have chosen for their personal significance or outstanding beauty.
Bob Papps, Golden Bay’s longest-serving marriage celebrant and reputedly the first to be registered in New Zealand, has recently retired. He performed 299 wedding ceremonies, the last for a young couple at Tata Beach. He said the need for celebrants arose to fill the gaps between traditional church weddings and civil ceremonies, and the desires of people to marry in other surroundings.
“Also, back then, some churches would not marry people who had been divorced, so there was definitely a gap in what society provided,” he says.
In his 32 years as a celebrant he travelled around the South Island and performed ceremonies in places such as Fenella Hut in the Cobb Valley, Furneaux Lodge in the Marlborough Sounds and one particularly picturesque wedding at Redwoods Valley. “The wind caught the material of the bride’s long dress and it flowed out from her as she stood on the hilltop.”
All the celebrants spend time and energy with the couples wanting to be married, discussing the big step they are about to take, and the celebrants will also guide them through the legalities and the paperwork.
Jane Bellerby
