Stuart Kemp CMC
Phone: +61 414 859 640
Company Details
Singer Celebrant Celebrations to Remember
Trading as Stuart Kemp, Civil Marriage Celebrant
Marriage Ceremonies or Wedding Ceremonies, can basically be as long as you want, or indeed, as short as you want (within reason)!
I say “within reason” because there are several legal parts to any marriage ceremony, to be compliant with the Marriage Act:
All the above takes only about 3 minutes, then another couple to sign the Marriage Register – all up, you could be done and dusted in about 5 minutes. Pretty short, eh! This sort of ceremony, with possibly a reading/poem of some kind, would be suitable for those wanting to Elope, or if someone is ill in hospital and can’t cope with long visits – or just a couple wanting to get on with their life, without any pomp and circumstance!
However, for the rest us…most ceremonies are around the 25-40 minute mark. This allows for a couple of readings, possibly putting in a sand or ring ceremony (different types of ceremonies I’ll cover in another post soon), music, be it a recording or a band, and/or a song. This is a comfortable time, not only for you, but for your guests, too – and if it’s a garden wedding, I’m sure you don’t want to be hanging around in the hot sun for too long … I’m sure your guests wouldn’t’ either!
But while the longest ceremony I’ve done was about 45/50 minutes, there are those that I’ve heard of taking up to 1½ to 2 hours, for the ‘normal’ Australian type ceremony. This of course, doesn’t take into account some of the Indian and Eastern style weddings, which last 2, 3 or 4 days!
Talking of Indian Weddings, that must have been one of my most enjoyable and special days being a Civil Marriage Celebrant! My couple were Australian and Indian. I performed an Australian style wedding for this couple and then they changed into traditional Indian wedding clothes and I had the distinct privilege of performing, what I’m sure, was a much shortened version of an Indian wedding ceremony – it was just magical…and we live streamed it (via my iPhone) to her father in India. But that ceremony did take a couple of hours.
So in short, as you see, the average ceremony is about 30 min – but it can go either way, quite dramatically!!!