Humanist ceremony

A humanist ceremony has one decisive advantage over a civil one, and most couples do not use it: you can choose the hour. A ceremony at two in the afternoon in July means a sun directly overhead, hard shadows in the eye sockets, guests squinting, and photographs that cannot be rescued. Between four and six the sun is low enough that the ceremony, the reception and the couple portraits all sit in the same light and the joins do not show.

Because a humanist ceremony is nearly always outdoors, the location walk-through beforehand is part of the work rather than a courtesy: which way the spot faces, where the sun is at four, where the guests will sit, and where everyone goes if it rains. Seven hours from the set-up covers the preparation, the ceremony, the reception and the first hour of the party. Three hundred and fifty edited photographs, gallery within two weeks.

There is one person who is often missing from the planning and who shapes the photographs a great deal: the celebrant. Agree where they will stand so that nobody’s back ends up between you and your guests, and ask them to step aside for the rings and the kiss. If the ceremony is not at a wedding venue but in a park, on a lakeshore or at the edge of a wood, find out early whether the landowner or the local authority requires permission. Any fee for that is shown as its own line in the quote rather than buried in the package.

Before the day there are three stages: the enquiry through the form, a fixed price by phone or email confirmed in writing, and the walk-through with the light planned by time of day. Anything that changes the cost is priced beforehand — a second photographer catching the guests’ faces from the front during the vows, say, or extra hours into the dancing. Let your guests know on the invitation that there will be a photographer, which gives anyone who would rather not appear the chance to tell you. The finished photographs are free for your private use, including sharing them with everyone who was there.