Dinner and conversation

Cheesecake brownies

I had the pleasure to spend much of Tuesday evening last week with a celebrant colleague Penelope Hamilton. We met for coffee and a chat and she ended up at ours for a meal and  a glass or two of wine.

It was great to catch up, we both have busy lives and Penelope spends much of hers on the move so we make a real effort to meet. We chatted about life, love, loss and exchanged experiences as celebrants. We both trained together and so we always love to share stories and give each other tips on how to be better at what we do. We  both realised that every single ceremony is a learning experience. I always value her input as she is such a wise and philosophical person. The support of my fellow celebrants is very important to me and although we are very scattered in the Highlands and Islands we know that we are all always just at the end of the phone or an email if there is a difficult situation that we have to deal with. Sometimes you just need to unload about a particularly stressful ceremony and only another celebrant would understand.

Anyway, last week we had a lovely evening and it reminded me that there is real pleasure in sharing good food, good wine and good conversation with people whose friendship you value. Oh - and the best bit: I made chocolate cheesecake brownies and there are still some left today! yummm

Winter ceremonies can bring their own challenges

Tricky driving conditions.....

The thing about ceremonies is that you just have to be there. This applies as much to weddings as it does to funerals. I was contacted by a lovely couple several weeks ago who are getting married at Glen Tanar in rural Aberdeenshire next February. Now at first I thought what a beautiful venue, I'd love to do it but then I remembered the weather at the same time this year. We were practically snowed in for weeks at a time and even with a 4x4 it was challenging to say the least.

I managed to keep going with all of the funerals I did but there was no way that I would have considered driving down to rural Aberdeenshire so I had to tell the couple that it would probably be better if they looked for someone nearer at hand. I just didn't want them to be worried on the day that I might not manage to get there. After all - no celebrant = no wedding.

Of course it's entirely possible that it will be a beautiful day and the roads will be fine but I can't afford to take that chance and I didn't want them to either. I would dearly have loved to have done it, especially because they asked for me in particular because they had seen my profile on the HSS website but at the end of the day I have to do what's right for the bride and groom. It's too important a day to let there be any doubts about anything.

I'll keep an eye out on their wedding day next year and see whether we made the right decision.

A winter wedding could be very romantic