The Power of Celebration with Celebrant Theresa Ribeiro
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This week, I spoke to Theresa Ribeiro, a non-traditional, feminist celebrant based in the UK. She performs and officiates ceremonies, whether that’s weddings or partnership ceremonies, funerals or naming ceremonies.
Humans love ceremony and ritual, we come together to mark occasions and we’ve done this for thousands of years. We need these spaces to celebrate, commiserate, grieve and mark them out, to connect with others as we change, as we move through our lives. I really think celebrating these moments are transformative and that’s why I wanted to find out more from Theresa what celebrants do and how we can mark these changes in our lives.
I talk to Theresa about life as a celebrant, what moments in our lives she officiates and the major changes in her life and ones she thinks we could mark out in different ways, for instance, divorce. When a relationship ends, how do we serve it, how do we commemorate it?
Transcript
Karla: Hello and welcome to Conversation Changes, the podcast where we hear from women who are changing the conversation, guests who inspire experts in their field and those who are doing things just a little bit differently. Each week, I ask a guest to share the lessons they've learned, their experiences, challenges and insights. We have conversations which I hope spark thoughts and discussions long after you finish listening. I'm your host, Karla Liddle White and I began the podcast with an aim to amplify women's voices, challenge perceptions and change the conversation.
Theresa: I am a celebrant. I started my own business as a celebrant about a year and a half ago. And before that I had heard about being a celebrant probably about a few years prior to that from someone else who was basically talking about their training and how they'd become a celebrant. And I thought, Goodness, Greece, that's pretty awesome. Like people can do that as a job. So they were talking about going and doing weddings for people and I just thought, Registrar, because most people would think that most people still don't know what a celebrant is.
But at the same time I thought, this sounds a little bit more up my street because it sounds a little bit more relaxed. And I thought, hey, that's pretty awesome, I want to do that. And I just didn't get around to it, I guess. I really wanted to do it, but didn't properly research it, just had a bit of a look and then carried on with what I was doing at the time. Then when my granny died, which I think is four years ago now, which is kind of weird because you lose track of time, don't you, after her funeral. So I did her, like, we'd call it a eulogy, I guess.
So I'm the one who did that because I thought no one really wanted to go up and speak for Granny. My mom went up and said her little bit about her, but everybody was too nervous to go up or didn't feel comfortable with it. And I was like, it's really important that we are able to tell Granny's story and how she'd lived around the world and all that kind of thing and all the things she'd done, which not necessarily everybody would know.
And that day after the funeral, I said to my cousin, right, this is absolutely what I want to do, I want to be a celebrant and that is what I'm going to do. And then two years later, that's what I was doing and here I am.
Karla: Wow. And what had you done previously? Did anything feed into that role?
Theresa: All kinds. So I've never done one thing. I've always done all kinds of things. So things like working in retail, which I hate, absolutely hate, but it helps because customer service and all that. So if you work in retail, that's a fantastic skill to carry out into all kinds of other things you might do. I've also done admin or administration for various types of things. I used to run a toddler group, so most of the time, if people are running toddler groups, say, your one morning a week type of thing for a few hours.
One of the ones that I did run was three mornings a week with over about 30 adults that would come along with their children and I would kind of do the background stuff. So it was like running the what would you call that when people a waiting list. Running the waiting list, deciding on how much people would pay, making sure everyone had activities, managing the volunteers. So that was a fantastic kind of job to have. I was paid for it as well.
It was a fantastic job to have because there's so many skills you would use and you could use for all kinds of other things. I did the singing time. I hate the song Wheels on the Bus.
Karla: I get it in English and Dutch.
Theresa: Right? And it sticks in your head all day. Yeah, it does. So I won't be singing the Wheels on the Bus at anyone's wedding and hopefully at no one's baby living. But yeah, it's really, really good thing to gather skills. And so I've done all kinds of jobs and various bits and bobs. I've never had a set career, so I feel like doing all those different types of things has helped gather all the skills I need to become a celebrant.
So it's included speaking in public and things like that, even if it's small audiences or bigger audiences. So, yeah, loads of things that came together to create a celebrant person for.
Karla: People who might not know. Can you explain what a celebrant is and the kind of ceremonies that a celebrant would officiate?
Theresa: Yeah, of course. A celebrant is a person who celebrates special occasions with other people. And also we do funerals as well. So a celebrant does ceremonies. We're the person who'll stand at the front and say, welcome. Today we're celebrating so and so's wedding, or we're doing a baby naming or whatever it might be. We do vow renewals, I can do business launches and so on as well. And we also do funerals. So even though we're not necessarily celebrating because they've passed away, we are still celebrating their life. So they had a life and they have a story to tell. So we're always celebrating various aspects of life, really important occasions.
And it's always such a privilege to be able to be part of those special occasions with people. And I absolutely love it. I love being able to meet new people all the time, learn what their stories are, because everybody has something kind of fascinating about them, even if they really don't think they do. Yeah, that's the aspect that I love the most, is learning their stories and then being able to craft a script that will then showcase that story on their special occasion.
Karla: Yeah, because that's quite a lot of trust they put in you, isn't it?
Theresa: Often when I go and meet families, so especially weddings so far I haven't done funerals just yet, but I will be doing those soon. But when I've done weddings and I go and speak to couples, usually you get on really well with them, so quite often you become friends. Then you know they're definitely the customer for you or the client for you because you just gel so well and you really get on and you miss them when you finish the ceremony.
But they'll often sit and go, this feels like a therapy session, because you're talking about what they like about each other or don't like about each other. It's good fun and also it's a good time to remind them that actually, yes, this is a fun part of that, like they're having a wedding, for instance, or baby naming, but things will probably feel a bit different afterwards. So I should probably do like a kind of a marriage counseling course to add to two for one. I won't. I won't just yet. Maybe in a few years.
Karla: I was doing some research for this and I saw that a lot more people these days are using celebrants. Why do you think more and more people are using celebrants rather than the other sort of traditional ways of celebrating?
Theresa: I would say because they found out that there's that option. Most of the time if I've spoke to people, they go, oh, I didn't even know that existed. Is it still going to be a real wedding? So if it was weddings so they just don't necessarily know about it. So once they're knowing about it, because there's quite a few more of us than there used to be ten years ago, we're kind of out there shouting about it, saying, hey, this exists and you can use a celebrant. I think the other aspect is, and it's the original reason why celebrants kind of were created, is because you don't need to do something religious.
You don't need to do something that seems a bit more boring. I know that's a terrible way of explaining what registrars do, but it is a little bit more boring because they have to follow certain aspects, certain templates, et cetera. They have to say certain words and it can be much more boring and bland. It's just the nature of it. So it was a person in Australia and I should technically know what he was something in government and he went, Actually, there's this middle place.
Why do people have to do the boring type of legal thing? Why do they have to just do religious? Let's create another aspect where you can have a more fun and more personalized ceremony and you have those choices. You could do either of the three, for instance, and still have the wedding you want to have and so there it's legal and you can have a celebrant who will do your legal aspect of your wedding. For instance, here, you don't have it. However, when you do a baby naming, you don't do the legal part. At the baby naming, you do it separately.
When you do a funeral, it's the same. You register the death separately. You don't do it on the day. So we try to explain that. That's a very similar way to do your wedding, thinking about it, that's what I did.
Karla: So we had the registry part in the morning, which wasn't the fun part, and then it's very rigid. There's a set script, you have to say it back to them, which was very strange. And then we had a party in the field and my father in law was basically our celebrant. We did a hand tying and yeah, I remember that part much more than I remember the boring paper part.
Theresa: Yeah, well, exactly. And I realize some people, they put a lot of importance onto the legal part of it and that kind of document and that's fine. And so I've always said, it doesn't mean you have to use a celebrant, it just means, hey, you know about it and you can consider it. Or if you want to do the registrar part or have a registrar at your wedding, then that's what's right for you. That's true.
So there's options for everybody and that's my biggest focus. I always tell people I'm not a hard sell, that's just not me, I'm not a salesperson at all. I'd rather just let people know what their options are and then they can go away and have a think about it and the right clients will find me or I'll find them at some point.
Karla: You oversee quite significant life changes with people, then that must be quite I don't know, do you get emotional or do you feel that you're part of something bigger?
Theresa: Definitely. Well, there will be aspects of especially weddings, because there's a lot of excitement and the build up. So there's certain aspects of a wedding when I'm doing a ceremony that I get emotional at, usually when either the bride or the groom, depending on who it is, are walking down the aisle. And that's always the bit where they're walking down the aisle and you're like, oh my gosh, just gather yourself. I don't know. For me, that's always an emotional part and sometimes when people do their vows as well, because they can be quite emotional ones, too.
But it's just kind of knowing that those people are off on their journey, their next chapter, kind of, because it's such a huge thing. I don't think everybody always realizes, I guess if people get married when they're a bit older, they often do realize it sounds terrible, isn't it? Like an age or something? But I think sometimes when you're a bit younger and you get married, you're just like, there's just all the massive excitement about it rather than realizing, oh, hold on.
After this, it's not just all lovely and roses. Like, we have to work because a marriage is a lot of work and a lot of compromises in it. So sometimes you recognize that in people. You're kind of like, oh, yeah, I wish I did have knew someone. I could go, hey, maybe do a bit of a marriage course to help you along the way. Just because not because they won't work out more, because actually, we need a bit of that beforehand.
It's a big thing to step into. Even if you've lived together, it kind of changes things a bit because you go, there's a paper now saying we're officially married. We don't always realize that our emotions kind of they take on that even if we don't necessarily give it that kind of acknowledgment. And then later you're like, oh, yeah, this is actually a big deal. I don't know if you ever experienced that whole thing of so when I got married many, many years ago, and there was that whole thing of like, oh, look, we're married, you kind of like, spend all day going, oh, I misses, or you're miss, or whatever it might be.
And then after a few weeks, you're like, oh, yeah, we're married. Yeah.
Karla: The name changing was quite significant for us because we both double barreled. So he was changing his name. And that's not something necessarily in society that happens a lot yet.
Theresa: No.
Karla: So we went to the bank and the bank had never… we set a precedent at the bank because a man had never used his marriage certificate to change his name. And they were like, Is this legally allowed? Like, they had to ring head office.
Theresa: Oh, my goodness.
Karla: Because a woman can use a marriage certificate, but can a man? I was just like, Are you serious?
Theresa: Yeah. So I've talked about that before. I need to write my blog post on it. But to tell you, I have talked about it before because I describe myself as a fun, feminist, nontraditional celebrant. And I often will look up these kind of old traditions that we have which come from really old laws or usually that kind of the patriarchy type side of things. They're that way because a man decided that's how it should be.
Because often we didn't have a voice. Woman didn't necessarily have a voice. So they were just decided by a man. And that still happens, even though that it doesn't need to happen anymore. So, for instance, with the name change, a woman can just so if we go get married, man and a woman if it's a man and a woman couple, then a woman can just automatically take the man's name. And in fact, we don't even need to do anything with the registrar for that. We do our legal signing for the wedding, the marriage, obviously, but then we can just say, here's my marriage certificate and that's it. You can change everything, your passport, drivers, everything, right? Your name is changed. But if you do it the other way, a man would have to go and do it by depot, change the name. And the law still hasn't caught up with that?
Karla: No.
Theresa: So then also it's a similar if you're having like a gay wedding, then they would have to also do the change their name by deep pole. Whoa. Wow.
Karla: I didn't know that.
Theresa: But that's why they're all like, this is kind of strange.
Karla: Yeah. Catch up.
Theresa: Well, there's so many things like that as well. Just so many at least make the.
Karla: Laws equal so that it's available to you. Because it was such a headache. Such a headache. And I was like, are they making it difficult on purpose?
Theresa: No, I know, it's just that the law just hasn't caught up. That's what I tell people about the marriage. Like the celebrants can't do the legal aspect of it. I was like, it's just very old laws in this country and they haven't caught up yet. And you often have to fight for those changes. And that's what women have been doing for years for various aspects.
Karla: Talk about name changing. I'm really interested in a naming celebration. How does that work?
Theresa: It's very similar to a Christening, except it doesn't have that religious aspect to it. Unless you want religious parts. You could have Bible verses and so on at it, but not necessarily do the Christening part. So if you do a Christening in a church, like CoV, et cetera, you'll use the water and things like that and obviously it's very much more Bible based and so on with the minister. But baby naming is kind of your other option to it.
It's a way that even if you have mixed religions in a family or perhaps some people go, I don't even go to church ever, but family want me to do a Christian, but I really don't. They can go, hey, here's a middle ground that we can meet at. So it's just another way to do it that doesn't you still want to celebrate your child in some way and not necessarily just because of their name, but it's celebrating that you have a new life in your family.
And they call it baby naming, I guess that's beautiful. Yeah. Because people want to celebrate what would the word be like? You want to acknowledge these kind of important parts in life. And I guess our culture here is when you've had a new baby, you want to celebrate that in some way. So having a baby naming is a good way to celebrate that. Different cultures do, like bar Mitzvah, for instance. They're celebrating that kind of occasion in life when it's a think when they become a teenager, isn't it? All the ins and outs. But yeah, so it's a similar type thing we want to have ceremony. People like ceremony. When we get our first period, we should probably celebrate that.
Karla: Exactly. Yeah, why not?
Theresa: Yeah, rather than it because it kind of feels almost like shameful. Oh, don't talk about your period. But actually it should be more normalized and maybe celebrating that as a thing would make it feel more normal and.
Karla: Something to celebrate rather than just a scary thing that's suddenly happening to your body that you have no control over.
Theresa: I don't know what you'd call it. No, we don't have to think of a name. And then someday someone will go, Why do you call it that? You're like, well, it's just a name for that ceremony. Because that's what we came up with.
Karla: Do you imagine?
Theresa: We should start a new trend?
Karla: Have you done any? Because I saw that celebrants do divorce ceremonies. I can't imagine what that would look like.
Theresa: I haven't done any yet. But it's something people sometimes also want, they kind of want, or they'll just go and have a big party, say, where I'm divorced, or you just do nothing at all you can do.
Karla: They do them like, is it a separate thing? It's not like together I couldn't get.
Theresa: My head around you're not going to necessarily do a divorce party with your ex because I'll be like, I hate you. I hate you, too. I think it's one of those things that if somebody was wanting to do something like that, it's not like a super common thing. It's not something you'd see regularly, but more people nowadays are kind of having a celebration of it kind of going, I'm divorced and I'm happier now, or whatever it might be. I see. So, yeah, it's not necessarily like up there with weddings and et cetera. It's not super common.
Karla: And it must be like almost like a relief party as well, like that sense of us.
Theresa: Over yeah, absolutely. Because I've said before, humans, we like to have ceremony, and sometimes you need to have something that kind of goes, well, that's the end of that. And doing something helps you to process that and helps you to feel like, oh, okay, I can now put it behind me, even if it means writing a bunch of stuff on a paper and burning in a fire, for instance, it helps you kind of just sometimes the mental part of it. We need to be able to use something significant to process that, because otherwise it just kind of keeps feeling like it keeps going on. So, yeah, I think that would be cool for people if they did that, if they really wanted to help themselves feel like it's properly. Over yeah.
Karla: Like closure, basically.
Theresa: Yeah, definitely a closure thing. I mean, I never had a divorce party from when I got divorced. You always feel like so I was divorced at least when the official papers came through. It was probably at least twelve years ago. Now because it took about a year and a half or so for the papers to come through and then you only feel like you're properly divorced once you have the final papers to go. Now it's like absolute. And all I did was sit down on the floor and just cry. And even though it's something that I chose to do and it had to kind of happen, it's still quite a significant thing and it's still emotional hugely. Even if whether you decided to have the divorce or not, sometimes you could be on either side of that or it's a mutual thing, it's still a tough thing to deal with emotionally.
Karla: But it's like you're sort of saying to this person that who you thought you were going to spend the rest of your life split with, that that's no longer there. So there's also that like grieving, I think, even if it was on bad terms, I feel like there's absolutely yeah.
Theresa: I mean, there was so without getting into like all the detail, it wasn't hugely what's the word? Yes, there was some animosity initially, various reasons, but we really worked hard at making sure that the children came first and everything. So even if things were really tough for us, various aspects of things, we made sure that the children were first. So as time went on, we didn't have loads of animosity against each other. We kind of just got on with things. We made sure that the children came back and forth, et cetera.
My ex husband, actually, he had cancer and he has he passed away now, seven years ago. But during that time when he was ill, he was like, yeah, I'm really sorry for some of the way that I treat you at the time, and maybe if things weren't like that, it would have been better. But it was only then that he was realizing some of that aspect to it. Sometimes you don't talk about those things at the time. You just feel like we're a bit iffy against each other, but not necessarily, hey, let's not we would even go to parents evenings together, even though we probably didn't want to talk to each other or like each other very much, kind of thing.
But we always made sure it was like it seemed like it was fine, especially for the for the girls. But it's still extremely tough because at home, when no one else can see you're dealing with all the emotions of things that are going on, because, like you said, you thought you were marrying a person, and it was going to be probably for the rest of your life type thing. You had kids with them and then it doesn't always work out, does it?
And you have to probably move house and you don't always have to change your name, but sometimes you might want to change your name. So there's so many changes that come with it. Learning how to do all the stuff again by yourself. For instance, he would have took on some of the not necessarily financial stuff because we had a shared bank account, but he would have probably made sure the bills, certain bills were paid.
And I did other aspects of things, so it was like, oh, gosh, I have to do all of that now. So it's just figuring all of that out again. So that's a change because you're going, how does this work? Or you had a pension and I don't even know how that works, for instance.
Karla: Yeah, because my husband and I travel a bit when we're at home with my son, it's like on your own, you suddenly realize, I've got to do everything, and it's exhausting.
Theresa: Exactly.
Karla: Yeah. So it's also that part of divorce. It's what you have afterwards. And I guess you always bring that relationship with you through your life. You might have got divorced, but it still has affected you in some ways.
Theresa: Well, yeah, especially when you have children with that person, because they're that person's children, for instance, because, like I said, he passed away. And when it was his funeral, my oldest especially because my oldest was 14 and my youngest, at the time, she was eight, so my eldest was like, can you I'll write a thing. Can you say it? Because they were having some family members or someone else from church. I think that was going to they were like, Tell us all the information and we'll speak about it.
And my eldest was like, I don't want someone I don't know doing that. Can you do it, mom? And for me, I was like, yeah. Because during that whole last year, I visited often. I would take the girls to see him. And so, yeah, we were divorced, but I still weren't that's really important for my girls, and it was okay. We didn't have any strange stuff. It was just like we made sure everything was fine. So I was able to go and speak at his funeral. And in fact, part of it, I realized if I didn't tell that part of when we were married, no one else would have known it, because him and I moved a lot. We didn't have family around.
So I thought, hey, if I don't speak about that section of his life and how his girls were such a huge part of it, then probably no one else would really know that. So then you kind of put those things aside and then, like you said, it's part of your life always. Yeah. They affect a huge part of your life. And then life is very different afterwards, even if you meet another partner, because you got used to what you would have done with maybe the first partner you had.
Theresa: Yeah. You do things differently, very differently. This is strange, and you have to figure that out as well.
Karla: Let's talk about your last one. Which was children, which I'm really interested in talking to you about because it's not possibly the change of having children, it's that you were talking about having a child and then thinking that you're sort of what's the word I want to say child rearing. That's not right. Having young children was over. And then you were saying that you then entered that sort of phase of your life again and again. So just explore that a little bit.
Theresa: So I have two older children, they're 21 and 16. And then I think, yeah, when my 16 year old was eleven, then I had another baby, so I'd met somebody new, if you like, and I thought that would be a person I'd be with for a long time. It didn't work out that way, but I did think that and we did have a child, to be fair, I probably think I was starting my perimenopause. I was like, oh my God, I should have a baby.
I don't know, I should have had some help at the time. No, think about it. Do you really want because honestly, I was never one of those people that was broody for babies. Like never. Okay, so that's why I reckon I'm pretty sure that was the perimenopause going, oh my God, hurry up and have another baby before it's like the kind of kids anymore. That's probably another story for another day. But yeah, I then had another child and my other two were kind of finishing periods of their life. Like one of them was finishing what would be secondary school, and then one was finishing primary school or middle way through secondary, so it was doing that all over again, sleepless nights and it's harder to have a baby.
I was 40, so yeah, it's really tough on your body as well. So you're not only having huge change in the household, like your children are going, oh, there's another child. And they were excited about it, but then, I mean, she's hard work, so everyone sees this is like, why on earth? And both of them are going, yeah, we're not having kids because they know just how hard it is to look after a child. Yeah, it brings a huge amount of change and a whole in a whole different way as well than if it was your first child or even second because it's like starting again, except you've got all these other variables that are part of it.
Theresa: Yeah, it's a bit mental to me. I wouldn't suggest it if anyone asked me, I'd be like, look, just spend a week with those and, you'll know.
Karla: Is it nice that relationship, though, between the older kids and young? Like younger?
Theresa: Yeah, they so it depends. So my youngest is like she's really, really full on and she's one of those like I'm reading a book called The Professional Troublemaker and that's my youngest. She literally she started which is great because she'll be. Very vocal. When she's older, she'll be like, yeah, I'm going to do things my way, which is fab, and it's how I am bringing up my children anyways to be. But my other two are quite quiet, so they often like their own space at times.
But then when you have a small person, as you know, they want to be in every aspect of your life when they want to be in it and no one gets a say, they're just like, I'm coming into the bathroom, don't come in the bathroom now. So, yeah, we have a lot of that as well as, oh, I'm awake now, so I'm going to go jump on all of their beds and then they're screaming, Get out of my room.
Karla: Wow. Yeah, it's a lot.
Theresa: Yeah. And the other aspect is my oldest, so a 21 year old and a five year old, they're like the same thing, but just in different bodies. How do you mean? The attitude, the whole.
Karla: Yeah, I can see that because when I have got my toddler, people are like, wait till they're teenagers, wait till he's a teenager. And I'm like, are you serious? Like, it can't be worse than this.
Theresa: It can. And then when you're dealing with so I have an adult child, a teen child and a younger child all at the same time, it's pretty full on.
Karla: It was the biggest life change for me.
Theresa: Yeah, it's a huge life change and it can affect how other aspects of your marriage go, or your partnership goes, or your jobs. I guess it's one of the hugest life changes we can make.
Karla: Wow, we touched on so much. That was brilliant.
Theresa: It's almost like having a therapy session, talk about all the aspects of life.
Karla: What's on the horizon for you? You said you're going to be starting funerals. Where can people find you as a celebrant?
Theresa: So I have a foreign name. I'm known as Roberto Ceremonies and you can find me on Instagram as Rivera Ceremonies, as well as my I have a website which is Riveraceremonies.com, but if you need the spelling, it's R-I-B-E-I-R-O in the ceremonies, as usual. And, yeah, I'm usually on Instagram doing random stories about what coffee I've drank and what rules you have, and there's no rules. So, yeah, Instagram is a good place to find me, just chatting about all things life and celebrants, you know. So, yeah, love it.
Karla: Thank you. Thank you so much for coming on.
Theresa: Yeah, thanks for having me. I've loved it.
Karla: There you have it. I'm not sure there are many major life events and changes that were left unsaid in that episode. And doesn't Teresa have the most infectious laugh? Honestly, I smiled for the rest of the day after recording this episode. She's definitely someone to have celebrating your life events. In other news, I've started a newsletter for the podcast. Head over to Conversationchangers co UK to sign up or head over to the Bio on my Instagram.
It's a once a month newsletter with lots of inspiration from previous guests looking at what's coming up. I also explore what guests are now doing since they've recorded, and also some occasional musings from me. So see you soon for the next episode.