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Aug 19, 2021
Melbourne wedding celebrants: finding a great one is challenging, and it’s hard to get an idea of whether their vibe is gonna fit your proverbial tribe ahead of time. The Celebrant A List is an initiative put together to help solve that, and here you can see a whole host of the very best wedding celebrants Melbourne has to offer.
I’ve been super lucky to work with these wedding celebrants, so read on and enjoy these community marvels and a little insight into the Celebrant A List, and then hire one for your elopement or wedding (check out these awesome small wedding venues too, or these amazing unique wedding dresses).
From quiet and stylish, to outlandish rockstars and everything in between, this unique list of the top wedding celebrants in Melbourne also has photos of every one of these legends taken at the Celebrant A List Baller, so you can get a great idea of how their vibe might align with your own day.
If you want to skip the gab and get to the point, here’s a run-sheet of some of the best Melbourne wedding celebrants that are featured here (in no order):
Best Marriage Celebrant Melbourne (in no order)
- Anthony Cribbes
- Nat Sproal
- Charis White
- Celebrant Ladylove
- The Wedding Anarchist
- Matt Finch
- Sean Whelan
- Zena Lythgow
- Jac the Hitcher
- Jessie Belle
- Megan Thompson
- Damon Hughes
- Shannon Jeans
- Megan Watson
- Pete the Celebrant
- Rachael Calvert
- Sweet Wonderful You
Left: Wedding celebrant Blue Mountains: Jac the Hitcher
Lord of the dark-funk, Jac the Hitcher, has retired.
Right: Wedding Celebrant Melbourne: Matt Finch
Grandmaster suave, Matt Finch lives here and also at this beautiful Melbourne gay wedding of Sam and Paul.
Left: Marriage Celebrant – Celebrant Ladylove
Lord of all things neon and dark in the wedding celebrant world, find Annie here.
Right: Wedding Celebrant in Melbourne – Marry Me Sean
As well as being found under an excellent hat, known as one of the Best Marriage Celebrants Melbourne has on offer, you can find Sean here.
Left: Wedding Celebrant in Melbourne – Megan Thompson
As well as being found wrapped in curtains, Megan can be found here.
Right: Wedding Celebrant in Melbourne – Megan Watson
Megan is pointing over there, and to find her we’re pointing here.
Left: Wedding Celebrant – Rachael Calvert
This legendary Tasmanian wedding celebrant can be found here, and while there check out this Bruny Island wedding and this Cradle Mountain elopement.
Right: Wedding Celebrant – Pete the Celebrant
This totally debonair devil can be found here.
Left: Wedding Celebrant in Melbourne – The Wedding Anarchist
Formerly known as Marry Me Dee, and if you want colour and jazz, maybe the best marriage celebrant Melbourne has going. Find her here and here.
Right: Melbourne wedding celebrant – Damon Hughes
Not just a good looking rack for short-shorts, also maybe the best marriage celebrant Melbourne has on offer, find him here. If you’re looking to also pop a bloom in ya’ gob, head here to find an awesome Melbourne wedding florist.
Left: Wedding Celebrant – Sweet Wonderful You
With her name an homage to Fleetwood Mac, find the brilliant, empathetic and effervescent Erin here.
Right: Wedding celebrant in Melbourne – Anthony Cribbes
You’ve seen young ‘Tony a lot around these parts, and if a modern James Bond is your vibe, maybe the best marriage celebrant in Melbourne. Find him here and here.
Left: Wedding Celebrant – Shannon Jeans
This rainbow pocket rocket can be found here. Also see her in action at this Two Ton Max wedding we both worked on.
Right: Unique wedding celebrant – Nat Sproal
Lord mistress of all things hilarious, Nat lives here and here. I also worked with this brilliant mofo at this Fortyfive Downstairs wedding.
Left: Wedding Celebrant in Melbourne – Charis White
I’ve worked with this gem many a time, possibly the best marriage celebrant Melbourne has around, you can find Charis here, and we’re featured together on Suzanne Harward. Head here to find out her opinion on how to write a wedding ceremony.
Right: Unique Marriage Celebrant – Jessie Belle
This cartwheeling legend can be found here
This is a little chat with the Celebrant A-List founder, Anthony Cribbes, about why it exists and how it benefits the Melbourne wedding community.
Finding the best wedding celebrant Melbourne has: What is the Celebrant A list?
On paper it’s a directory with some hand picked celebrants. Maybe it’s also an antidote to the ‘come one come all’ sites that I find just end up causing us much confusion and anxiety for couples who are by and large going through this process for the first time.
BUT what it actually is a chance to be a little different in the market. All of the directory members are people from my own and some other close confidant’s personal networks.
These were people we already were swapping leads with. So whilst it’s not the definitive and finite list of who’s a quality melbourne wedding celebrant, I can definitely say that all members are quality people and celebrants.
How can couples getting engaged best benefit from the A list in finding a Melbourne wedding celebrant?
So the Celebrant A List is also a little community group. We all know which other members are better suited for which kind of couple just based on the initial enquiry.
So my advice would be to get on the directory, to find the kind of wedding celebrant you think fits the bill and send them an enquiry.
If they’re not available, we work as a group to find you someone that is not only free but will also fit what you are looking for.
It seems to be something of an army. Any favourite cult leaders that were referenced?
Is Brian Jones or David Koresh a funny or poor tasting joke?! Nah but in all honesty, the crew on the Wedding Celebrant A List is from the network of wedding celebrants who were already naturally jelling together.
Everyone on the list is vouched for – we avoid cult like activities, thinking and environments, we feel the market for that is already catered for!
The wedding industry is getting more and more flooded across all vendors, as barriers to entry are removed. This makes it not only more challenging for a couple in sifting through available options, but also challenging as a vendor trying to create a sustainable business. How do you see the creation of this network as fundamentally addressing both of those challenges?
Haha, what a question! If I was to say what was the mission of the Wedding Celebrant A List, it would be to address exactly this challenge.
We have moved from a world where once upon a time we had to wait until every Thursday night at 7:30PM before our favourite show would be on…now I can binge watch whatever I want, whenever I want.
This is how society works now, so the Wedding Celebrant A List is the kind of place where people can come and not only can we help them feel less overwhelmed we also support each other’s businesses.
It’s for this reason alone why we don’t have hundreds and hundreds of members as we genuinely feel like in the end that helps no one – the couples or the celebrants.
As I already mentioned, just by enquiring with one us, we’re kind of all there to help you find not only the right celebrant but also many other vendors.
We all buy based on people giving us recommendations, it’s kind of the same approach over at the Wedding Celebrant A List.
You held the Celebrant Melbourne A List ball over Christmas, which was an epic event with the best Melbourne Wedding Celebrants in town: whats next on the cards?
Well before good ol’ Rona hit the plan was to try and host an event in each major city where we have representation. But now we’re focussed on our big event next year, Hitchmas.
We plan on making this the best business workshop/networking/party kind of event ever hosted in the wedding world.
Where to find the best marriage celebrant Melbourne has on offer?
Head back up through this post and click through to any of the brilliant Melbourne wedding celebrants websites.
A Melbourne wedding celebrant costs anywhere from $600 to $2000, to deliver a customised wedding ceremony. You should expect a good wedding celebrant to cost around $1500, as there is so much more work involved by the wedding celebrant than just taking care of the wedding ceremony itself.
A wedding celebrant in Australia will cost you from $600 up to $2000, and there is a lot of work involved in creating an incredible custom wedding ceremony for you. You can expect a good wedding celebrant to cost around $1500, and it is one of the better places to spend money on the day, as a good wedding celebrant puts in the time and love to honour you both and your community.
A wedding celebrant is a person who performs and officiates your wedding, funeral, or other similar ceremonies.
If you love people, and love running a show, you can be a wedding celebrant. Reach out to Annie, on this page, who runs a celebrant training school.
You should ask your wedding celebrant the following questions:
1: What is your style?
2: What is your level of experience?
3: What happens if things go wrong?
4: How will you tell our story?
5: Do you share audio with the videographers?
Find a celebrant on this page, and then head over to our post on how to get married quickly in Australia.
Find the Wedding Celebrant A-List online
Finding a Melbourne wedding celebrant can be a bit of a massive task – fortunately, the Wedding Celebrant A List has been assembled to take some of the legwork out of it. Verified legends, take a look and find your Melbourne wedding celebrant below, and then get them down for your Melbourne city elopement.
The Celebrant A List website
The Celebrant A List Instagram
Link one of these legends up with a brilliant Melbourne wedding planner, and with the brilliant minds of Firecracker Event an incredible grazing table.
All photographs on this page are by Briars Atlas, and any usage must first gain permission.
Vanity fair photo booth
Want to get photos like these? Then you should check out our new little collaborative side business, BLANC, that channels the spirit of a Vanity Fair photo booth… we think there’s nothing like it out there.
Book me to photograph your wedding alongside your favourite wedding celebrant (if you want)
Briars Atlas Wedding Photography Melbourne – Make an Enquiry
Jun 24, 2020
Anthony Cribbes – recipient of the most debonair hair-sweep, occasional farmer (only, or mostly during pandemics), wedding celebrant, founder of The Celebrant A List, and one part of the trio behind the iconic Collingwood Wedding chapel The Altar Electric.
Read on for all this and all the other things he does that didn’t fit in this sentence.
With Covid forcing us all indoors and all manner of brilliant doorstep portrait projects happening, I wanted to kickstart some convos with my local community and find out how the time and strange space is being used, as it’s never been more important to stay connected and sharing.
What changes did the percolation time of ISO make to your view of doing business generally?
Man what a time ISO LYF has been! I live in the country but for the last 5 years it feels like the road is more my home. Being able to stay closer to home has made me realised that I will be putting a priority on focussing my business in a more local sense.
It’s almost like I guess you could say that I am becoming a business cliched bourgeoisie and opting for a ’tree-change’ or ‘downsizing’… only I promise I am doing it in a non-pretentious way, not so I can start a new Insta account of: ‘My journey from big city life to self discovery’ kind of crap.
What role are you actively playing in the “new world” and how does Anthony Cribbes Celebrant see this benefiting couples?
Before ISO I was passionate about community and quality over quantity. I see weddings now moving from a ‘bigger and better’ world to one where people are placing a premium on the connection.
This means I can see a lot more smaller weddings happening. We actually made a change to the Altar Electric around 6 months ago for this very reason, we didn’t just want to be offering registry style weddings, we wanted people to be able to have a small wedding celebration.
One that was about creating great moments but didn’t bring with it the anxiety inducing costs.
You were ahead of the curve with The Altar Electric. Was this always the vision, are you generally a wizard, and either way has the vision for the space changed after Covid?
Haha…I’ll leave the Wizardry stuff to my mates out at Hogwarts. Altar Electric is actually Dee and Sarah’s (my amazing business partners) original concept, I just helped give it the nudge.
Initially we were thinking it would be about Registry Weddings…but in the end we realised what we were actually tapping into was a whole new vein of thinking from pockets in the community. We didn’t realise just how under served the small wedding market was.
From our understanding that wasn’t due to a lack of desire but more a lack of supply from an industry that was focussed on large groups only essentially.-
With your work running the Celebrant A List and seeing a huge cross section of the industry, what advice do you have for melbourne wedding celebrants in generating a sustainable business?
Oh so many! I think the biggest thing anything Celebrant can do is to not get carried away with their own ego, I see it all over the place and could also be accused of being guilty of it myself.
I think once you start telling yourself you’ve made ‘it’, things will turn, because it’s at this stage when people stop evolving, adapting, learning and improving.
I am definitely a way different Celebrant in terms of my style now then I was 5 years ago when I first started. How I win my work is also drastically different.
We can always learn from anyone… right now the people I am learning the most from are the Celebrants who are only 1-2 years into the business but are completely slaying it…also avoid having a gimmick, it will run dry very quickly, just be genuine.
Best general tips for couples in selecting a celebrant?
There’s 9,500 of us in Australia, so just know that there’s the right kind of Celebrant out there for you.
I always think it works best as a Celebrant when I work with couples who I can genuinely go and have a beer with down at the pub and talk about other things than weddings.
That’s the kind of fit you are hoping for, so make sure you try and find that kind of person for you.
Find Anthony Cribbes online
Anthony Cribbes Celebrant website
Anthony Cribbes Celebrant Instagram
The Altar Electric website
The Altar Electric instagram
The Celebrant A list website
The Celebrant A list instagram
A feature on Melbourne wedding celebrants is also here.
