What Happens If I Get Sick Before A Ceremony?

It’s every self-employed person’s worst nightmare. You have a commitment to a client - something you’ve been working hard on for months - and you wake up on the day of the much-anticipated event to find you’re full of cold. What can you possibly do? There’s no such thing as ‘calling in sick’ when you work for yourself, and if you can’t physically go to your appointment, there’s nobody you can send in your place who can pick up where you left off. 

In celebrancy, this fear is elevated because the appointments we have can be as pressing as a funeral or wedding. These are monumental occasions and they cannot take place without the celebrant there to oversee the ceremony. 

So what do you do?

Here’s one solution:

Join A Community of Celebrants

Whether you are already working as a celebrant or thinking of embarking on a new career into celebrancy, being part of a community is crucial to success. 

If you are part of a celebrancy network, you benefit from the following:

• Sharing thoughts, experiences and feelings about celebrancy when things are challenging or worthy of celebration.
• Gaining insight from one another and helping each other become better celebrants
• Referring clients that might be better to other celebrants
• Stepping in for one another if someone is unable to take a ceremony, such as through illness. 

Ways To Be Part Of A Celebrancy Community

There are two major ways you can become part of a celebrancy community. 

1. Join an online community. You can join up with Celebrant Training, a Facebook group for anyone who is a) currently a celebrant or b) looking to become a celebrant. 
2. Become an ICPC member. With this, you get insurance, access to ongoing training and exclusive celebrancy events / retreats, cloud storage, a name badge and a wealth of online resources for ceremonies. You also gain access to a private Facebook group just for ICPC members. 

When you have a network of celebrants around you, all looking out for one another, you can get someone to fill in for you at a moment’s notice if you were to become sick. Of course, proactivity is key here. If you feel yourself going downhill 2 days before a ceremony, try to get a backup just in case. Let your clients know if there is a change in plan - they might be disappointed that you can’t make it but they will be hugely relieved that you were able to send a trusted replacement. 

Train With Us
Remember, being self employed will have a set of challenges but also huge rewards if you are prepared and forward thinking. If you are not yet a celebrant and are curious about this self employed role, there are a number of steps you can now take. The first option is to take our quiz. This will help you to better understand whether or not celebrancy is for you. Or, you can jump straight in with our residential or online celebrancy training by clicking here.