“This amazing one-off, honour-of-a-lifetime thing suddenly dawned on me as being a proper job.” 

What work were you doing previously?    

I was a full-time mum to twin babies, doing bits and bobs on Instagram. 

Some paid work, but mostly just sharing the peaks and pits of my experience of life as a first-time mum. My previous jobs in my career had all been in media: advertising, radio and working on a women’s magazine.

What are you doing now?    

I’m an independent wedding celebrant and I ABSOLUTELY love it.

Why did you change?

I was asked to be the celebrant for a friend’s wedding and, at that point, I didn’t even really know what a celebrant was. 

I tell people when I’m asked this story that I was picturing Joey Tribbiani in his WWI get-up. The friends who asked me, Emma and Ash, had done their “legal bit” in lockdown with barely any witnesses and so they wanted a friend to marry them for their big, white wedding.

I happily said yes… and then did some frantic Googling. The whole process was so fun, I loved everything from asking nosey questions to being part of the preparations on The Big Day, and from hiring a pink suit to standing right there at the top of the aisle getting to celebrate old friends.

When was the moment you decided to make the change?    

On the dancefloor, later that night, other guests asked if I was a celebrant.

It started to dawn on me that this amazing one-off, honour-of-a-lifetime thing might actually be A Proper Job.

How did you choose your new career?

I feel like rather than choosing a new career, it landed in my lap.

I have my friend Emma to thank for trusting me with the job for her wedding.

Are you happy with the change?  

I’m over the moon. 

Funnily enough, for a job that I didn’t even know existed three or four years ago, it feels like it ties in a lot of the skills I’d already been working on in my career.

My jobs have all involved writing, creative thinking and – in my radio job, at a Gospel music station – discussing faith and belief as well. Celebrancy is a lot of writing, but also meeting people exactly where they are at in terms of their views on love, marriage, faith and tradition.

What do you miss and what don't you miss?

I’m busier now than when I was a stay at home mum.

I miss the time I had to spend with my twins (now aged seven). But I try to reframe the dreaded mum guilt with the feeling that hopefully they are, or will be, proud of me.

My weddings (and also naming ceremonies and celebrations of life) take me all over the UK and (especially in the summer) I’m out of the house most weekends.

But that freedom is also absolutely delicious. Booking myself into a hotel, knowing that it’s through my own business blows my mind! I get to tick the 'for business' box on the 'reasons for your stay.' What a thrill.

How did you go about making the shift?

I took it one step at a time, otherwise I might have looked ahead and felt too daunted. 

I booked a course with The Academy of Modern Celebrancy, hired a freelancer to help me build a website, designed some simple business cards on Canva, contacted local suppliers and venues to see about attending wedding fairs, changed my Instagram name to reflect my new job, and each thing one at a time.

How did you develop (or transfer) the skills you needed for your new role?

With celebrancy, it’s a case of bringing your own personality to the role, while also, chiefly, championing and reflecting back the vibe of each couple. 

So although you need to be organised, punctual and self-motivated (all things I continue to work on haha!), it really does feel like you can be yourself.

My husband Jonny likes to joke that I go around the UK just peddling my personality for a fee.

How did you handle your finances to make your shift possible?    

I wasn’t earning much as a stay at home parent. 

I made infrequent Instagram adverts and had the occasional copywriting job. So, if anything, this leap was an improvement on our finances. The main investment was the Academy of Modern Celebrancy course which was around US$1,200 / £900.

What was the most difficult thing about changing?

What help did you get?

AMC (Academy of Modern Celebrancy) has a mentoring structure within the course and my mentor Tara was beautifully helpful and encouraging. 

She even helped me secure one of my first bookings by passing on a wedding for a date she was already booked.

Other celebrants, venues, suppliers and people I’ve met over the past couple of years since I began have been lovely, not gatekeeping information but prioritising community over competition.

My husband has been my main help; we’re in a fortunate position where he’s been able to become the primary parent so I can fully lean into this role. This role with odd hours and weekends away and late night calls with couples and late notice funerals.

He's also the more techy, mathematical one out of the two of us, so my all-singing, all-dancing Excel spreadsheet which keeps my business afloat is his handiwork.

What have you learnt in the process?    

I’ve learnt that I wasn’t criminally lacking in ambition… I just hadn’t found my ‘thing’.

What do you wish you'd done differently?

I don’t think there’s anything. 

It’s all been an important learning curve! I don’t even wish I’d found this job earlier (I was 38); any earlier, and it wouldn’t have been the right time for me.

What would you advise others to do in the same situation? 

I get dozens of people DM-ing me on Instagram to ask whether they should train to be a celebrant, a few each week, and I advise with caution. 

I’ve been incredibly lucky in two respects: I already had a social media platform where I could share about my new role (I get the majority of my bookings through Instagram), and I had a partner who wasn’t working out of the home in a full-time job.

Both those factors have helped me and, honestly, I’m not sure I’d be where I am if I’d either had to start from scratch with marketing or needed to juggle work and being the primary parent.

What resources would you recommend to others?

I’d recommend befriending celebrants in your area and doing your best not to see each other as competition.

If anything, it’s incredibly helpful because you can pass work on to each other and have each other as emergency contacts, should you need them.

To find out more, visit www.instagram.com/sarahclarkecelebrates

What lessons could you take from Sarah's story to use in your own career change? Let us know in the comments below.