Do you overlook these things when it comes to your voice and performance as a celebrant?

I've just come out of our October webinar with Voiceover Artist Lucy Brown, I am buzzing with energy (Lucy is so energizing) and full of renewed love of all things voice and ceremony performance, so I wanted to share it here.

Lucy’s webinar has given me a massive kick up the bum and made me realise that over the years I’ve got a little bit complacent about my voice, about what an amazing tool it is and how it actually needs much more care than I give it. Lucy’s session was so impactful that Claire and I are already talking to her about booking in some more sessions on voicework and script performance.

I don’t know about you but I think I’ve suffered from a combination of forgetfulness of how important our celebrant voices are and also taking for granted this amazing tool that we have at our disposal.

Lucy’s session today was called, ‘The voice we can trust, speaking with clarity, confidence and charisma.’ On paper, Lucy was going to be sharing her top tips on the best ways to prepare and use your voice for your ceremonies, by looking at tips for losing pre-performance nerves, warming up, mindset, mics, how to handle a mic, tone, level, pitch, body language, authenticity etc! But in reality what Lucy delivered was so much more than this, and she really left a lasting impact on the celebrants who joined the webinar today.

Here are some of the takeaways and reminders that I got from her session:

• As celebrants our voice is THE most important tool that we have.

• It doesn’t matter how good we are at crafting scripts, if we cannot deliver them in the best way possible, then we’re only doing half the job. And conversely, simplistic and basic scripts can be made into amazing ceremonies with the help of an awesome voice performance. So it really is the voice performance which is KEY to our ceremony success!

• Preparing your body and voice for a ceremony should be a big part of overall ceremony preparation.

• There is an exercise called ‘cat’s bum,’ which is a great pre-ceremony warm-up and another which gets you to read your script with your pen in your mouth! Seriously!

• We all could probably be doing much more than we already do to better look after our voices on a long term basis.

• That unless you do voice training and exercises on a regular basis, you should use a microphone for your ceremonies and not rely on ‘projecting’ your voice, which actually requires a lot of expert skill and voice training. (Unless you have less than 15-20 people)

• That the richness and gentle amplification that the correct use of a microphone can give you, is far better than a naked voice in many situations.

• That everyone needs to have a little boogie, pre-ceremony. It helps to loosen up the body and pumps you full of endorphins (a natural happy drug!) I'm so pleased that I do this already! When I’m by myself pre-ceremony, I put on my fave 90s RnB tunes and boogie my butt off for a few minutes. It 100% puts me in an energized frame of mind for a wedding. Sometimes I really notice the difference if I've not had a chance to boogie before the ceremony!

There is so much more that I could add to my list of takeaways, as Lucy made sure to pack her session to the rafters. One of my other favourite tips that she mentioned was about the need for authenticity. About using your own real voice, embracing your accent (if any) and speaking the way that you actually speak! 100% yes!

This webinar is just one of the awesome webinars that we have lined up for our members every month. Helping our members to stay connected with their celebrant work and sharpen their skills over the coming months ahead.⁠ See our line-up here.

If you’d love to watch Lucy’s webinar and her subsequent voice workshops that she’ll be doing with us, as well as have access to 3 years’ worth of webinars on a huge range of celebrant topics, plus our video tutorials, monthly group coaching calls and celebrant resources then come and join us for just over 3 Euros a week. Find out more here.

Photo by Andreas Holm Photography