Romance Doesn’t Need To Be Legal
With February the month when love is officially sanctioned by a greetings card and a gift, Madelaine Cooper, a humanist wedding celebrant living in Hastings, finds it heart-warming to see that many couples are seeking to celebrate their commitment without any bells or whistles.
Right now, humanist marriages are legally recognised in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Jersey, as well as in neighbouring countries like the Republic of Ireland, with Guernsey currently in the process of extending legal recognition too. But to date there is still no recognition of the legality of humanist wedding ceremonies in England and Wales or the Isle of Man. Campaigning continues and there’s no doubt that sooner or later humanist weddings will be legally recognised across the whole of the UK.
But strikingly, the last three enquiries I received from couples asking me to be the celebrant for their wedding, it’s the fact that the ceremony that I deliver WON’T be legal that is drawing them to have a humanist ceremony: they simply want to make a public commitment of their love for each other and have a beautiful and personal ceremony to mark that.
For one couple, this is the second long-term relationship in their adult lives and they both have children from previous marriages. So they don’t want legality, financial inheritance issues and all of the palaver of being legally married to get in the way of what they feel for each other.
For another much younger couple, they don’t feel the need to have their relationship somehow sanctioned by the laws of the land. They feel just fine as they are. The third couple are resident in the USA, have already legally married there, but want to have a lovely, romantic ceremony in the English countryside that they’ve come back to year after year.
It’s great isn’t it – love for love’s sake! “Never for money, always for love” as Talking Heads put it. Good to be reminded of that after a feast of over-inflated, over-commercialised, over-wrought versions of love from our shops, newspapers, social media and possibly our hearts.
• For more information on Madelaine Cooper visit www.yourhumanistcelebrant.com
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