Tracey Wade-Greally and her husband, Conor Greally, are one of the couples whose choice of marriage ceremony has doubled the number of humanist weddings over the past 12 months.
“I’m a Catholic, and Conor is too, but we’re not practising,” says Wade-Greally, who married in August on the Inish Beg Estate, in west Co Cork. “I have never felt an intimate connection when there is a priest [celebrating] the wedding. We wanted something more personal, and we felt that a register-office wedding would be quite cold.”
Wade-Greally hadn’t been to a humanist wedding before, although she had been to humanist naming ceremonies and funerals. So she asked the Humanist Association of Ireland about a celebrant.
"It would have been easier to get a priest, but we contacted Brian Whiteside, who agreed to it, even though it meant travelling to west Cork," says Wade-Greally; she and her husband are from Dublin.
“Brian was very open to what we wanted. He sent us sample readings and love poems, and a structure of the ceremony, saying that we didn’t have to stick to that. In the end we went with most of his suggestions. In fact, we relied on him a lot on the day, as it was a very DIY wedding.”
The couple included a “sand ceremony” in the middle of their wedding. “We each poured different-coloured sand into a glass jar, which we keep at home. The idea is that when the yellow and green sand are joined together they can never be separated again.”
The couple invited 65 people to the ceremony, which was open-air, with dinner afterwards in a boathouse on the estate. “We got married outside on a perfect cloudless day,” she says. “The law had only been resolved a few weeks earlier, allowing humanist weddings to be held outdoors.”
And it was only in 2013 that humanist celebrants became legal solemnisers for weddings. Brian Whiteside says the Humanist Association of Ireland had been campaigning for legal recognition for 10 years; humanist celebrants began conducting ceremonies a decade earlier.
Celebrants from the association will officiate at 800 marriages this year. “People are looking for choice, a more personal and meaningful ceremony, particularly for those who are not religious,” Whiteside says.
Wade-Greally says her wedding ceremony felt more personal than many religious weddings she has been to.
“Neither my parents nor Conor’s parents are particularly religious, either, so there was no pressure there. There were a couple of ‘Ohs?’ from aunts and uncles when we mentioned it in the beginning, but at the wedding itself everyone said it was a lovely ceremony – whereas often people comment on the dresses or the dinner.”
