Silvia asks:
I really want to find out how to start a website when you haven't done any weddings yet. I've looked at many celebrant's websites and find myself overwhelmed.
Starting out can be hard, but rest assured, everyone started at zero so it’s a journey worth taking. If I was starting today and I had no weddings under my belt, I would stop focusing on what I don’t have, and focus on what I do have, or can get:
- Brand - pay a designer to create a brand for you, a colour scheme, logo, fonts, design principles. Don't know a designer, get in touch and I can recommend people I like.
- Photos - pay a wedding photographer you love to take some branding photos for your new website and social media.
- Dream - there's obviously a reason you've become a celebrant, work that out into a first year blogging and social media plan. Create a plan and content for social media and your websites blog based on all the standard celebrant questions, rituals, the reasons you became a celebrant, your philosophies, everything that makes you a celebrant.
- Promise - Refine that dream into a core promise that is the reason people will book you as their celebrant. Create a website out of this. A promise that you will be this kind of celebrant.
- Honesty - Be honest that you've done zero/few weddings, but also be confident that you have done your training, you've received your authority, and you're ready to rumble. Humble about your reality, bold about your promise.
- Simple Stuff - Cover all the boring simple stuff about getting married in Australia, legalities, forms, paperwork, vows, monitum, one month notice etc. It's always news to couples.
People often say that you’ve got to fake it til you make it, but I don’t like faking it. Just be honest, but also be bold and ambitious.
Originally published on the Celebrant Institute: https://celebrant.institute/marketing/marketing-yourself-as-a-new-celebrant/.