I’m Jacquie Wilson, a Heart-led Celebrant based in the Cotswolds, with serious soft spots for Devon and Dorset. Retiring in 2015 from a very successful career in PR, latterly as Head of Press at Camelot, the lottery operator.  I transferred my planning and communication skills to Wedding and Event planning at a five star luxury hotel in Ayrshire, on the West Coast of Scotland.  And it is fair to say that I simply loved it!  

In five years I was responsible for co-ordinating over 1300 weddings. No two celebrations were ever the same, it was an amazing experience to meet so many beautiful families embarking on one of the biggest adventures of their lives, when two families become one.

Additionally I co-ordinated between eight and fifteen celebration lunches and dinners each week in our beautiful restaurant and the hotel’s intimate private dining rooms. I adored it… Surprise dinners to propose were a definite favourite as were birthday celebrations that were written as ‘This is your life’.  

So, like my amazing career at Camelot, wedding and event planning became my reason for jumping out of bed each morning wondered what the next work telephone call or email might bring.

It was during my time as a wedding planner that I met several Celebrants when wedding ceremonies took place at the hotel before the wedding breakfast and dancing.

I had never come across a wedding celebrant before, I was curious!   Who knew that you could be married in a registry office with just two witnesses, and then have the ceremony of your dreams, created, written and officiated by a Celebrant?   It was definitely the way forward. I pondered the idea of training to become a Celebrant, but with such a busy life, walking dogs, keeping a home and working as a full-time wedding planner, the idea faded away.

Then, heartbreak knocked on my door when a much-loved friend died on 1st February 2019.  A Celebrant took his cremation ceremony on Valentine’s Day.  It was the most beautiful and moving funeral I had ever experienced.  The life of my darling friend Campbell (pictured above) had been captured perfectly in words. Every essence of his life danced around the chapel as the Celebrant shared Campbell’s story with us, and somewhere in between the huge sobs of sadness and light laughter at beautiful memories, I knew then that it takes a huge leap of faith to be a Celebrant.  Was I ready?

No, it still wasn’t the right time…

2021 was to be the year that I combined all my life skills and finally embarked on the Celebrant Journey.  I was bursting with pride when I officially qualified on 22nd September 2021 as a Heart-led Celebrant.  

My blog will contain ceremony ideas, rituals, scripts and much more, thank you for visiting my website ….