Terms and conditions for a celebrant

A celebrant sells one thing that cannot be replaced: your presence at a ceremony on a fixed date. The terms need to deal with booking fees, postponement, illness, the script you write, and couples who assume the ceremony has a legal effect it does not. I draft celebrant terms for a fixed fee of £995, delivered in five working days.

Who this is for

Independent wedding celebrants, humanist and interfaith celebrants, naming and vow renewal celebrants and funeral celebrants in England and Wales, trading as a sole trader or through a company. Couples and families are consumers with rights you cannot draft away. Funeral directors, venues and planners who book you are business customers. One set of terms can cover both if it is written with both in mind.

What matters in a celebrant's terms

Booking fees, the date and cancellation by the couple

Ceremonies are booked far in advance and you can only sell the date once. Your terms should set a booking fee proportionate to what you lose by holding it, a cancellation scale that rises as the day approaches, and a clear statement of what each payment buys. Under the Consumer Rights Act 2015, keeping a prepayment on cancellation without a matching obligation on you, or charging a default fee out of proportion to your loss, sits on the grey list of terms that may be unfair. Travel, rehearsal and extra meeting charges must appear in the price you show consumers under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024.

The fourteen-day cancellation right

Most celebrants take a booking after a meeting at the couple's home or a video call, then confirm by email. Those are off-premises or distance contracts under the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013, and the couple has fourteen days to cancel from the date of the contract. Where the cancellation information is not given, that period can extend by up to twelve months, which is a real risk on a booking made far ahead. If you start drafting or hold meetings inside the period, do it at the couple's express request, and your terms can then charge a proportionate amount.

What the ceremony is, and what the couple still has to arrange

A celebrant-led ceremony and the legal formalities under the Marriage Act 1949 are separate things, and couples do not always understand that when they book. Your terms should describe precisely what you are providing, state that the couple is responsible for making their own arrangements for any legal registration and for any permissions the venue requires, and record that you told them before they paid. Under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 information the consumer relies on is binding, so a loose assurance in an early meeting about what the day involves can become a contractual promise you never meant to give.

The script, recordings and photographs

You write the ceremony. Under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 the words you write remain yours unless you assign them in writing, so the terms should give the couple a licence to keep and use the script personally while ownership stays with you, and should deal with filming and live streaming by their videographer. Say openly that you reuse structures and phrasing across ceremonies. Take consent for photographs, quotations and reviews in your marketing, since a family who agreed warmly on the day may feel differently months after a funeral.

Illness, substitutes and the limits of a liability cap

The couple booked you, not a colleague, so the substitution clause has to be honest: you will use reasonable endeavours to find a suitable replacement celebrant, the couple may decline and take a refund instead, and the script goes with them. A liability cap is worth having against a business booker, but the Consumer Rights Act 2015 does not let you limit liability to a consumer for a service to less than the price, and nothing excludes liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence. Your insurance does more work here than the drafting.

Funeral work and funeral directors

Funeral celebrancy runs on different economics: short notice, a script written the same week, and an invoice sent to a funeral director rather than to the family. Decide who your customer is and say so in the terms, because a director who treats your fee as a disbursement can leave you chasing an estate for it. Where the director is the customer, the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998 gives you statutory interest and fixed compensation on a late invoice, and your own payment terms are better than accepting the director's by silence.

What it costs

Customer or supplier terms and conditions, £995. One set of terms, customer-facing or supplier-facing, drafted for your business. Five working days.

Review of your existing terms, £495. You already have terms and want them checked and brought up to date. Returned marked up with my amendments and an explanation of the changes. Three working days.

Buying online forms the engagement on payment. The scope is what the terms and conditions drafting page describes, you accept the Terms of Service at checkout, and I email you within four working hours to get started. If you would rather ask something first, email me.

What you get

• A full set of bespoke terms drafted for your business, reflecting the legal requirements that apply to your business and sector
• A note in plain English explaining the terms I have drafted for you
• Liability, payment, termination and IP provisions that protect your position and are drafted to withstand scrutiny from the other side
• Guidance on how to incorporate the terms properly
• Your questions and comments answered by email or phone
• One round of amendments to finalise the terms ready for use

What is not included

• Negotiating your terms with individual customers (I am happy to quote for this as an additional service if required)
• Sector-specific regulatory compliance beyond the contract terms themselves
• Website privacy notice and cookie compliance, which I quote separately
• Terms governed by the law of another country
• Tax advice

Questions I am often asked

The couple want to postpone rather than cancel. What should my terms say?

Postponement should be treated as its own event, not a cancellation and not a free pass. I draft a clause allowing a transfer to a new date subject to your availability, usually one transfer, with any difference in your current fee payable. If you are not free on the new date, the booking falls back to the cancellation terms.

We agreed everything by email. Are my terms part of the contract?

That depends entirely on when the couple saw them. Terms sent after the booking fee has been taken are the ones that fail. The Consumer Rights Act 2015 treats binding a consumer to terms they had no real chance to read as potentially unfair, so I set out how to present and record acceptance before money changes hands.

A venue has asked me to sign its supplier terms. Should I?

Read them before the ceremony is in the diary. Venue supplier terms often carry indemnities, uncapped liability and payment dates that sit badly with a consumer booking you have already taken. I offer a review of existing terms at £495 in three working days, which covers a document someone else has put in front of you.

Related guidance and services

• Terms and conditions drafting, £995, the service this page describes
• Contract review, £495
• Ask Caesar, £495 a month
• Terms and conditions for a wedding planner
• Terms and conditions for a DJ or wedding band

This page is general guidance for businesses in England and Wales, not advice on your own circumstances. Last reviewed: September 2026. Email geoffrey@caesar.co.uk.