Every one of these starts with a conversation, not a form.

Ceremonies

Weddings

I’m a registered marriage celebrant, so I can legally marry you anywhere in New Zealand. Here is the honest version of the legal bit. You apply for the marriage licence, which is a form and a fee, at least three working days before. I check it. On the day, in front of two witnesses, each of you says the words the law needs said, which is about one sentence each. I sign the paperwork and send it back. Everything else in the ceremony is yours.

What you do: choose the place, choose the people, and tell me what you want said and what you don’t. What I do: the writing, the paperwork, the day, and the signed words posted to you afterwards.

Weddings are from $650.

A small white weatherboard country church alone in a dry paddock, its front door standing open, a short gravel path up to the step, overcast morning, nobody there. — Ten minutes before a wedding at a country church, with the door already open. A generated picture, made for this showcase. On a real build, her own photographs of real ceremonies, with permission, sit here.

Funerals and memorials

I’ll come to you, and I’ll listen for as long as it takes. A funeral is usually written in three or four days, sometimes in one. I sit at your kitchen table and ask about the person, and I keep asking until the stories arrive, because they always do. Then I write it, you read it, and you change anything you like.

On the day I arrive early, I speak slowly, and I carry spare copies. A memorial, weeks or months later, works the same way with less hurry.

Funerals and memorials are $450, and that includes the drive.

Rows of plain wooden chairs in a small empty country hall, the side doors open to daylight falling across the timber floor, no flowers and nobody there yet. — Ten minutes before a memorial in a country hall, before anyone’s here. Generated for this showcase.

Namings, vow renewals, and the ones without a name

A naming for a new baby, with the people who’ll be around for their life. A vow renewal after ten years, or forty. And the ceremonies that don’t have a name yet: leaving a house, ending something well, marking a year since. If it matters to you, it can have words.

Namings and vow renewals are $350.

A woollen rug laid flat on the shingle of a braided river bed with four plain wooden chairs in a row beside it, dry tussock and flat grey water behind, nobody there. — Ten minutes before one of the ones without a name, on the river. Generated for this showcase.

The scrub along the fence line outside, which is usually all that moves while the chairs wait. A generated texture from the studio’s own library, slowed right down. It stops still if your device asks for less movement.

The first conversation

Every one of these starts with the same half hour: you, me, a cup of tea, and no form. It’s free, it’s always free, and it’s where I find out whether I’m the right person for you.

Book a first conversation or email me