Help - How to be a Celebrant in Dubai?

[ZGatward]

Hi. My name is Zu and I've just moved to Dubai with my husband and my daughter. Currently unemployed while looking for a job.

I was a celebrant (performing civil wedding ceremonies) in UK for about a year and a half and would love to continue doing it in Dubai.

Only problem is ....there is not much information out there with regards to who to talk to and where to go to get information about performing civil ceremonies in a Muslim country. I have no idea if I need to register with a government body or go straight to the hotel/wedding planner:?

So any help out there will be much appreciated. Many thanks

[Sunshine]

Hi Zu,

I'm sorry if I have sent you three messages now, but I am having some problems with submitting replies to you.

Did you get my last two messages?

Tim

[Sunshine]

Hi Zu,

I can see now that two of my three attempts to post a reply failed. Naturally they were the most important ones!

So, here goes again.

My name is Tim (don't be fooled by my username).
I have lived in Dubai for 9 years and am planning to get married to Claire, here in Dubai, next year.

We have just returned from a trip to England during which we met a few Celebrants to learn more about what they could do and hopefully find one to help us on our Big Day.

On their advice we read up on Humanism and although we would not consider ourselves deep Humanists, we were very pleased to find that other people feel the way we do when it comes to marriage ceremonies.

My question is, are you still a practising Celebrant? If so, would you consider meeting with us to discuss our wedding plans?

I would like to stress at this point that we have not actually 'booked' anyone yet and we are looking at many possibilities.

It would be great to hear from you, even if it is only to say that you can't help us, but we hope that you can.

We are going on a short holiday from tonight until Wednesday 30th August, so if you reply to me and I don't get back to you straight away, this is the reason why.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Tim

[ZGatward]

Hi Sunshine,

Thanks for the message. I'm still trying to get my head around posting messages on this site. [Edited to remove unacceptable use.]


Regards
Zu

[Kay]

Hi Zu

Can you please just take a little time to read our Posting Guidelines and our FAQs? Then I'm sure all will become clear. And if it doesn't, then you can post on the FAQ board for any further clarification needed. Reading the rules/info will make things easier for you - and easier for us as we won't have to keep running around tidying up postings which breach the guidelines and explaining the same thing time and again to people. Thanks.

Kay

PS These are public boards to exchange information - wanting to do everything privately via email or PM (private message) defeats the object of the boards. Anyway, as I said, all the info is in the guidelines and FAQs.

[ZGatward]

Hi Kay,

Apologies for that!!

[ZGatward]

Hi Tim (sorry for calling you Sunshine in the previous posting!!),

As you can see from the previous posting from the Administrator I definately don't know how to use this site!!! I tried putting my personal email so that we can have a chat!

Anyway, I'm not too sure what's the best way to meet up with you and your fiance.

I'm not a practicing celebrant at the moment and from all the information that I have gathered from different sources (wedding organisers, British Consulate, etc), you can't have a Civil Ceremony like you do in the UK. From what I've been told, the legal side of the marriage needs to happen in a church (so that it will be recognised by UK) and you can then have a mock up ceremony after that at a hotel, beach etc.

What I can suggest is that you have a quick and small ceremony (bride, groom and 2 witnesses) at a church (Church of England or Catholic Church) and then have the ceremony that you wanted at the hotel or on a beach where you, your guest and the rest of your family can enjoy.

If you are interested, I can give you a selection of vows that we would use in a civil ceremony in the UK and can put a ceremony together for you - no strings attached, just doing something that I enjoyed doing in the UK!!

Let me know what you think.

Regards
Zu

PS: Hope you had a good holiday!!

[Kay]

Hi Zu

If you are interested, I can give you a selection of vows that we would use in a civil ceremony in the UK and can put a ceremony together for you...

It would be great if you would do this, and either you or we could make it into an article for the main site. I'm sure that it would be very useful for people all over the world, not just those in Dubai. Then any time a similar question came up we could give them the link to your article.

Many thanks

Kay

PS: Here's a direct link to our contact form if you'd like to discuss it.

http://www.britishexpat.com/Contact_Form.41.0.html

[Sunshine]

Hi Kay,

I am sorry if I inadvertantly mis-used the message board, this was not my intention.

I was so pleased when I found a Celebrant in Dubai and it would not have been possible without this website.

I have read the FAQ section and the Guidelines for Posting, and I understand where you are coming from regarding personal messages on the Message Boards.

However, now that I have found Zu and know that she can help me plan my wedding I can't move forward without contacting / meeting her (if she is willing to talk to me directly).

I don't really want to discuss all the aspects of my planned wedding publicly.

Can you suggest a solution? Perhaps you could forward my email address to Zu. I hope you understand that this is quite a personal matter.

Thanks and best regards,

Tim

[Kay]

OK, you're very persuasive. We don't normally do this, but I'll make an exception - after all, it's a very important event. (Dave and I got married in Bangladesh and we had a heap of hoops to jump through to get that sorted. )

Good luck with it all. Please post anything relevant to others here, and help those who come afterwards looking for info.

Cheers

Kay

[Sunshine]

Thanks for your understanding Kay.

Thanks again.

Tim

[Kay]

Glad everyone's happy.

Zu, have you found out anything yet about being a celebrant in Dubai?

As I mentioned before, Dave and I got married in Bangladesh, and that was a bit of a palaver. We basically had the choice of a Muslim or a Christian marriage ceremony. We didn't want either. In some places (as I understand it) you can get the Ambassador to do it at the British Embassy, but as Bangladesh is a Commonwealth country and therefore we have a High Commission there, not an Embassy, that wasn't an option.

Eventually, someone told us that there was one man - a Christian "pastor" - who was authorised to do the ceremony in our house. It was a Christian ceremony but we didn't have to go to church. Just us and two witnesses. The worst bit about the whole thing was trying to stop the "pastor" nicking drinks from our fridge and putting them in his briefcase.

I hope you do keep in touch because it's an important issue. There are probably lots of people wondering how best to do it. Our Plan B was to go to Bangkok and try to get the Ambassador to do the legal stuff. But it was so much nicer to get married in our "home" and go down the road for our reception/party.

I bet this is something that many have to face, so thanks for raising the issue.

[manjit]

Hi, my fiance and I are planning our wedding blessing for next year. We want to have it a one of the hotels in Dubai.
We're looking for someone who can perform the blessing for us. Any suggestions? Thanks!