A wedding-obsessed primary school teacher riding the rollercoaster of online dating. A queer youth worker looking for a slow-burn relationship offline. A divorced TV presenter hoping for a second shot at love.
These are some of the young Australians navigating the world of apps, ghosting and modern romance in 2025 – all of whom also happen to be registered celebrants officiating weddings for loved-up couples in their spare time.
The number of registered marriage celebrants in Australia has shot up by 20% since 2018, according to the Attorney General’s Department, as demand for non-religious weddings and civil ceremonies grows. There are now more than 10,000 commonwealth-registered marriage celebrants in Australia and it’s not just retired schoolteachers and married sixtysomethings taking up the work as a side hustle or full-time job.
“Celebrants are diverse,” says Debbie Payne, chair of The Celebrants Network. These days, you’ll find twenty- and thirtysomething celebrants conducting ceremonies in shorts, drag and cowboy boots – and maybe even taking to the dancefloor afterwards if they’re one of the increasing number offering DJ services too.
So what can conducting weddings for a living teach you about your own love life? We speak to five single celebrants on the frontline.
‘Everyone assumes you have your love life sorted ’
Melanie Jacklyn, 32, primary school teacher from Sydney who became a celebrant in 2023
I’ve always been obsessed with weddings, so becoming a celebrant felt like a perfect side hustle when I decided to go part-time from teaching. My then boyfriend and I broke up a few months into the job and I do think marrying other couples played a part. He was a great partner but I’d watch couples take their vows and say these amazing things to each other and something in me knew he wasn’t the right person for me for ever. Life is long and life is hard – you need to say your vows and mean it. If it’s not a hell yes, then it’s a no.
It’s funny how everyone assumes you have your love life sorted as a celebrant. But the truth is the ghosting and the woes of modern dating are still the same. It hasn’t helped me understand the single male mind at all.
Some men I date love that I have my own business, while others are intimidated – and for me that’s the easiest red flag in the world. I’m proud of being a celebrant. People don’t realise how much work goes into it: the year of studying, meeting with couples, creating a bespoke ceremony, asking all the right questions.
The reward is being up there next to two people during the most intimate moment of their lives. I love watching all the other moments of connection in the room: the bridesmaid seeing her BFF get married, the daughters watching their parents finally say “I do”. It’s easy to feel alone as a single person at a wedding but being a celebrant has taught me that friendship and familial love are just as important as romantic love.
‘Slow-burn relationships are hot’
Shan Mann, 27, youth workshop facilitator from Melbourne who qualified as a celebrant in 2022
Celebrants in their 20s, particularly queer ones, are a rare breed.
I call it my love project, marrying couples in my spare time. I qualified in 2022 and the first wedding I facilitated was for friends of friends in a gorgeous old butter factory in Victoria. I’d hired my own PA system and, five minutes before the ceremony, I turned it on and there was this horrible screeching sound. It completely threw off my sense of zen.
Then I remembered it was about the couple, not me, and within five minutes it was as though I’d taken drugs. That moment, when I look at these two people and we all breathe together – it’s one of the most ecstatic, transformative things I get to do.
It’s also been an incredible discovery process for my own love life. I had lots of intense, whirlwind relationships before becoming a celebrant. Since then I’ve realised that kind of love isn’t sustainable. Slow-burn relationships are hot among the couples I’ve married – many of them were friends before becoming lovers – and that’s been transformative for my own relationships: that idea of platonic love and how it can grow. At the end of the day, you need someone you can be joyful and have a laugh with.
I’m not against dating apps but I’ve reached a beautiful place now where most of my romantic encounters are organic – mostly on the dancefloor, but not when I’m working, of course.
‘It ended up pulling me through that dark period’
Glenn Millanta, 46, actor and TV presenter from Sydney who qualified as a celebrant in 2017
Becoming a celebrant felt like a perfect combination of my skills as a TV presenter, actor, public speaker and creative. I was married with three kids when I first qualified. I remember driving home from weddings, wishing the things these gushing couples were saying to each other were things my then wife would say to me. It was a lonely time: we tried couples counselling and I fought to keep the family together but in the end we let the marriage go.
I was still working as a celebrant during the divorce so I had to rely on my acting skills. After one wedding I remember sitting in a gutter and crying for about 40 minutes. It was devastating but in a strange way I think it ended up pulling me through that dark period because it combined everything I do best: helping couples to write their vows, working the crowd, injecting a bit of fun into ceremonies – like asking guests to share their best marriage advice. It felt like a divine calling.
I’ve married everyone from a former Miss Australia to AFL star Luke Breust over the last eight years and hearing their stories has meant I’ve never once given up on love. My oldest child recently said to me: “Daddy, I really want you to have a girlfriend now”– and after two years off, I think I am ready.
Just because I didn’t get the love story I wanted the first time around, it doesn’t mean I won’t have that one day. I’ve just had to accept that it might be different to the traditional setup I always pictured.
‘I’m not looking for anything short of earth-shattering love’
Jas Kerry, 37, broadcast producer from Sydney who qualified as a celebrant in 2024
My housemate and I both marry couples in our spare time and it’s fun to come home and compare the stories we hear on the celebrant circuit: brides coming into their ceremonies on boats; couples making their guests wait in the rain for two hours while the weather passes; grooms walking out at the altar. As a celebrant, you have to be ready for anything.
I’ve been single for the last seven years and becoming a celebrant has definitely made me more realistic about dating. It’s exposed me to new people and new relationship dynamics: one couple had a 15-year age gap and were a beautiful example of a blended family. It’s given me hope that relationships can come about at any time in life and they’re not always a perfect formula.
Having said that, I’m not looking for anything short of earth-shattering love – that’s the point I’ve reached now. It’s not that I’m looking for movie perfection. It’s just got to be absolutely fantastic for me to sacrifice all the absolutely fantastic things that are already in my life.
I was never that girl yearning to walk down the aisle but, if I find myself in a relationship in the future, it won’t be getting married that makes me feel at peace; it’ll be the day-to-day commitment.
‘I do sometimes wonder what I’m missing out on’
Aaron McDonnell, 36, government relations manager from Melbourne who qualified as a celebrant in 2018
When I give advice to a couple during a ceremony, I always caveat it with something self-deprecating about being hopelessly single. I can hardly dictate what love is and tell couples not to pack up when things get tough when all I have is one failed five-and-a-half-year relationship.
My ceremonies are fun and nontraditional. I’ve done 10-person weddings in the snow. I’ve married a butcher and his wife in his butchery, which stunk. I’ve done one in a hot air balloon; others in Italy and Thailand. Sometimes, I slip up, like the time I told a crowd we were there to “witness Ryan and Sarah make love”, or another where I said I was marrying “Shaun and Porn” instead of “Shaun and Paul” – I’m lucky my crowds have always taken it well.
Sometimes it’s only when I have a quiet moment after a wedding that I realise how important my job is. I cried on the way home from one recently – I’d found out the groom had been diagnosed with cancer only three weeks before.
I became a celebrant the year after my only relationship had ended and it’s funny: I write beautiful wedding scripts but, when it comes to romantic love and intimacy in my own life, I’m not looking for it. I do sometimes look at this amazing journey people are on and wonder what I’m missing out on but I’m at peace with that. I’m happy being single.
