Celebrant (Australia) The program continued to progress and, at the end of 1995, was very close to becoming the mainstream procedure of contracting marriage. According to Messenger the period from 1995 to 2003 is recorded as being the most happily productive of the Civil Celebrant Movement in Australia. Funeral and Naming ceremonies, originally opposed by the majority of celebrants and the Attorney-General's Department, had gradually and imperceptibly become accepted. A group of celebrants under the leadership of Rick Barclay, a successful Funeral and Marriage Celebrant, had morphed the original Funeral Celebrants Association of Australia into an organisation which accepted all ceremonies and
Celebrant (Australia) Program has enabled over a million couples to be married in civil ceremonies. Celebrants were originally appointed based on geographic location and the perceived need for a celebrant in the area, but after 2003 their appointment was dependent on being a bureaucratically approved "fit and proper person". The Code of Practice, a section of the Regulations under the Marriage Act 1961, and to which celebrants are legally bound, requires that celebrants help provide a client-centred ceremony. It further recommends the following high standards of ceremonial preparation and delivery: a marriage celebrant must recognise the social, cultural and legal significance of