Celebrant (Australia) celebrancy was established by the Australian Commonwealth Attorney General Lionel Murphy on 19 July 1973, when his first appointee, Mrs Lois D'Arcy, was categorised as a Civil Marriage Celebrant. Later, as civil marriage celebrants branched out into the performance of other ceremonies such as Funerals and Namings the term was shortened to Civil Celebrant. According to civil celebrant Dally Messenger III: The civil celebrant program is almost entirely the result of one man's vision. Murphy himself told me the story of how he was opposed by his own staff, the public service, his fellow members of parliament and officials of
Celebrant (Australia) is either chosen or created by the couple, it can be affirmed as honest and authentic. Or to give an American perspective on marriage which illustrates a reformed view of civil marriage we need only quote the New Jersey civil marriage celebrant Gerald Fierst: A wedding ceremony is a crossroad where two life stories intersect. A wedding ceremony takes the two lives that the individuals have travelled and transforms them into a single path upon which each life embarks, starting over. A wedding ceremony acknowledges the turning point, the choice to go on. It's the setting off on life's journey