It’s amazing what’s changed since June 18th 2005, when Karen Watts and Martin Reijns were married by Ivan Middleton at Edinburgh Zoo. 

Then there were only 12 celebrants authorised to conduct marriage. Now the HSS has ten times that number. Then the society could have counted its membership in the hundreds. Today there are more than 10,000 people who support our campaigns for equality and social justice, and if our statistics are correct, 2015 will be the year that humanist marriage becomes the second most popular form of marriage in Scotland. 

The most surprising thing to me was that the UK media don’t think this is very interesting. There was a bit of online coverage from the BBC, but if there was any TV or radio, I missed it. The second most surprising thing was that France 3 (the equivalent of ITV News) came over here to take a look at humanist marriage as part of an hour long special report on the state of the institution in Europe.  

They came to speak to me when I was meeting a couple who are getting married later this year, and they liked it so much they kept on filming. If you’ve got a few minutes to spare, you can see the Scottish bit here.