Can you imagine attending your own funeral? The old joke is that it’s the best party you’ll never go to, but that may no longer be true.Last year, in his Channel 4 series Grayson Perry helped to create a ‘living funeral’ for Roch, a man who’d been living with Motor Neurone disease, and it was … Continue Reading
Archives
Vicky Allan’s article ‘WE DO!’
I’m delighted by Vicky Allan’s article about ‘WE DO!’ in today’s Sunday Herald! My thanks to all the couples who are featured in it: Eli and Kate, Elizabeth and Bengtis, Natasa and Grant, and in the headline – but sadly not the article itself – the originators of ‘Until death or zombies do us part’, Kellie … Continue Reading
Destination Weddings
Despite all the uncertainty over the UK’s future, more and more couples are choosing Scotland as the place they want to tie the knot. Just two days ago, I conducted the wedding of Julie and Nicolas, a French couple who brought their families over to see them getting married on the shores of Loch Fyne, … Continue Reading
Speaking at Funerals
I saw a story the other day that took me aback a bit. Father Joseph Anthony Toal is the Roman Catholic Bishop of Motherwell and he found himself all over the papers when an instruction he’d sent to his clergy was leaked to a journalist. He even made the Daily Telegraph. He told his priests to refuse requests … Continue Reading
I speak far too quickly
The lovely people at Luath Press have just shared a wee story about WE DO! on Instagram, with a link to the interview I did with Ellen and Nicole on Soundcloud. They took me a bit unawares, and perhaps because of that I didn’t realise that they were going to stream it: I had thought … Continue Reading
The D Word
I heard an interesting story on the radio this morning: it seems that BBC’s Sunday Programme on Radio 4 has commissioned its own research into the statistics and found that couples who choose to marry in a Humanist ceremony are up to four times less likely to divorce. You can read the full story here and … Continue Reading
We Do too!
I was delighted to see this amazing double-page centre-spread feature article on my book in the Sunday Mail last month – until I spotted the major factual error in the body copy. If you look closely, you’ll see the article says ‘Humanist weddings, which are non-religious, now account for more than half of all weddings carried out … Continue Reading
How to Have the Best Wedding Ever!
Big thanks to The Scotsman for this great Valentine’s Day present! You can read the article here
How to involve your family and friends…
I got my copy of the Scottish Wedding Directory Magazine today and I was delighted to see that their journalist Patricia-Ann Young spoke to two couples I married recently. If you want to see a little more detail, check out Ashley and Jamie’s story here And the full version of Claire and … Continue Reading
Humanism in Pastoral Care
I was very pleased to see this story in today’s Guardian. It’s taken a lot of campaigning to allow humanists to be part of chaplaincy teams of any kind, so this is something to celebrate. I am more than a little confused however, by the related article from Andrew Brown in Comment is Free Humanism is increasingly the … Continue Reading