David Willis, Celebrant - Acorn 2 Oak Ceremonies

Could celebrancy be your side-hustle?

A recent survey from Finder.com shows that 43% of Brits have a side hustle as an additional source of income in 2024. Could being a wedding or funeral celebrant be your side hustle?

The Finder.com survey suggests that the average income from side hustles is £207 a week or £900 per month earned on top of any other full or part-time job. This can be useful for spending on life’s little luxuries or simply paying the bills given the impact of inflation on the cost of living over the last 5 years.

Being a wedding celebrant is a great side hustle to fit around a full time job because most weddings are at weekends (assuming the full-time job is Monday -Friday). Client consultation meetings either in-person or online is usually done in the evening or weekends (when the couple are not working). The writing of the personal wedding ceremony can be done in any spare time.

On average, a UK wedding celebrant can earn £750 per wedding although this varies greatly with your location and previous experience. Wedding celebrants in London can charge at least £1,000 per wedding whereas else where in the UK it may be more between £400-600 per wedding.

To become a wedding celebrant in the UK a person will need:

  • Good practical celebrant training (no formal qualifications or membership of any membership organisation is required)

  • A great wedding celebrant website that can take online booking fees and payments and links to your social media

  • Listings on popular wedding planning apps like Hitched.co.uk

  • A great social media presence on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok

  • You may need your own portable PA system (but not essential)

  • A small number (approx. 2%) of wedding venues require visiting suppliers to show proof of their own public liability insurance.

Being a funeral celebrant as a side hustle presents more challenges for someone who wants to do it alongside a full or even a part-time job. It can work but it does depend on certain factors:

  • Funeral Directors like to use celebrants who can answer if they are available to do a funeral service whilst they have families with them. This means, being able to answer phone calls at most times and to say if you are available instantly. This is more tricky if you cannot answer your phone whilst doing another job or if you need to ask permission from your employer to take holidays or to swap days so you can do a funeral.

  • If you can only do funerals on certain days, this will limit the number of Funeral Directors who may call you because they are likely to prefer to use someone they don’t need to remember what days they work and what days they don’t.

  • Meetings with next-of-kin and bereaved families also tend to be during the day. This is the preference for elderly widows/widowers and adult children tend to get time off work to make funeral arrangements for parents. Meetings with families have to take place quickly because the whole process of getting booked as a celebrant and then delivering a funeral service is normally is just 2 or 3 weeks.

Earnings from being a funeral celebrant are less than being a wedding celebrant. On average, a funeral celebrant in the UK can expect to earn about £250 per funeral (but like with weddings, this will vary with locality). In London a funeral celebrant could earn £350 per funeral whereas elsewhere in the country it might be only £220 per funeral.

These practical and financial factors mean that it is far more common for funeral celebrants to either do their work as a full-time job (or alongside being semi-retired) or to do it alongside another side hustle (e.g. being a wedding celebrant or some other type of flexible self-employment), rather than as a side hustle alongside a full or part-time job.

Being a funeral and wedding celebrant is a perfect combination.

  • The peak period for funerals is the autumn and winter

  • The peak period for weddings is the spring and summer

  • Funeral time availability needs to be mid-week and daytime

  • Wedding time availability needs to be weekends and evenings

  • There are similarities to the skills set needed to be both a wedding and funeral celebrant although they are clearly very different types of ceremony. Both are enriching personally and professionally and are joyful and dignified in their own ways.



David Willis