Helen is the SPF Celebrant registered with the General Register Office for Scotland, so although one or both of us can officiate at your wedding, for your marriage to be legal, Helen does have to be named as being the Celebrant at the ceremony and does have to perform the legal formalities mentioned below.

If you wish to provide your own priest or priestess to perform the ceremony and just have Helen do "the legal bits", this would also be acceptable. We can also perform handfastings with no legal status, at your request. Likewise, we do not have any sort of "exclusive franchise" on offering pagan weddings in Orkney so we can recommend other SPF Celebrants, or Celebrants from other religions too - but because we are based in Orkney, if you did want to have a legal pagan wedding in Orkney (or Highlands and Islands), we are likely to be the most inexpensive option for you in terms of expenses.

Even though the GRO states that “As Paganism is a very individualistic religion, no restrictions will be placed on the manner of ceremony which may be used by Celebrants for legal Religious Marriage, as long as these comply with Scottish law” (in other words, pagan weddings do not have to have any set format), you do still have to go through some legal formalities and for your wedding to be legal, your ceremony must include the following declarations at some point:

1)A separate declaration by each person being married, in the presence of the person they are marrying, and in the presence of two witnesses and a Celebrant, that they take the other as husband / wife.

2)After these declarations, a declaration by the Celebrant that both parties to the marriage are now husband and wife.

Sadly, at the present time, gay and lesbian couples are only allowed to be joined in Civil Partnership, not legal weddings. The SPF are active in campaigning for a change in the law in this matter, but until then, we would both be happy to offer gay and lesbian couples a religious handfasting, but this would have no legal status. This could be in addition to a Civil Partnership arranged through a Registrar, but it must be separate from any legal ceremony. We are hopeful of a change in the law soon!

We are able to perform rituals and ceremonies throughout Scotland and are both willing to travel on request (expenses would be due). For rituals in Mainland Orkney, including the World Heritage Site, we do not charge for travel expenses.

All rituals and ceremonies have a fee based on our preparation time and attendance time which we are happy to explain to you. A wedding, for example, would be about £200.

Please read our contract terms.

Email us on orkneypaganweddings@googlemail.com - even if you would just like to make a general enquiry! This website is very much just for preliminary information to let you know that this service is available from us and to give you a brief overview of procedures and costs BUT we fully appreciate that all weddings are personal and your wedding is special, so we will do the majority of communication with you individually and in person, either by email or by telephone - it's all part of our service!