Humanistfitz: John Paul Fitzpatrick, Humanist Wedding Celebrant

I'm John Paul Fitzpatrick, a Humanist Society Scotland celebrant marrying couples anywhere in Scotland. Every ceremony is written completely from scratch — no templates, no recycled scripts, just your story told properly. It's fully legally binding too, so there's no separate registry office visit needed.

Because I'm one of you. I'm a gay man, and when I stand at the front of a same-sex wedding I'm not an ally being professionally welcoming — I know exactly what that day can mean, because our right to it was won in living memory. Humanist celebrants were conducting some of the very first same-sex weddings in Scotland when equal marriage arrived at Hogmanay 2014, so this is a tradition that showed up for us early, and I'm proud to keep that going. I've married two brides with gin in the quaich, two grooms twenty-five years in the making, and everything in between — and it never stops feeling like exactly the right job to have.

Nothing off the shelf. I sit down with every couple and build the ceremony from the ground up — your words, your names, your daft in-jokes, whatever traditions actually mean something to you and none of the ones that don't. Handfastings, quaichs, ring warmings, readings written by the people who matter most to you — I'll weave in whatever tells your story, and skip whatever doesn't fit. No "bride and groom" autopilot, ever: wife and wife, husband and husband, partners for life, said the way you'd actually say it.

Getting to write someone's love story and then stand there and watch it become real. Every couple hands me something different — dogs barking through the vows, secrets read aloud, rings arriving on a dog's collar instead of a cushion — and I get to shape all of it into a ceremony that could only ever be theirs. For the LGBTQ+ couples I marry especially, there's something in it that never gets old: standing there as two grooms, or two brides, tie the knot in front of everyone they love, for men and women of my generation who grew up in a world that didn't offer this day at all. It still feels like a small miracle every time.

My fee covers writing your entire ceremony from scratch — an initial chat (in person or on a call) to hear your story, a full draft you get to read and reshape until it's exactly right, and me conducting the ceremony itself, wherever in Scotland you choose to hold it. It also includes your two-year membership with Humanist Society Scotland, which is what makes the ceremony legally binding. Travel and an optional rehearsal are agreed separately, up front, with no surprise extras.

Per event.

Bank Transfer, £98 fee paid to Humanist Society Scotland at time of booking, balance is paid 3 months prior to ceremony,