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Wedding Computer Help

Getting started as a celebrant or officiant

As a celebrant, you’re often the first vendor a couple books and the one running the most legally significant part of their wedding day. Wedding Computer gives you tools specific to that role: NOIM generation and collaborative PDF signing that satisfies the legal requirement for signed paperwork, plus a ceremony-focused pipeline for managing leads and coordinating with the rest of the vendor team on the day.

Step 1 — Complete your profile and set your display title

Section titled “Step 1 — Complete your profile and set your display title”

Go to Settings → Profile and fill in:

  • Business name — your trading name as a celebrant
  • Category — select Celebrant
  • Display term — if you prefer to be listed as “officiant” rather than “celebrant” (relevant for interfaith, humanist, and some US-style ceremonies), change this in your profile settings. The slug in your URL stays celebrant either way; the display title is what couples and vendors see
  • Location — your base city or region
  • Bio and website — this appears on your directory listing and vendor profile

Why: Wedding Computer’s celebrant category has ceremony-specific tooling — NOIM generation and PDF signing — that other vendor categories don’t have. Your profile being correctly set as Celebrant is what makes those tools available.

Step 2 — Build a ceremony-specific enquiry form

Section titled “Step 2 — Build a ceremony-specific enquiry form”

Go to Settings → Enquiry form and customise the questions couples answer. For celebrants, the most useful questions are:

  • Wedding date
  • Ceremony location (venue name and rough address)
  • Ceremony type: civil, religious, interfaith, humanist, barefoot, elopement, destination
  • Expected guest count (useful for ceremony logistics)
  • Whether they’re considering an indoor or outdoor ceremony
  • Vow style: traditional, contemporary, written themselves
  • Any cultural or religious traditions to incorporate
  • How they heard about you

Why: These answers let you assess fit before a discovery call. A couple wanting a traditional Catholic ceremony and one wanting a barefoot beach elopement are very different bookings, even though both need a celebrant. The right questions tell you quickly which enquiries to prioritise.

Step 3 — Set up your ceremony contract template

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Go to Settings → Contracts and create a celebrant services agreement. Include:

  • Ceremony type and scope
  • What’s included: number of meetings, ceremony script, rehearsal attendance, travel
  • Notice of Intended Marriage (NOIM) obligations and timeline (in Australian jurisdictions: at least one month before the ceremony)
  • Cancellation and postponement policy
  • Payment schedule: deposit at booking, balance before or at the ceremony

Why: A signed contract before payment protects both parties. Attaching it to your deposit invoice means couples read and sign it before they pay — one step, not two.

Step 4 — Configure Stripe for payments

Section titled “Step 4 — Configure Stripe for payments”

Go to Settings → Payments → Connect Stripe and complete the Stripe onboarding.

For most celebrants, the payment schedule is simple: a deposit at booking (typically 20–30% of the fee) and the balance paid before or on the wedding day. You can also set the final balance to auto-remind 2–4 weeks out.

Why: Online payments mean you’re not chasing bank transfers or asking couples to bring cash. Stripe processes the payment securely; the couple pays from their phone or computer.

Step 5 — Set your availability

Section titled “Step 5 — Set your availability”

Go to Settings → Availability and:

  • Block every date you’re already booked
  • Set which days of the week you take ceremonies (most celebrants work weekends, some do weekday elopements)
  • Set availability sharing to Public so couples can see your available dates before they enquire

Why: Celebrants often have strict one-per-day limits — you can only be in one place at one time, and ceremony timing means you can’t do back-to-back bookings easily. Accurate availability means you only receive enquiries for dates you can actually take.

Step 6 — Understand NOIM generation

Section titled “Step 6 — Understand NOIM generation”

When a couple is booked, open their wedding workspace and navigate to Documents → NOIM. Wedding Computer generates a completed Notice of Intended Marriage using the couple’s details — full names, addresses, dates of birth, and country of birth — which you collect from the couple ahead of their signing.

The NOIM workflow:

  1. Collect the required details from the couple (full legal names, dates of birth, addresses, nationalities)
  2. Enter those details into the wedding workspace
  3. Generate the NOIM from the Documents section
  4. Use the collaborative signing flow to get it signed — see Step 7

Why: NOIM completion is a legal requirement for civil marriages in Australia. Having it in the workspace means you and the couple both have access to it, and the signing workflow handles both signatures digitally and legally.

Step 7 — Use collaborative PDF signing for the NOIM

Section titled “Step 7 — Use collaborative PDF signing for the NOIM”

Wedding Computer has a built-in document signing workflow for the NOIM and other PDFs. This is how it works:

  1. Open the generated NOIM from the Documents section of the wedding workspace (or upload any other PDF requiring signatures)
  2. Both you and the couple sign it using the digital signing tools
  3. The signed document is locked and stored in your account

Witness gate: the signing is sequenced — you (the celebrant) must sign and release the document before the couple can sign. Once both parties have signed, the document is locked and held in your account as the authoritative copy. The couple does not receive a separate copy — the signed NOIM is a private celebrant document.

Digital signatures on Wedding Computer satisfy the legal requirement for NOIM signing in Australia. There is no legal requirement to print and physically sign the NOIM — the digital signature is a valid wet signature equivalent.

Why: Getting a NOIM signed has historically involved printing, mailing or meeting in person, and scanning. The digital workflow is legally equivalent and eliminates that friction.

Step 8 — Add your ceremony to the run sheet

Section titled “Step 8 — Add your ceremony to the run sheet”

When you join a wedding workspace as the celebrant, go to Timeline and add your ceremony items:

  • Ceremony start time
  • Processional
  • Welcome and introduction
  • Vows
  • Ring exchange
  • Pronouncement and kiss
  • Signing of the register
  • Recessional
  • Any other ceremony elements specific to this couple

Set visibility to vendors so other vendors — photographer, videographer, florist — can see the ceremony structure and plan their work accordingly.

Why: Your ceremony structure is the foundation of the wedding day. The photographer needs to know when the processional starts; the videographer needs to know the vow timing. Publishing your ceremony items in the shared timeline removes the need for “what time are the vows?” emails from every vendor.

Step 9 — Subscribe to your calendar

Section titled “Step 9 — Subscribe to your calendar”

Go to Settings → Calendar and copy your iCal feed URL. Subscribe to it in your calendar app.

For live CalDAV sync to your calendar app (Pro), connect CalDAV under Settings → Device sync.

Why: Your iCal feed shows every upcoming ceremony as a calendar event with the venue, date, and couple’s names. You always know what’s on without checking the dashboard.

You’re ready when:

Section titled “You’re ready when:”
  • Your profile is set to Celebrant (and your display title if you prefer Officiant)
  • Your enquiry form asks ceremony-specific questions
  • You have a contract template ready
  • Stripe is connected with your payment schedule
  • Your availability is accurate and set to Public
  • You know how to generate a NOIM and use the signing workflow

What to do right now

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Take your next booked couple, create a wedding workspace for them (or join one if a planner has already set it up), and add your ceremony timeline items. If you’re in Australia, review the NOIM generation flow in the Documents section so it’s familiar before you need it for the first time.

Go deeper

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