Stepping Stones
‘Life is a walk, each day we take steps’
Interfaith services and ceremonies, are all creatively written with you to provide you with a personalised, individual
and empathic service that reflect the person, couple, family and their unique occasion.
Your wishes are taken into account at every step in its planning and your choice of words, readings, and music allows your personalised
ceremony to truly express you and allows you to reflect, celebrate and create a truly heartfelt, personalised and memorable occasion.
Some people want a service or ceremony that allows their faith path to be part of their day and sometimes
people want to find other ways to honour their personalised beliefs.
As an Interfaith Minister Alison will work with you to honour your values, beliefs and traditions creating with you a special occasion personally for you.
BEGINNING
Starting your baby’s life with a unique celebration of their individuality and their place within your family creates memories to cherish forever.
MIDDLE
Interfaith weddings, blessings and vow renewals allow personalised expressions of your commitment and love for each other in beautiful and memorable ways.
ENDING
Letting someone we love go and saying goodbye, can with a helping hand help us take a step towards deep appreciation, love and thanksgiving for their life.
Baby Naming and Birth Celebrations
‘The first steps a baby takes are into your heart’
Naming your baby or celebrating its birth is a special commitment that honours your child’s place in your family and your choice of their special name. This first stepping stone in life is a wonderful opportunity to welcome your child into your family in a way that is unique for you all.
With Alison you can create a baby naming, blessing or ceremony that will allow you to creatively express what you want within your celebration. You can choose how to involve other children or family members, words, readings and music that are personal to you. You then add all of this to your perfect location giving you the opportunity to create a memorable event that is uniquely yours to cherish forever.
Marriage Blessings
‘I love you every step of the way’
Are you thinking of getting married, and want to create a service that celebrates a unique expression of your love? Maybe you are a couple with different faith backgrounds who wants a ceremony that honours both of your beliefs or same sex couple who want to design a service that allows you to find personalised ways to express your commitment to each other. Perhaps an Interfaith ceremony may be perfect for you?
Creating The Ceremony
Alison will work with you to explore what what is important to you both and help you create and design the perfect service for you. Your ceremony will reflect you as individuals and as a couple and will be a ceremony that allows you to honour and celebrate your commitment to each other in your unique way, allowing it to be an expression of you both from beginning to end.
The Venue or Location
If you choose an interfaith wedding you can choose a venue of your choice, nothing is prescribed, and this allows the location to be somewhere that is personal and important to you both. Your personalised ceremony in a location that is of your choosing allowing your day to be truly unique, beautiful and memorable.
Legal Requirements
Depending on the location of your wedding different legal requirements are needed, and in some locations Alison is able to undertake this requirement with you, in others this can be a joint service with a registrar present or with the legal part of the service undertaken earlier in the day or in the days preceding the wedding blessing. Whatever is needed Alison will work with you to ensure it runs smoothly.
Funerals and Services of Thanksgiving
‘The people they met, the places they passed, were all steps in their journey, and they kept a place inside their hearts for each of them.’
When someone in our life leaves us whether is it unexpected or after a long period of illness it can be a difficult time to try to put into words a way to say goodbye to them. At a time when our world is challenged by the changes we are facing we want to find a way to honour and pay tribute to our loved one.
As an Interfaith Minister Alison is experienced in helping families to do this.
Alison will meet you and together you will be able to create a beautiful tribute for your loved one where you get to choose all the elements of the service, that make it perfect for you and for them. You will be able to choose words, music and readings that are personal and meaningful to you, allowing this to be a unique expression of your love for them.
With this approach families share that they have found ways to turn what was a challenge and difficult time into a beautiful and memorable time of thanksgiving and celebration of their loved one’s life.
Testimonials
-
Please accept my most sincere thanks for the charming sympathetic and understanding manner in which you dealt with the planning and preliminaries to the funeral. But most of all the way you conducted it. I absolutely know that on this occasion M (and for the only time ever) would have awarded it a ten out of ten. Should you be dealing with other bereaved people who need reassurance of the way you do things, then never hesitate to put them in touch. Thank you MJ.
We would like to thank you for organising and leading such a lovely service today. Though it was a sad occasion, we were able to reflect on the fulfilling life P lead and give thanks for the many blessings and talents P gave us. We appreciate the support and kindness you have shown to us at this difficult time. Kind regards D, J, J
I write to thank you for the excellent service you provided for the cremation of MW. Everything was done in an efficient, caring way. All you did was perfect and made things so much easier for L. The video link worked well and was much appreciated by all those who were unable to attend. Thanks again MG.
Thank you for your patient and sensitive handling of the arrangements for the funeral service for my Mum A. We really valued the support you gave us. You were so skilled in putting together all of our shared thoughts to create a lovely service, which we will always remember. Kindest regards SP.
Just a wee note to say thank you so much for the lovely service you conducted for M. It really turned out to be more than I had ever imagined. I felt it was a beautiful tribute to M, and I have no doubt he was very chuffed. From the moment I spoke to you on the phone on the Saturday I knew we were in good hands and I can't thank you enough. thank you for helping me celebrate the life o f may amazing fighter M. Love L.
Thank you so much for all of your help, kindness and thoughtfulness in preparing the service for us. We really appreciated your attention to detail with the readings, music and prayers making it so personal for us. It truly was a fitting tribute with so much love. Just wanted to say thank you for today. It was the perfect send off for my lovely Father. You did a great job. All the best A.
I just wanted to say a huge thank you to you for your part in giving my dad D such a good send off yesterday, it was such a lovely service. He would have been so proud to see so many people there to celebrate his life. We were asked if you were a friend of the family which I believe was due to the sensitive nature in which you carried out the service. I truly felt you had a lovely insight into my family and that came across so well. Thank you again with very best wishes L.
I wanted to say thank you for Tuesday, it was a lovely service and tribute to our Dad Gary Blackman. You helped make a difficult time much easier for us all, your SL.
I'm sorry for the delay in contacting you, just wanted to say a huge thank you for the service you did for my dad. It was a great send off J.
A big thank you for conducting a personal lovely ceremony for M B. We are really pleased with how the day went and think M would have liked it . Thank you also for supporting R with her speech. With best wishes C and family.
I would just like to thank you for your support in making N's service such a memorable event, it had so much warmth, love and compassion. Everyone commented on how lovely the service was. He would of been proud of all the content and the turn out to celebrate his life. Thank you also for the CD and copy of the service J will treasure this and it was so thoughtful of you. She has already played it. Kindest regards C.
Alison thank you very much for your hard work arranging the service on Wednesday, we all thought it went very well. You made the process as painless as it could be in the circumstances. Regards RS.
I would like to say thank you for a wonderful service today and I know Mum would have approved. I'm hoping not to have to attend many Funerals but if I do I hope they are like today. Again many thanks for what you have done for us.Kindest regards P.
Thank you so much for L’s beautiful service, you had so many compliments at the wonderful caring way you conducted it, in fact several people asked if you and L knew each other. Both J and G were dreading it and they both said it was so beautiful that it made it a bit easier for them. A big thank you. Regards J, J & G.
Just a big thank you for conducting such a sensitive and personal ceremony yesterday. We thought the tone and content were perfect, particularly the emphasis on the loving aspect of A's relationships. It can't be easy helping people through such a difficult time so your skills are particularly appreciated.Thanks again. Kind regards, I.
I just wanted to drop you a quick line to say thank you very much for conducting our mums service on Wednesday – it was everything we could have hoped for and was a lovely, fitting tribute to our lovely mum who we will miss so much. Many people came up to us afterwards and said it was one of the “best” services they had been to in terms of the content and how it was delivered albeit it a very sad day. Your experience and guidance helped us to ensure we had the most fitting tribute we could have had in such difficult circumstances. Thank you again. H, L & P.
May I thank you most sincerely for everything you did for us. You conducted the service perfectly - absolutely perfectly. I was especially grateful for the subtle additions and omissions you made in order to accommodate everyone. I really don't know how I would have managed without your kindness, attention to the detail, and support. I am so grateful that you were there for C, J, J and me when it mattered. Yours, most sincerely, D.
Thank you for all you have done for E's service. It was so lovely and well put together. We could not have asked for better and so touching and so true of Dad and who he was. Thank you P & G.