Contacting Deborah Belaus to officiate our wedding was simple and relaxed for us, yet professional . . . → Click Here]]> When we knew we wanted to spend the rest of our lives together and began planning our wedding, we knew we wanted things to complement us, our personalities and what we esteemed to be sincere to us.

Contacting Deborah Belaus to officiate our wedding was simple and relaxed for us, yet professional and personal, too. Each time we contacted her, she was polite and quick in response. Our first meeting was informal and with young children in tow. Deborah, like us, took everything in her stride.

Deborah was very easy to work with when planning our wedding. though her email, meetings and “getting to know you” questions, Deborah really had a good idea of who we were. Her intuitive nature pretty much pinpointed exactly what we wanted for our wedding day, as she came to know how we met and more about each of our personalities. When we met at our wedding venue, to have a run through for the day, Deborah walked us through the plan and ceremony as well as worked with us to find a rainy day back up.

Deborah was brilliant from early days to the wedding day and beyond. Her genuinely openness to facilitate and officiate an amazing ceremony that identified just who we are, was exactly what made our family feel an intimate part of our wedding. We wanted our day to define us, on that day, and what we hope to grow to become. We wanted our family to not only have a peek at us and our dreams but to be a part of it all, too,if only for just one day. Our family really enjoyed the ceremony and that is exactly the way we wanted it.

Thank you, Deborah! You were an integral part of our beautifully, exquisite wedding day.

Becky and Bob Weller

Life-Cycle Celebrant® Deborah Belaus Serves Growing Population of Couples

Unaffiliated with Houses of Worship with Unique, Personalized Ceremonies

More and more engaged couples find themselves with a quandary. Who will marry them if they no longer belong . . . → Click Here]]> NEW GENERATION OF ENGAGED COUPLES SEEK ALTERNATIVES WHEN SAYING ‘I DO’

More and more engaged couples find themselves with a quandary. Who will marry them if they no longer belong to a house of worship, or have left the faith traditions of their families of origin? Life-Cycle Celebrants® like Deborah Belaus fill a growing need to serve couples with creative, personalized wedding ceremonies reflecting this trend. An extensive new survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life details statistics on religion in America and explores the shifts taking place in the United States’ religious landscape. More than one quarter of American adults (28%) have left the faith in which they were raised in favor of another religion or no religion at all. Among Americans ages 18-29, one in four say they are not currently affiliated with any particular religion.

“Older teens and young adults appear to be abandoning organized religion on a large scale,” says Belaus. “When couples come to me to be married they often describe themselves as spiritual, but not religious. Many individuals have drifted away from the religion of their youth and find that getting married raises serious questions.” With the rise of internet dating sites, more single people are meeting others from different denominations and cultures. The result: An increasing percentage of married couples are interfaith, multicultural, interracial, same gender, agnostic and atheist.
This changing shift in attitudes leads to several questions such as where to get married and by whom. That’s where a Life-Cycle Celebrant® like Belaus comes in. “When a couple is getting married outside this jurisdiction of any specific church or religious organization,” explains Belaus, “they are free to customize the ceremony to their own needs.” Celebrants like Belaus bring the balance and healing often required to help build the bridge of acceptance between diverse backgrounds.

“The celebrant’s role is to listen without judging,” says Belaus, “to recognize couples’ needs, present possible solutions, and care for all parties involved. As the Celebrant gathers information, a ceremony is born.” If you are celebrating an interfaith marriage, such as a Jewish/Christian ceremony, couples can include rituals or traditions specific to their religious heritage and then adapt and weave both traditions to reflect their modern, current lives. Blending, modernizing, adapting, and personalizing these age-old rituals offers couples from different backgrounds a way to create something that speaks to their unique partnership as an interfaith family.

Belaus received her training in a rigorous program with the Celebrant Foundation & Institute, studying the art of ceremony creation, storytelling, comparative ritual, ceremony management, and oratory. Her customized ceremonies are a wonderful opportunity for couples to express themselves and declare the power of love in their lives.