From registrar to celebrant mentor: meet Jackie Warburton

The Academy of Modern Celebrancy’s mentor team has grown. We’ve welcomed several new faces to join the 1-1 mentorship programme, each bringing a wealth of real-world ceremony experience to the students they support. Our Meet the Mentor series offers a behind-the-scenes look at the people guiding AMC trainees through the practical stages of their certification: who they are, what they bring, and what drives their work.

Jackie Warburton is one of the newer members of the mentor team. A working wedding celebrant with over 150 ceremonies behind her, she brings a career rooted in education, having spent 20 years as a Headteacher before moving into celebrancy. Alongside two of her fellow mentors, Penny Boycott and Christine Mabbott, she brings the unique viewpoint of someone who has worked as a legal registrar of weddings, with a wealth of knowledge and insight into the legal and ceremonial aspects of the role that she cannot wait to share with AMC students.

Jackie’s journey to Celebrant Mentor

Jackie Warburton spent decades at the front of a room. First as a primary school teacher, then as a Headteacher for 20 years, then as a Registrar conducting statutory marriage ceremonies. She understood what a well-run ceremony looked like. What she hadn’t expected was what a truly personal one could feel like.

It was her aunt’s funeral, led by a celebrant who seemed to have known the family for years, that showed her. The ceremony felt natural, warm and true to the person at the centre of it. She came away with her mind made up. Eight years later, she has officiated more than 150 weddings and now mentors the next generation of wedding celebrants through the Academy of Modern Celebrancy.

A career built on people

Jackie’s path to celebrancy was never going to be a short one. She spent the early part of her career as a primary school teacher before being promoted to Headship, a role she held for around 20 years. Leadership at that level demands a specific kind of skill: the ability to read a room, communicate clearly, manage competing pressures, and create an environment where people feel safe and supported. Jackie had all of this in abundance.

After leaving education, she trained as a Registrar and spent years conducting statutory marriage ceremonies. Where teaching had given her presence and authority, the Registrar role gave her something else: a deep understanding of the structure and weight of ceremony, and what it takes to deliver one with consistency and confidence.

But there was something the Registrar role could not give her. Ceremonies by their nature had to follow a fixed script. The stories of the couples standing in front of her remained largely untold. It was her aunt’s funeral, led by a celebrant who had clearly spent real time with the family, that showed her what was possible when ceremony and personal storytelling come together.

“I came away thinking I got to train as a celebrant,” she says. She did. And she has not looked back.

What Jackie believes makes a great ceremony

Jackie describes the wedding celebrant’s role as many-faceted: she is, in her words, “the custodian of an individual couple’s declarations of their love for each other.” Her approach is collaborative rather than directive. She takes her lead from the couple, offers suggestions and ideas where helpful, and works alongside them to build something that is, above all, authentic.

People are at the core of what she does. Ask Jackie what she loves most about the role, and the answer comes quickly: it is the variety, the stories, and the extraordinary privilege of being trusted with them. “People are fascinating,” she says. “If you don’t love people, then it’s just not the job for you.” No two ceremonies are the same, and she has come to thrive on that.

The feeling she describes when she walks away from a wedding is not one of relief or completion, but of a genuine buzz. She is not performing a service. She is sharing in something significant, and she feels it every time.

What she brings to AMC training

Jackie brings to her mentoring what she has accumulated across four distinct careers: the presence and communication skills of a Headteacher, the procedural rigour of a Registrar, and the ceremony instinct of a working wedding celebrant with over 150 ceremonies behind her. For AMC trainees, that means a mentor who understands both the craft and the professional demands of the role.

She is particularly well placed to support students who are making a significant career change. She knows what it is like to leave a long-established career and build something new. She knows the questions people ask themselves, the moments of uncertainty, and what it takes to step into a ceremony with confidence and earn a couple’s trust on one of the most important days of their lives.

At the Academy of Modern Celebrancy, the mentor team is made up of working celebrants who are active in the field. They do not teach from theory alone. Jackie’s experience, like that of her colleagues, is current: she is still writing scripts, still officiating ceremonies, still learning what it means to do this job well. That insight flows directly into the support she gives to her students.

Celebrant mentors: the AMC difference

Training with AMC means you are never working in isolation. From the moment you enrol, you have access to bi-weekly live Q&A sessions where you can put your questions to the wider mentor team, hear how different celebrants approach the same challenges, and build your confidence alongside others going through the same process. These sessions give you breadth: a window into the full range of experiences and perspectives that the AMC mentor team brings.

When you reach the practical stage of your training, you are paired with a specialist mentor for dedicated 1-1 support. This is where your scripts are read, your delivery observed, and your growth as a celebrant shaped through feedback that is specific to you. Your mentor will not ask you to sound like them. The aim is to help you find your own voice, develop your own approach, and graduate as a celebrant who is ready to walk into a ceremony with confidence.

It is this combination, the breadth of the group sessions and the depth of the 1-1 relationship, that sets AMC training apart from other routes into the profession.

Beyond the ceremonies

Away from her work as a celebrant and mentor, Jackie has been married for over four decades, which perhaps explains the care she brings to every love story she is trusted to tell. She has two children and three grandchildren, and by her own account loves being silly with them. She is a brass band player of 25 years, a regular at live concerts, and an enthusiast for escape rooms, particularly when her daughter is involved.

For the couples who book her and the students she mentors, the detail is the same: she is present, attentive, and genuinely invested in the people in front of her. That, more than any credential, is what makes her remarkable at this work.

Ready to start?

Jackie found her way into celebrancy after watching someone do the job with real skill, at a moment when it mattered most. If you are drawn to work where stories are at the centre and no two days are the same, this could be the right move for you.