From Solicitors to Award-Winning Celebrants: How Nia and Hugh Built Seren Celebrants

When Hugh received an unexpected question over dinner with friends—”Will you marry us?”—neither he nor his wife Nia imagined it would spark a complete career transformation. Within days, Nia had thoroughly researched what it meant to be a celebrant, and the couple realised they’d stumbled upon something that perfectly aligned with both their creative spirits and passion for working with people.

Trading the Courtroom for Ceremonies

At the time, both Nia and Hugh were both practising solicitors, working together in the same firm. Whilst their legal careers provided security, something fundamental was missing.

“We both had a creative side to us, and the thought of sitting behind a desk for the rest of our working years was a bit… well, we were looking for a different avenue,” Nia explains.

Hugh adds: “When the phone used to ring at that desk—and it could ring 15, 20, 25 times a day—it was always a problem. Whereas now with couples or families, we’re offering solutions, either at the happiest time of their lives or making the saddest times just that tiny bit easier.”

The contrast couldn’t be starker. Their legal background had given them transferable skills—writing ability, empathy, stress management, clear communication—but celebrancy offered something their solicitor roles couldn’t: the chance to be part of people’s most meaningful moments rather than their most difficult problems.

Choosing to Train Properly

When that friend first posed the question about conducting their wedding ceremony, Nia and Hugh knew they wanted to approach celebrancy professionally. They were clear from the start: proper training and qualification, or not at all.

“Anyone in theory can be a celebrant without doing any training,” Hugh notes, “but having researched it and discussed it, we were both very clear we wanted to do the training. We wanted to have that qualification. We wanted to do it properly.”

After comparing different providers, they chose The Academy of Modern Celebrancy. The deciding factor? AMC’s online format meant they could fit training around their demanding legal careers and family life with their two children.

“The flexibility was what appealed to us,” says Nia. “We could work around our own commitments—evenings, weekends, lunch breaks—rather than having to arrange childcare and time off work for residential training.”

Two Different Training Journeys, One Shared Destination

Despite training together, Nia and Hugh each found their own path through the course.

“I’m sure we had different journeys during the training, but ultimately the destination is always the same,” Hugh reflects. “Some of the video content—I perhaps haven’t got the patience that Nia had. She wanted to really immerse herself in them, whereas I absolutely loved the pressure of training for the live ceremony. I loved the access to the document bank.”

Nia found herself drawn to the comprehensive video modules, whilst Hugh thrived on the practical, performance-based elements. Their advice to aspiring celebrants? “The training is what you make of it. Everyone’s experience will be completely different, and you get out of it as much as you put into it.”

They both initially trained in weddings and namings. Hugh later added funeral celebrancy after attending a service locally that felt disappointingly generic—even getting the deceased’s name wrong at one point.

“I went home that night and said to Nia, ‘I have got to do the funerals. There has to be a better way. This is your last chance to have your story told,'” Hugh recalls. He signed up for the funeral training straightaway and completed it as quickly as possible.

The Challenge That Nearly Broke Them

Not every part of their journey was smooth. After completing their training in the summer, they faced a sobering reality check.

“We had one wedding throughout the rest of that year,” Hugh remembers. “From September to January, we’d only had one wedding. I remember us having a discussion at some point—have we made the right choice here? Where are the bookings coming from?”

For several months, doubt crept in. They’d invested time, money, and energy into training, reduced their solicitor hours, and were met with… silence.

“You’ve got to be careful what you wish for,” Hugh laughs now, “because as soon as that January hit, suddenly the bookings started coming in, and it hasn’t really stopped from there.”

The numbers tell their success story: 7 bookings in 2023, 38 in 2024, and 45 in 2025, with ceremonies already booked into 2026 and 2027. At the end of last year, they won the Welsh National Wedding Awards for celebrants—something they couldn’t have imagined just two years earlier.

Finding Balance: Family First

Perhaps the most significant transformation hasn’t been professional—it’s been personal. Running their own celebrancy business has given Nia and Hugh something their solicitor careers never could: true flexibility around their family life.

“Hugh picks up our son from school every day now,” Nia shares. “He didn’t do that before. We can go to sports days and parents’ evenings. While we are busy a lot of Saturdays, we’ve got that flexibility in the week that we couldn’t when we were full-time employed.”

Their children, now 10 and 11, are beginning to understand and even take an interest in the business. Their daughter Seren—whose name inspired “Seren Celebrants”—is particularly fascinated by the weddings, always asking to see photos and hear about what the couples wore.

But Nia and Hugh are deliberate about maintaining boundaries. Birthdays are sacred—never available for bookings. They block out an annual holiday in August every year, paying for it in advance to ensure that week or 10 days remains protected family time.

“There’s an amazing statistic that when your children are 18, you’ve already spent 90% of your time with them,” Hugh reflects. “This isn’t the dress rehearsal. This is it. This is your chance to have that time with them and build that relationship. You can’t put a price on that. The value of that is more than taking an extra booking just for the sake of it.”

Working as a Duo: Double the Support, Double the Creativity

Running Seren Celebrants as a husband-and-wife team gives them unique advantages. Nia handles the administrative side—initial calls, booking forms, contracts, and invoicing. But when it comes to ceremonies, they operate as a true partnership.

“A lot of it is teamwork,” Hugh explains. “If one of us writes a script, the other one proofreads it or says, ‘Have you thought about trying this?’ or ‘There’s a really good story in the couple’s questionnaire—can you make it funnier?'”

That second pair of eyes proves invaluable. “If you’re just a lone ranger, you haven’t got that person to bounce ideas off,” Hugh notes.

They also make a point of debriefing after every ceremony—whether it’s a wedding or a funeral.

“We always have a little debrief,” Nia says. “We reconvene at home, have a glass of wine, and talk about the good things, the things that could have been done differently. It’s a constant learning curve. That’s the key to being a successful celebrant—you never take anything for granted, never drop your standards, and always look to improve.”

Their Message to Aspiring Celebrants

After their own journey from that fateful dinner conversation to award-winning celebrants, Nia and Hugh have clear advice for anyone considering celebrancy.

Hugh’s perspective: “Fail to prepare, prepare to fail. You can never drop your standards. If you’ve written a script you think is great, you’ve then got to read through it 10, 15, 20 times. For funerals, I make sure I’m at the crematorium two hours in advance, sat in my car going over it again and again with a pen. Never be afraid to improve, and be very critical—and I know that’s probably a harsh word—but critical of your performance, because actually when you’re being critical, you’re improving every single time.”

Nia’s perspective: “The job is what you make it, and you have to work hard. It’s not just about completing the training and then getting the bookings. You’ve got to network. You’ve got to nail your social media. You’ve got to get a website. You’ve got to invest, financially and timewise. Get yourself out there at wedding fairs, make connections with venues and other suppliers. Otherwise, people are not going to know you exist.”

From Legal Briefs to Love Stories

Looking back on their transformation from solicitors to celebrants, both Nia and Hugh express gratitude for where they are now—even with the demanding weekend schedules and unseen hours of preparation.

“We feel very lucky, very blessed that we’re at the place now that we wanted to be when we first started,” Nia reflects. “There are times you think, ‘How am I going to fit it all in? There’s not enough hours in the day.’ But this is what we wanted.”

For Hugh, the shift has been profound: “The main difference is that when I was sat at that desk and the phone rang, it was always a problem. Now, we’re offering solutions at the happiest time of people’s lives, or we’re providing the ability to make the saddest times just that tiny bit easier. To be able to tell these people’s stories—whether at a wedding or a funeral—is a genuine honour. I consider it a privilege.”

From that unexpected dinner party question to Welsh National Wedding Award winners, Nia and Hugh’s journey proves that sometimes the most rewarding career changes come from the most unexpected places. And whilst they started this journey to escape the confines of their solicitor careers, what they’ve gained is so much more: flexibility, creativity, meaningful work, and most importantly, the ability to be present for the moments that matter most—both in their clients’ lives and their own family’s.

Interested in training to become a celebrant with The Academy of Modern Celebrancy? check out our flexible, online celebrant training courses.