What does it mean that your celebrant is HSS-accredited?

By John Paul Fitzpatrick — Humanist Society Scotland celebrant & board co-chair

On 21 May 2026, Humanist Society Scotland was accredited to the European Humanist Wedding Standard, administered by the European Humanist Services Network (EHSN). HSS says it's the only humanist organisation in Scotland with this accreditation. I'm writing about it not just as a celebrant who conducts these ceremonies most weekends, but as one of the two co-chairs of HSS's board of trustees, alongside my fellow co-chair Jennifer Buchan — so I've seen a bit of what goes into something like this from both sides of the desk. I'll try to keep the board hat on the peg and just tell you plainly what it actually means for you, sitting there trying to pick a celebrant.

Why "accreditation" is a word worth pausing on

It gets used loosely in weddings, so it's worth being precise about what I mean by it here. Accreditation isn't a certificate that goes up on a wall and is never looked at again. It means an outside standard exists, an organisation has been checked against it, and that organisation has agreed to keep meeting it — not just on the day it was assessed, but on an ongoing basis. For a couple booking a wedding, that's the practical bit: the organisation behind your celebrant has made a commitment to a standard bigger than itself, and someone is watching to make sure it's kept.

The bit nobody tells you: "celebrant" isn't a protected title

Here's something worth knowing before you book anyone. In Scotland, anyone can call themselves a wedding celebrant. There's no licence, no exam, no register you have to pass through to print business cards and start taking bookings. What actually makes a humanist ceremony legally valid is that it's conducted by someone authorised for that purpose by a recognised body — for humanist weddings, that's most commonly Humanist Society Scotland. Outside of that legal authorisation, it really is an open field. Some celebrants working under looser or newer banners are lovely, careful people. Some aren't. Couples often have no way of telling the difference until the day itself, by which point it's too late to do anything about it.

That's what accreditation is quietly solving. It means the organisation training and authorising your celebrant has itself been checked against a recognised standard — so the assurance doesn't rest on one person's word, it rests on a system.

What accreditation actually buys a couple

Strip away the formal language and it comes down to a handful of very practical things. First, training that's been vetted — your celebrant didn't just decide one day that they fancied doing weddings; they went through a structured process, assessed against a recognised standard, before they were ever authorised to stand in front of your family and friends. Second, ongoing accountability — accreditation isn't a one-off badge, it's tied to standards HSS has to keep meeting, which means celebrants remain answerable to the organisation long after their training finished. Third, and this is the one couples rarely think about until they need it: there is a real body you can go to if something goes wrong — before the wedding, or after it — rather than an individual with no one above them to answer to. And fourth, being part of an accredited organisation connects you to a genuine network, not a lone operator: over 100 trained humanist celebrants across Scotland, so if your first-choice celebrant isn't free for your date, you're not starting from zero — you're choosing from a pool that's been trained and is held to the same standard.

What's actually new with this specific standard

Scotland has had HSS accreditation for humanist marriage for a long time now — that's not new, and it's the reason our ceremonies have been legally valid here since 2005. What's new is the European layer. The EHSN standard sets out international best practice for humanist wedding ceremonies, and being accredited to it means HSS now meets a common standard shared with other accredited humanist organisations across Europe. In practical terms, that gives couples an added layer of assurance — that the ceremony you're getting is consistent not just with what's expected here, but with what's expected of accredited humanist organisations more broadly. And because HSS now sits within that wider EHSN network, there's also a connection to a broader European humanist wedding portal, covering services across multiple countries — useful if any part of your day, your guest list, or your own story crosses a border.

Why I think this matters more than it might sound

I'll be honest — most couples don't ask their celebrant about accreditation frameworks, and I don't expect this post to change that. What I do think matters is the underlying point: when you're choosing who stands in front of your family and asks for your vows, it's worth knowing whether that person is accountable to anyone beyond themselves. Training standards and a real complaints route aren't exciting to read about, but they're exactly the things you're grateful for if the day, or the run-up to it, doesn't go entirely to plan. Having sat on the HSS board while this accreditation was being pursued, I can tell you it wasn't treated as a box-ticking exercise — it was taken seriously precisely because it's meant to protect couples, not decorate a website.

If you're still working out what a humanist celebrant even is, or how the legal side of a Scottish humanist wedding fits together, I've written more on both — have a look at my guide to choosing a Scottish humanist celebrant, and at what the wedding paperwork actually involves.