I’m Jennifer Sanders and when I came to Brighton 18 years ago, to study visual arts, I fell in love.

Not with a person, but with the city, its creativity and the surrounding landscape.

Brighton has remained a great passion in my life, along with a love of telling and hearing stories, a joy in sharing in people’s memories and a desire to ensure that people are able to recognise and mark the significant moments in their lives. 

 

As an artist I work in the photographic medium as well as with the spoken word.

I collect stories which I weave with images to create installations that convey emotion and evoke responses. It’s a little like creating a ceremony! 

 

Death has been a companion in my life. I have lost both my parents, my sister, and several close friends. These experiences allow me to draw upon grief and sorrow, as well as curiosity, celebration, love and humour, when exploring what is most important to you and to the moment you wish to mark.

When my father died, I felt a profound need to honour him, and to acknowledge all parts of his life, sharing my memories with others and exploring their memories of him, to create a powerful moment in which we all shared. That was the day I realised that I wanted to commit myself to helping people mark their most important moments, whether happy or sad, whether public or private. For the past six years, I’ve had the pleasure of helping people make unforgettable memories. 

 

When I’m not creating ceremonies and services, I will often be at Saddlescombe Farm, helping people reconnect to nature through creative activities. I work with two very special organisations Grow and Trust in Nature who do amazing work in giving people access to the natural world in safe, nurturing surroundings.

My two rescue dogs, known as ‘the poppets’ are constant companions whether I’m in my vegetable garden, trying to follow a sewing pattern or out on a walk with friends. 

 

Recently, I needed to find a celebrant for myself. When I started to think about what I wanted from that person, the answer was very simple. He, or she, needed to be somebody I’d be comfortable sitting down and having a cup of tea with, and somebody I knew I could share my innermost thoughts and feelings with. That’s who I try to be when I work with people - the person you’d love to sit down and have a cup of tea with, and whom you’d trust with the most important things in your life. 

 

I bring all the experience of my fifty-something years, including my own spiritual searches, my training as an artist and my career in residential social work and the voluntary sector, to the process of working with you to craft a ceremony that will meet your needs.

For some people that’s a quiet, intimate affair that marks a special moment, for others it’s a lively celebration that broadcasts great news to the world.

Whatever the circumstances, your ceremony will be unique, personal and heartfelt. 

 

Ceremonies have evolved in certain ways because they work - their traditional power resonates for us and through us.

My 25 year spiritual apprenticeship, including 12 Step programmes, led in - 2013 - to ordination. Being an ordained minister means I can bring both the traditional and the imaginative to my ceremonies, holding a sacred space in which any ceremony: birth, marriage, death, retirement, coming of age, coming out, can take place - naturally, beautifully and sincerely. 

 

I’m here to listen and learn, to help people look at what is most important to them, and to share those moments with others in a way that is meaningful, loving and memorable.