My story
About Susie
When I was nine years old, I used to help my mum set up for weddings. She ran a catering company with her best friend, and I loved every minute of it, because I was able to see the bride and groom. Weddings have always felt like magic to me. Family events are milestones in one’s life. I remember all my cousins’ weddings as well as the sad gatherings too, like grandparents, parents and other funerals. Family milestones are the moments when a family gathers to welcome a new baby, to sadly grieve someone they love, or to celebrate everything they have built together.
Now I get to be at the heart of those moments every single day. I am Susie Mae, a certified celebrant based in Charente Maritime, and I create bespoke, beautiful ceremonies for people who want their most significant life events to feel genuinely, completely theirs.
Ceremonies That Actually Sound Like You
Generic ceremonies belong in the past. You are not a template, and your ceremony should never feel like one.
Whether you are planning a sun-drenched chateau wedding, welcoming a new baby into your family, or honouring a life that deserves to be properly celebrated, I am here to tell your story. I take the time to really get to know you. I ask questions, I listen properly, and then I craft something that sounds like you and feels like you, from the first word to the last.
I trained with the Academy of Modern Celebrancy, graduating in December 2025, with scores of 98%, 95% and 90% across my assessments. My mentor described my first ceremony script as brilliant. I bring a first degree in English, Speech and Drama, along with years of experience writing and delivering speeches at the highest level, all of it in service of your ceremony. I have conducted ceremonies in English, French and German, and I love incorporating cultural traditions from around the world.
every chapter matters
Ceremonies for Every Chapter of Your Story
Whether you are at the beginning, the middle or the end of a chapter, there is a ceremony for it. Here is what I offer across Charente Maritime, Charente, the Dordogne and the Gironde.
Weddings
Your love story is one of a kind. Your ceremony should be too. I create warm, elegant and deeply personal wedding ceremonies for couples who want something meaningful, symbolic and completely unique to them.
Your love story is one of a kind
Choosing each other, again
Vow Renewals
You chose each other back then. You are choosing each other again. Whether it is your tenth anniversary or your fiftieth, a vow renewal is a beautiful way to celebrate everything you have created together. A choice once made, is now beautifully reaffirmed.
Naming Ceremonies
Welcoming a new baby, celebrating an adopted child, or acknowledging a name change with the people who matter most. A naming ceremony is a gorgeous, memorable rite of passage for the whole family.
A gorgeous rite of passage
Truly remembered
Funerals and Cremation Services
Your loved one deserves to be truly remembered, not just formally acknowledged. I create funeral ceremonies that honour the whole person: their life, their humour, their quirks and their enormous contribution to the world around them.
Celebrations of Life
Sometimes the time constraints of a French burial or cremation mean there is not enough space to give someone the send-off they deserve. A Celebration of Life is a separate, lovingly crafted event that brings family and friends together to remember, share stories and truly celebrate the person they have lost.
The send-off they deserve
Why Susie Mae?
Wordsmith.
Choreographer.
Stage Manager.
I am not just a celebrant. I am a wordsmith, a choreographer and a bit of a stage manager. I have spent a career getting to know people properly, and I bring every single bit of that to the ceremonies I create.
I genuinely care about your story. Not just the headline version, but the real thing. How you met. What makes you laugh. What your grandmother would have said. The things you almost forgot to mention, which are actually the most important. I find all of it, and I weave it in.
I pay enormous attention to choreography and ceremony design. Every element of your ceremony should feel intentional and beautiful, from the order of proceedings to where your guests sit to how the music flows. I think of it a little like conducting an orchestra: every part needs to contribute to the finale.
I am also completely at home with symbolic ceremonies. Handfasting, oathing stones, unity candles, sand ceremonies, Maori blessings, Cornish apple cake and mead ceremonies. If you have a tradition that matters to you, I want to hear about it. And I will never write the same ceremony twice.
I am based in Lieu-dit Merignac, in-between Bordeaux and Cognac, in the Charente Maritime, and I cover a wide area of south-west France.
For weddings, vow renewals, naming ceremonies and celebrations of life, I cover Charente Maritime, Charente, the Dordogne and the Gironde.
For funeral and cremation services, I work primarily within Charente Maritime, due to the strict legal turnaround times required in France between death and burial or cremation. If you are outside this area, please do get in touch and we can talk it through.
Travel within 40 kilometres of my home is included in my fee. Beyond that, I charge 45 cents per kilometre.
France