Francisca Soares Celebrantes: every love has a story
Francisca Soares Celebrantes is a Porto project run by three women - Francisca, Ana and Elisabete - who write and officiate ceremonies tailored to each couple. They do not sell a script: they write every ceremony from scratch, together with the people who will live it, and officiate in Portuguese, English, German and French.
When we started working together, the reputation was already there. There were dozens of happy couples and an average of 5.0 across almost a hundred reviews on Casamentos.pt. What was missing was a place where that reputation turned into enquiries - and, above all, where a foreign couple on their way to Porto could see, in a few seconds, that they could get married there in their own language.
The challenge
This is a market where the decision is almost entirely emotional. Nobody chooses a celebrant from a feature list. They choose because they read two sentences and felt these people would understand their story. A site like this has to achieve something very rare on the web: to move people without being vague.
And there were three concrete problems to solve. First, language: a good share of the couples are international, marry in Porto or the Douro and search in English, German or French. Second, the team: there are three celebrants who speak different languages, and the couple needs to know who can officiate their ceremony. Third, the offer: symbolic weddings, vow renewals, bespoke ceremonies and rituals are different things, but they easily get mixed up on a single page.
The approach
I went for a warm and clearly editorial identity, closer to a magazine than to a service catalogue. Typography with character, plenty of white space, short copy and photos of real moments instead of stock images. The promise sits right at the top: every love has a story.
I separated what needed separating. The ceremonies got their own readable categories, with the difference between them explained in two lines. The rituals got a space of their own, because they are often the detail that makes a couple decide. And the gallery stopped being a photo archive and became social proof: real moments, with context.
The team got a page where each celebrant appears with her name and the languages she officiates in. It is a small detail that clears up a huge doubt for people coming from abroad.
The testimonials were woven into the journey instead of being hidden at the bottom. When the decision is emotional, the words of other couples are worth more than any argument of your own. There is also a partners section, because in the wedding industry recommendations travel between suppliers.
The technical solution
The site is multilingual from the ground up, in four languages (Portuguese, English, German and French), with its own addresses for each language and correct signals for search engines - not automatic translation pasted on top.
The gallery was the most delicate technical point. Lots of wedding photos means lots of megabytes, and a slow site loses the couple before the third image. Images are optimised at build time, served in modern formats and loaded as the reader scrolls, so the site stays light.
Technical SEO was included: local business structured data, a sitemap and pages designed for searches like "wedding celebrant Porto" in each of the four languages. The quote request is always within reach, with a short form that collects the essentials - date, venue and language of the ceremony.
Everything was designed for mobile first, which is where brides and grooms look for suppliers, often at night and from another country.
The result
A site that sounds like the people behind it: warm, careful and clear. A German couple who land on the German version immediately understand that they can marry in their own language, see who will officiate, read what other couples wrote and ask for a quote without exchanging a single email about the basics.
The reputation that already existed offline is finally working online, in one place and in the four languages the business actually operates in.
The takeaway
When what you sell is emotion, the site cannot be cold, but it cannot be confusing either. The emotion comes from the tone, the photos and the words. The conversion comes from the architecture: clear categories, the right person identified, social proof in sight and a quote request one click away. Both fit in the same site - they just do not fit there by accident.