Whether you go to church or not, people need to mark the milestones in their lives.

Emily Flanagan meets one woman who is aiming to help them by conducting alternative naming ceremonies, weddings and memorials.

BIRTHS, deaths and marriages are Beth Currie's speciality.

One week, she might find herself on a beach helping people remember a loved one. The next, she'll be scattering ashes from a hilltop or helping people create a wishing tree with their hopes for a new-born baby.

Beth is a "celebrant", helping people devise ceremonies to mark changes or important events in their lives. No two ceremonies are alike, but then, she says, no two people are alike.

"Some people want quite straightforward ceremonies, but others want something more ritualised, to physically do something for the ceremony," says Beth.

And with less and less people choosing to fulfil their need for ceremonies and rituals in the church, she has found her service in demand.

"I like to help people fulfil passages of time and mark moments in their lives and I think it's really important to do that. Especially with not so many people going to church these days and people not realising there's an alternative to the register office. I want to show people that they can still celebrate rights of passage in their life."

Beth, from Langley Park, near Durham, began offering the service about five years ago and the business grew and grew. With a degree in religious studies, and experience of performance art, it is a job that suits Beth down to the ground. The mother of a two-year-old boy, she can advise people on staging a ceremony, help them with ideas or carry out their requests.

Many people already know exactly how they want to mark their milestone, says Beth. Recent requests she has carried out include a naming ceremony for a baby, when people picked up a handful of sand, carried it through a labyrinth of stones and laid it at the roots of a tree in the centre, with the intention that it would absorb people's good wishes for the baby. She also conducted a wedding blessing, where people wrote down their wishes for a couple and attached them to a lamp, which was floated down the River Tyne.

Some celebrations are more unusual than others, such as a "welcoming the baby into the womb" event she recently led.

Rituals can also be conducted where no official, state or religious version yet exists, such as marking retirement, "becoming an elder", marking the male or female menopause, a new job, becoming a grandparent, or naming a house.

"The ceremonies I get asked to do are not strange or bizarre, but personal," says Beth, when I ask her if she's conducted any ceremonies she felt were peculiar. "I've never come across any situation where a family thought it too weird or didn't like it. It's still very formal and there are lots of traditional aspects that the church or register office might use, like vows and rings."

Beth describes her wedding ceremonies, which she also conducts for gay couples, as "marriage blessings".

One couple who had no doubts about forgoing the traditional march up the aisle were John Harthorne and Deborah Brady. They had their own dream wedding ceremony planned exactly in their minds and approached Beth to carry out the honours.

John, 46, says: "We knew exactly what we wanted. We're not church-goers - I would say we don't follow any particular faith - but we both have a great love of nature and so nature was reflected in the ceremony."

The couple, from Otterburn, Northumberland, conducted their marriage in their village hall, with a circle of petals and four friends positioned at four points in the circle, representing the elements of fire, water, air and earth. The properties of each element, such as the solid, nurturing properties of earth and aspirational associations of air, were worked into speeches the couple recited to each other.

Despite their deviation from the traditional white wedding, everyone was touched by the event. John had sent all the guests his own version of the order of service, explaining what was going to happen and the significance of each part of the wedding.

To make the marriage bona fide in the eyes of the law, they still had to register it. Although those in her services may be married in the eyes of friends and family, they are only married in the eyes of British law if the ceremony is held in a church or register office, or a licensed venue.

"We registered the marriage at the hotel opposite, but it was very brief indeed because we felt very strongly that we were married because of what we had said to each other in front of all our friends," says John. "It was a celebration of what we feel for each other in public."