Adrián Núñez is a Peruvian humanist activist and Vice President of the Peruvian Association of Atheists (APERAT), which he co-founded in 2009. His work focuses on challenging religious privilege and defending freedom of belief and expression in a predominantly religious society.
Every great movement begins with a simple idea, often in the most everyday moments. For me, that idea germinated in 2020 while sharing an ice cream in Lima with Kirstine Kaern; that was when my interest in bringing humanist ceremonies to Peru began. Today, this project that took so much effort to get off the ground is not only a reality but is flourishing at a pace that fills us with pride.
The first historic milestone of this project was set in 2024 with the first humanist ceremony we have on record in Peru. It was a deeply emotional funeral officiated by Daniel Tacsa, a member of our team of celebrants. Following this foundational step, some of us dedicated ourselves to participating in small ceremonies as training, preparing the ground for the next level.
A few months earlier, along with Henry Llanos, president of APERAT, we had created the company Ceremonias Laicas (Secular Ceremonies) and formed our team, which had been training to conduct weddings and funerals. However, it was extremely difficult to find clients to seek us out for a ceremony because, firstly, no one here knew what a humanist ceremony was, and secondly, we had very little experience.
The true turning point came at the beginning of this year. Thanks to the momentum and the prize we won at the Ceremonies Accelerator Pitch Night, we were able to improve various commercial aspects of Ceremonias Laicas, and the subsequent mentoring took us to another level.
Our first formal and commercial service was, once again, a funeral. The daughters of the deceased contacted us while traveling to Peru, seeking a farewell that faithfully honored their father’s humanist worldview. Iván Antezana, who was also part of our team at the Ceremonies Accelerator, interviewed the close family and quickly prepared the script for the funeral, which he officiated at a well-known funeral home in downtown Lima.
Shortly after that moment, the demand for officiating weddings began to grow rapidly.
Currently, we receive between one and four consultation requests per week from couples who discover us online. What is even more revealing is our conversion rate: from these meetings (video calls), where we explain the process and provide our rates, we are managing to close almost one contract every two weeks. This steady flow not only validates the effort invested but is also generating real income for our celebrants. At the time of writing this text, we have dates booked until April 2027.
One of the most rewarding aspects of this project is the educational value of each consultation. When couples contact us, we don’t just explain the structure of a humanist wedding; we use that time to talk to them about humanism itself and the international movement.
For many of these people, these meetings represent their first real encounter with humanism. It is a beautiful opportunity to introduce it to those looking to celebrate their union through love, reason, and empathy.
Our drive at Ceremonias Laicas has always been to go one step further. Thanks to a series of agreements, we have expanded our offerings. Today, not only do we provide weddings that include extra packages—such as photography and audiovisual production—but we have achieved a crucial differentiator: unlike religious weddings in Peru, which lack legal standing, we are offering humanist weddings with legal validity. This is facilitated by a new law that initially went unnoticed and which we discovered while we were training and researching. This is another step toward consolidating our work in Peruvian society. Unfortunately, even in 2026, Peruvian law still only allows us to legalize opposite-sex marriages, but we will continue striving to make our society more egalitarian one day.
Acknowledgments
Of course, what we have achieved on the Ceremonias Laicas team is not solely due to our own efforts. I want to thank Kirstine Kaern, Tale Pleym, Urtė and Gerda from Happy Human, and Humanists International for helping us achieve this.
What started shortly before the pandemic as a casual conversation in an ice cream parlor now has a life of its own, bringing joy and meaning to an ever-growing number of people.
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