diff --git a/src/backend/distributed/utils/reference_table_utils.c b/src/backend/distributed/utils/reference_table_utils.c
index 15cd83796..b36334e52 100644
--- a/src/backend/distributed/utils/reference_table_utils.c
+++ b/src/backend/distributed/utils/reference_table_utils.c
@@ -136,12 +136,13 @@ EnsureReferenceTablesExistOnAllNodes(void)
 	}
 
 	Oid referenceTableId = linitial_oid(referenceTableIdList);
+	const char *referenceTableName = get_rel_name(referenceTableId);
 	List *shardIntervalList = LoadShardIntervalList(referenceTableId);
 	if (list_length(shardIntervalList) == 0)
 	{
 		/* check for corrupt metadata */
 		ereport(ERROR, (errmsg("reference table \"%s\" does not have a shard",
-							   get_rel_name(referenceTableId))));
+							   referenceTableName)));
 	}
 
 	ShardInterval *shardInterval = (ShardInterval *) linitial(shardIntervalList);
@@ -199,6 +200,10 @@ EnsureReferenceTablesExistOnAllNodes(void)
 	WorkerNode *newWorkerNode = NULL;
 	foreach_ptr(newWorkerNode, newWorkersList)
 	{
+		ereport(NOTICE, (errmsg("replicating reference table '%s' to %s:%d ...",
+								referenceTableName, newWorkerNode->workerName,
+								newWorkerNode->workerPort)));
+
 		/*
 		 * Call master_copy_shard_placement using citus extension owner. Current
 		 * user might not have permissions to do the copy.
diff --git a/src/test/regress/bin/normalize.sed b/src/test/regress/bin/normalize.sed
index 872f090ca..343d05057 100644
--- a/src/test/regress/bin/normalize.sed
+++ b/src/test/regress/bin/normalize.sed
@@ -111,3 +111,6 @@ s/worker_hash_partition_table  \([0-9]+/worker_hash_partition_table  \(xxxxxxx/g
 # ignore first parameter for citus_extradata_container due to differences between pg11 and pg12
 # can be removed when we remove PG_VERSION_NUM >= 120000
 s/pg_catalog.citus_extradata_container\([0-9]+/pg_catalog.citus_extradata_container\(XXX/g
+
+# ignore referene table replication messages
+/replicating reference table.*$/d