You might have found my page as you are thinking ahead to your own funeral. I appreciate that might be because you had had bad news and want to have things in place to help your loved ones. Alternatively, you might be planning ahead and have realised the person who knows you best is you…and you want to ensure your loved ones get it right!
The page on funerals and memorials will certainly help you. However, this page is to help you as the person at the centre of the funeral or memorial service to have what you want. I offer a special bespoke service to work with you to create what you want ahead of time.
See the funerals & memorials page for throughts on burial or cremation, funeral or memorial and ideas about venues.
You may well want to give your loved ones ideas of readings you think best fit you or reflect your loves and likes. A google search will turn up hundreds of ideas. Have a read of my first Blog on the Blog page.
I can work with you to tweak any of these poems or readings so they fit you better. We could even commission a poem just for you.
One or two readings is usually plenty unless a longer service is planned.
It might help your loved ones or the celebrant to know of any poems or readings that were special to you – from your wedding or from a loved one, a poem you learned off by heart as a child, a reading from your own parents’ funeral, an extract from something you performed in your younger years.
It is also helpful to think about poems and readings that might offer comfort to loved ones. I can offer suggestions for these and a range of poems are available by clicking the link below. Readings can also help with the final wording of the ceremony.
You might be passionate about music and have more ideas that there is time to play in a ceremony…you might have a play list for the wake! You might want to incorporate sound effects that reflect your hobbies. On the other hand, you may hate music and not want any at all – that is fine too.
The music for entry into the funeral is often quieter/gentler and the music at the end is often uplifting but there are no hard and fast rules.
As well as these most common musical elements, it is normal to have one or two other pieces of music – if timings allow. They might play while a slide show of your life is played, for example or to give time for mourners to reflect on you life.
If you want hymns, we can discuss how to make this successful.
The hardest element for the person or people doing your tribute is knowing your full story. A tribute is not a detailed life history but whoever is delivering it does not want to miss something significant.
I can help you prepare this in several ways.
Your loved ones might have photos already they can put into a slide show but you can also collate a collection that you want to be used in the service or shared at the wake/reception.
It takes about 25 photos to accompany a piece of music.
There are lots of other elements we can plan for your ceremony. You might want to leave instructions or leave suggestions for your loved ones. We can chat through a range of ideas when we meet.
There are different ways we could incorporate candles, flowers or opportunities for the mourners to write messages to be sent with your coffin, as just some suggestions.
You can choose to leave a video or audio message to be played at your funeral – it could be the audio to a slideshow. You might want your mourners to leave with something to remember you by.
Don’t forget you funeral director will dress you in your coffin, do you have want to leave instructions on what you want to wear? Or do you want your mourners to wear a particular colour?
