Why don’t more families lead their own funerals?

When someone plans a wedding they do it months or years in advance, they make choices about how they want things to be, who they want to engage to do what. Funerals aren’t like that. Even though death is unavoidable, and even if it was ‘expected’, when it actually happens, it is always a shock, compounded by grief – and most people put themselves wholly in the hands of professionals.

As a celebrant I approach creating a ceremony as joint venture with the family. I always suggest as much participation as people feel happy with, encourage contributions from many voices, and use the family’s words and turns of phrase verbatim to give the right colour to the service. I am aware that people often feel unconfident about speaking, and I support them as best I can. I have witnessed many times after the service people expressing gratitude that they stood up and spoke up, despite totally understandable nerves beforehand. 

I’ve attended several funerals run by the family, and I have wondered why more people don’t do this. For my parents’ funerals my three siblings and I never considered having a celebrant to lead it (I concede we are quite strong characters), and the service itself was great, though we knew nothing of how the crematorium worked or timings. I cringe to remember this now from my professional celebrant perspective.

This summer a friend rang to say that he’d been asked to lead a service for a friend’s mother -  could I give him some top tips?  I found that I really enjoyed helping him out, giving some guidance on what to expect – the nuts and bolts such as how the music and visual tribute worked, where the buttons were, how long he had, how to keep calm when nervous,  and ideas around making it really work well and flow as a service. 

I would like to encourage and support families to make their own funerals, and I decided today whilst walking the dog (isn’t that when all the best ideas occur to you?) that I am going to offer that service.  Maybe I am doing myself out of a job – but I like to think that I can help empower people to make informed, creative choices that will give them autonomy and a feeling that they have really shown their love and respect for someone they loved as well as they can.

For anyone thinking of making a funeral, I really recommend this book from Green Fuse, the organisation  that I trained with: https://www.heartandsoulfunerals.co.uk/2020/09/11/we-need-to-talk-about-the-funeral-book/

If you want to make a funeral service for someone you love, but you need some advice, please get in touch and we’ll have a chat.