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Celebration of Life Ideas
Vision boards help you to share ideas with family & friends Creating your own ceremony vision board can be immensely helpful for family
and friends to share ideas.
Have a cuppa and take time to flick through magazines/pictures online
to get inspiration of the different aspects you'd like to bring.
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Really consider what is important to you as a family, what feeling would you like to create - perhaps a formal and controlled ceremony or a more relaxed and spontaneous ceremony? Write down words, pick colours, anything that helps you connect with how best will support you all to say goodbye to this unique person.
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What did they teach you?
What did they bring to this world?
How would you like to remember them?
Would you like a celebrant or vicar to lead the ceremony or would you like to do this with the help of friends and family - you can you know!
Instead of prayer would you like to bring in blessings of love that you create yourself?
Instead of traditional hymns are there other songs that you would like everyone to sing along to?
Maybe you would like to incorporate a guided meditation for people?
Are there any gifts you would like to share?
Instead of shop bought flowers, would you like guests to bring an offering from their garden or whilst out on a country walk? This could be foliage, flowers, a feather, a shell from the beach ... You could have space in the ceremony to invite guests to place their offering on the coffin
You could give guests an opportunity to write a farewell message on, say, a luggage label or other beautiful piece of paper, during the service to be placed on the coffin.
Would you like guests to bring a written memory that you can keep for yourselves and future generations in a beautiful book?
Do you want the ceremony to be laid out in a traditional way with chairs behind each other and the coffin at the front or would you like a circle around the coffin creating a circle of love and light around that person?
Maybe you don't want a ceremony at all and would prefer to have a relaxed walk, talk and share memories event where you can incorporate a beautiful meal at the end perhaps?
Would you like beautiful live music, singing or would you prefer recorded music?
And one of the most important pieces of information for families, that sadly most are unaware of is that you don't have to have a funeral at either a crematorium or a church, you can have it anywhere that is happy to have a coffin. I regularly use beautiful wedding venues where you can incorporate the ceremony and the wake taking out the need to travel to different locations, you get longer (normally 4 hours) and it can cost the same as for a 30 min service in a crematorium chapel.
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Remember, a funeral is about honouring the person who died and helping those left behind process and adjust to the death so tear up the rule book of Victorian funerals gone by and really think about what it is that is going to help you and your family through this time. There is no fundamental right or wrong, it's what feels right to you that's important.
Below you will see a vision board I popped together using Canva
