When arranging a funeral, you will be asked if you want a religious or non-religious funeral. Traditionally religious funerals were the most expected and requested types of funerals. Even those who didn’t attend a place of worship or classed themselves as being religious would have a funeral service with religious content.
The introduction of funeral celebrants offered a non-religious, life centred funeral ceremony as an alternative to traditional religious services. Religion can still be included, but it will be part of the ceremony, not the entire ceremony.
Traditional Funerals
A mainly religious funeral with everyone wearing black, attendees referred to as ‘mourners’, a black hearse or horse and carriage taking the coffin to a church funeral or a crematorium with the funeral being led by a religious leader. Passages from the Bible are read out, hymns are sung and there is a committal.
Celebrant Funerals Ceremonies
Celebrant led funerals aren’t services as a religious funeral is. Celebrants prefer to use the term ceremony as we create and led personalised ceremonies not religious services which follow a script.
Funerals led by a funeral celebrant can have religious or spiritual content or music if required, but that is just part of the ceremony, and it doesn’t come as standard. Celebrant mostly led non-religious ceremonies.
Non-Religious Funerals
Funeral celebrants will create and lead non-religious funerals but there are also Humanist celebrants.
A Humanist is someone who doesn’t believe in religion, or an afterlife. They believe we only get one shot at life and when we die that’s it: the end. Many Humanists may refuse to say any religious words or prayers, read from religious texts, or have religious music played at a ceremony they are involved with. Some Humanists will as they separate their belief from their work.
Life Centred Funerals
Life centred funeral ceremonies focus on the life, family, personality, lifestyle and likes of a person who has died. Every ceremony includes memories, tributes, and stories from those arranging the ceremony, about the person the ceremony is for. Religion can be included if required.
Celebrations of Life
A funeral is a ceremony of goodbye, but it is also time to celebrate the person who has died. Celebrations of life will have all a life centred funeral has, and they are essentially the same kind of ceremony.
Alternative Funerals
An alternative funeral ceremony is a life centred funeral ceremony with a slight twist; it doesn’t follow the expected ‘norm’ of a funeral. By ‘norm’ it means there isn’t a desire to do things in what is deemed to be a traditional way.
There isn’t a specified way to hold an alternative funeral. It doesn’t have to be a fancy dress occasion led by Darth Vader with Storm Troopers carrying the coffin (unless these are requested). An alternative funeral is another term for a unique funeral; one that is fitting for the person the ceremony is for.
Music can be anything at all. Rock, jazz, RnB, indie, ska, reggae, techno, pop, metal, theme tunes, soundtracks, somebody singing, a brass band, a harpist, a guitar player; anything.
Dress code is unlikely to be black (unless it is a goth funeral when that is an expectation). Hawaiian shirts, feather boas, fancy dress, pyjamas, or t-shirts with images on of the person the funeral is for. The black hearse may be replaced by a lorry, a car, a trailer, a caravan, a tractor, a bus, or a different vehicle.
The ceremony doesn’t have to be held in a crematorium or solely at a graveside. It can be held in a barn, a garden, a hotel, a village hall, a pub, on a beach, a sports field, or another other desired location. Pets maybe in attendance (if the venue agrees to this)
Song lyrics may replace poems and funny stories about the person who has died are more likely to be heard with laughter playing a part in many alternative funeral ceremonies.
Alternative funeral ceremonies are usually more interactive with some seeing attendees/guests (not mourners as we invite guests to celebrate while still mourning the death of the person) waving glowsticks, singing, dancing, wearing their brightest clothing, changing their social media profile pics and statuses at requested parts of the ceremony, eating given out treats or having a toast to the person.
Cardboard coffins maybe signed by those attending, have photos and drawings, printed image coffins such as meadows, a football team’s logo, a beach or a can of lager, eco-friendly wicker, banana leaf, wool or bamboo coffins may be chosen over wooden ones.
Lighting candles or incense, (if outdoors or in permitted spaces), weaving flowers into a wicker coffin, leaving message tags or flowers in the grave, planting flower bulbs or shrubs and the gifting of seeds, plants or other items to guests are familiar aspects of an alternative funeral ceremony.
At alternative funerals we prefer to say goodbye and include words of goodbye rather than committal.
Direct Cremations or Burials
Also known as unattended funerals, this is when the body of a person who has died is taken from a hospital or funeral directors and cremated or buried directly without any ceremony or guests attending. Some call these ‘no frills funerals’ as they are the cheapest way to have a cremation or burial.
We all live our lives differently, why should our funerals all be the same?
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