Celebrant Kate
Award winning Inclusive Independent Celebrant
Celebrating life and love from beginning to end.
What is a Traditional Funeral?
What is a Traditional Funeral?
To honour and celebrate the life of your loved one.
Most funerals are traditional funerals.
They take place in a crematorium chapel, or a church or a burial ground.
There much to say for this model. Crematoria are filled with lovely staff who truly want to create the perfect funeral service for you.
Funeral Directors promote and endorse traditional funerals and they are geared up to deliver perfect funerals this way.
Funeral arrangers are kind and thoughtful, caring individuals who want to help you and to create the funeral you wish for.
usually they follow a similar outline and have a timeslot of between 20 to 45 minutes, depending on the setting and current Covid situations.
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They do not have to be boring/by numbers/cut and paste!
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I have specialised in making these services the perfect way to say goodbye.
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Within the timeslot allowed, you can be very creative. Food, singing (when we are allowed again) religious, spiritual or humanist ceremonies, even dancing can be part of the funeral.
I have officiated at over a hundred traditional funerals and am the celebrant of choice for several local funeral directors.
This is because I am gentle, I listen and creatively tell the life story of your loved one, in the way that you want it told.
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Below are some examples of funeral services which were held in a traditional setting, but were filled with personality and honoured the life as it was lived,
The German Funeral
The German Funeral
This funeral was for a lovely lady, matriarch of a large family, who was born in Germany and lived there during world war 2.
She loved oompah music and stollen cake, her family told me.
We found some suitable oompah music for the reflection music, and on the day I surprised the family with home made stollen cake to each together as we listened.
This honoured her life, and the family spoke to each other as they munched, celebrating her little mannerisms and sayings, in a natural way which meant so much.
Including the children
Including the children
This funeral was for a much loved mother, and her young children wanted to be involved. They read a poem, chose the coffin colours (sparkly purple) and wrote messages for her to take on her final journey.
I helped to write the service to reflect who she was to them all, and created the funeral which focused on her happy times.
At the end, I gave each child a purple hyacinth bulb to grow in her memory, as well as my usual scrolls for the adults.
At a truly terrible time for the family, they felt included and I was honoured to conduct the ashes interment recently and catch up with them all. My relationship does not end after the funeral, families feel able to communicate with me afterwards to let me know how they are doing, or just to have a cuppa.
The football fan
The football fan
One of the questions I ask which gets memories flowing when talking about the deceased is 'Were they a fan of any sport or did they have a hobby?' Oh my goodness! Such a range of interests and hobbies!
I have included the music for Wimbledon, The Grand prix and BBC Cricket, used bird song and even had band members play music live.
In this case, this gentleman loved Newcastle United. I wrote to the team and they send a beautiful letter of condolence and we all wore black and white. We played the Newcastle United anthem, and the family took deep comfort from knowing he was wearing his prized shirt, and that he would have loved his funeral.