10 Simple Ways to Personalise a Funeral...

Here are 10 easy ways to make a funeral or memorial service more personal and to capture the essence of your person. 

​1. Display Personal Items

Create a memory table or display items that showcase your person’s hobbies, achievements, or treasured belongings, such as sports memorabilia, artwork, or tools.

2. Choose a Special Venue

Hold the ceremony in a location that had special meaning to your person, such as a heartfelt home gathering, a favourite park, beach, or community hall.

3. Wear Themed Attire

Encourage attendees to wear specific colours, team jerseys, or themed outfits that your person loved.

4. Serve Their Favourite Food or Drink

Include a meal, snacks, or beverages that your person enjoyed. Incorporate a final toast as part of the ceremony.

5. Signature Scent

Infuse the space with a scent that was meaningful to your person, such as their favourite flowers, perfume/after shave.

6. Travel or Adventure Wall

For those who loved to explore or travel, create a map or display showing all the places they visited or dreamed of visiting, with pins or notes from loved ones. Friends and family members could add to this as part of the ceremony.

7. Decorate the Coffin/Shroud

Get out your paints, coloured markers, and stickers to decorate the Coffin or Shroud to make it truly unique.

8. Incorporate Favourite Music & Poetry/Readings

Play songs/include poetry or readings that were meaningful to your person or reflect their personality. This could include live performances, a playlist, or even a sing-along.

9. Promote a Charity

Organise a donation drive for a cause close to your person’s heart and share how they contributed to that cause during their lifetime.

10. Include a Personalised Ritual

​Some simple examples are: Guard of Honour; Create a memorial cookbook for a food lover; Sand ceremony for a beach lover/surfer; Book swap/donation for an avid reader.

Find more ritual ideas here →

​The more authentic to your person the better, but the possibilities for this are as vast as your imagination!

contact me for more ideas →

Final thoughts

I would love to hear about how a funeral you have attended or organised has demonstrated the personality of the person who has died....share your experience in the comments...

I’m here to help and will respond to every comment.