ChatterBank1 min ago
Non-religious funerals
I've been to plenty of civil weddings but all the funerals I've been to so far have all had vicars running the show. When (if..!) I go I would not want that but of course it's all too late to tell anyone by then. I know my family could hold the service themselves but it doesn't seem fair to ask them. Anyone know of any organisations that exist to do all the formal stuff?
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For more on marking an answer as the "Best Answer", please visit our FAQ.your friendly neighbourhood undertaker will be able to organise any type of funeral you want - the last none religious one i went to was organised like this, it took place at the crematorium (not sure about the license for burial outside church grounds but understand it is possible if you prefer), they had a hall with no religious paraphanalia or symbols and a contact of the undertakers lead a remeberance / celebration of John's life - it was a very pleasant event with friends and family telling a few stories and talking of all the peoples lives john had touched over the years... we all then went to Johns local and had many many toasts to the good man.
1. Space funeral service. Rocket carrying ashes takes you into space where you orbit for several years until you burn up in the atmosphere. http://www.celestis.com
2. Cryonic Suspension just before you snuff it. http://www.cryonics.org
3. Mummified and placed in your own pyramid
4. Shipped out to New Orleans for a traditional voodoo ceremony
5. Placed in a wooden crate embossed with Mr Flad Dracula, placed on a boat in Whitby bound for Romania.
6. Dropped from a helicopter into a volcano
7. Fly to Tibet for Zoroastrian style ceremony, with your body left out in the sun to be eaten by birds and your bones used in a Buddhist statuary
8. Put into a large bottle with an obituary note and cast out to sea.
9. Recycled as pet food with your obituary on every tin
10. For men leaving wives behind, Southern Indian style double funeral, where you are burnt twice and the widow has s$xual intercourse with her husband's close friends as a rite to re-enter the flow of normal life
11. Used as a Guy Faulkes on a family bonfire
12. For the dedicated drinker a Bontok tribe funeral where your corpse is sat up and friends and family pour alcohol into your mouth to aid your decomposition
13. Placed in your wheelie bin
When I was living in Scotland and working as minister in the Church of Scotland (until 2002) we never charged for funeral services. Some others charged between �40 and �140, and some offering secular services could often be more "religious" than our services, so the local funeral directors asked me for some guidelines for secular services as many poorer people lived in our parish and they had to base there choices on financial considerations.
I drew up some guidelines and suggestions for secular services (order of proceedings, various poems and verses, various suggestions for songs, music etc if family didn't have suggestions which can often be the case - eg for child's funeral there is a brilliant passage in Winnie the Pooh) to enable family or friends to lead the service, celebrating the life of their loved one.
If they didn't feel confident to do this some of those who worked at the funeral directors were willing to step in. They were a really brilliant company. They didn't charge anything for funerals of those under 16 years of age and were extremely pastorally sensitive - apart from some practical jokes they played on me. One time a man died who had won a local karaoke competition. He left a request that a tape of him singing should be played as his coffin entered the crematorium. His instruction was that no-one should listen to it before the funeral service. As I was standing at the back ready to lead the coffin in, the funeral director whispered that he knew what the song was as he'd had to test the sound system beforehand. He said that I needed to prepare myself as it was "Smoke gets in your eyes" :) It took me all my time to refrain from giggling. Then the music started and I discovered the funeral director had been winding me up. It was "You'll never walk alone" If I hadn't been walking up the aisle I would have strangled the FD.