It was not that long ago that over 90% of funerals followed a predictable pattern. There was a private gathering of the immediate family, followed by a public visitation or calling hours. Then a church service followed by a burial ceremony at a local cemetery. The service and ceremony were often followed by a light meal in a parish or community hall. The entire event was typically spread out over 2 or 3 days.
Today, the old predictable pattern is falling by the wayside and a new form of personalized funeral service has emerged. There are many reasons behind the increased popularity of personalized funeral services but the major factors including:
- The aging of baby boomers and their desire to experience a different funeral experience.
- The dispersed nature of many families making the logistics of a multi-day funeral harder to coordinate.
- The decline in church membership leaving many families without an option for funeral ceremony.
Leading funeral homes have responded to changes in society by fundamentally reinventing the funeral experience to meet the needs of today’s families. The following are just some of the ways funerals have changed:
- The overall event has been changed to focus on presenting and honoring the life story of the deceased. Rather than focus on the way they died, it focuses on the way they lived. In this way, every funeral is now personalized to your unique life story.
- To meet the needs of dispersed families the funeral time has been collapsed from three days down to two or even one day.
- There is an increased use of social media to create a virtual online community supporting the family and connecting dispersed family members who cannot make the service.
- A new role of the Funeral Celebrant has emerged. This person works with the family to collect the life story and then leads the Life Celebration portion of the funeral.
- In our technology based world, leading funeral home now take full advantage of advanced audio and video production capabilities to help tell the life story in unique and memorable ways. It’s common these days for funeral services to be broadcasted via the internet to family members around the world.
- Funeral Ceremonies are now available in a wide variety of sizes, ranging from small intimate farewells to large community events. One size fits all is definitely not the case anymore.
It is very common for Funeral Directors to be asked the question “How do we do this?” …
This question reflects the fact that today, very few people have had hands-on experience planning a traditional funeral, and even fewer people know how to plan the personalized funeral service they really want. One of the goals I had when creating this blog was to help families learn how to plan a funeral service that celebrates the life of their loved one in unique and memorable ways.