8 Amazing and Unique Funeral Ideas

When someone dies, we can often be pigeonholed into accepting a twenty-minute slot at the local crematorium or a religion-filled ceremony at a church. But often these types of ceremony can miss the point, or feel rushed, and don’t really do justice to the variety and uniqueness that the deceased enjoyed during their life. So here, we’ve compiled a list of eight amazing and unique funeral ideas that could contribute towards a more fitting farewell.

Highlights from a Sporting Event

Perfect For: A Massive Sports Fan

If your loved one was a big fan of sport, whether it be football, rugby, cricket or any of the many others, incorporating the highlights of a particularly important game during their life could be a wonderful way to break up the eulogy and engage guests during the ceremony. This works particularly well if the person went to see a big game live and was in the stadium when their team clinched a major trophy.

Example: Peter was a massive fan of West Ham United, and saw them live at Wembley when they defeated Arsenal to win the 1980 FA Cup Final. During the funeral ceremony, which took place in Peter’s local pub, the highlights began rolling on the big screen behind the celebrant, as the story of his attending the final was introduced.

A Memory Walk

Perfect For: A Local Community Hero

If the person you’ve lost was heavily involved in their local community, a memory walk could be a touching and emotional addition to their funeral ceremony. It works best if the person lived in a village, where everything is usually within walking distance, and can involve stops at several of the places where they made the biggest differences to community life in their area.

Example: Janet lived in a small Yorkshire village and was involved in the local Scout group, the local church, and the local school, and also raised money for various local charities. A memory walk before the ceremony took the bereaved around the picturesque village, stopping at the town hall, the local Primary School, the Scout Hut, as well as the park and the deceased’s house, and details of their achievements in each place were presented before guests moved on to the natural burial ground for the ceremony itself.

Karaoke

Perfect For: A Music Fan

While it seems a little crass for a funeral, singing can be a real way for guests to release their emotions, and if you don’t fancy any hymns or communal singing, karaoke can be the answer. This works particularly well if the person was a fan of a specific band or artist, in which case guests could be invited up to sing their favourite song from that particular singer.

Example: Brad was a huge fan of Oasis, and his family had arranged for the funeral to be held at the Boardwalk Club in Manchester, where Oasis played their first ever gig. The venue set up a karaoke system, and during the ceremony, guests were invited up to sing their favourite Oasis song, with Don’t Look Back in Anger being the final song of the ceremony, with everyone singing along.

A Garden Tour

Perfect For: A Keen Gardene

One way of keeping the ceremony of the deceased close to home – and cutting down on venue costs! – is to hold the event in your loved one’s garden. From there, you can incorporate a tour of the garden into the ceremony: if they were especially green-fingered, there’ll be plenty of different plants and flowers to talk about, and the celebrant can explain why particular flowers were special or loved by the deceased.

Example: Rosie died in her mid-70s and had a beautiful rear garden, tended to wonderfully for many years before a relatively unexpected death. The funeral itself took place in the garden, but instead of guests being seated, they were encouraged to roam around the garden during their time together and read several placards describing what each plant was and why it was important to Rosie.

A Multi-Lingual Farewell

Perfect For: A Prolific Traveller

If the person you’ve lost travelled a lot, there are several ways in which you might be able to commemorate that at their funeral. You could include several pieces of music in different languages, representing the countries they have visited during their time on this Earth; or, at the end of the committal, you could say the word ‘goodbye’ in the languages of the countries they’ve been to.

Example: Rob lived and worked in several countries over the years, and made lots of friends, many of whom were able to attend his funeral. There was a large map on the wall of the hotel where the ceremony took place, with stickers on each of the countries he had been to. At the end of the ceremony, twelve people – each representing a different country – stood in a line and said the phrase ‘Goodbye Rob, Rest in Peace’ in their native tongue.

Costumes

Perfect For: A Young Child or Infant

Infant or child funerals can often be some of the most painful, so it can be difficult to remember that young people often have very carefree and happy lives, even if they are tragically short. One way of approaching a child’s funeral could be to think of it as a birthday party, and get everyone to come dressed in costume from a show they particularly liked, as well as playing music from that show or reenacting their favourite scene.

Example: Meghan was a massive fan of Frozen, but sadly passed away a couple of weeks before her 9th birthday. The funeral, which was held at the local playground, saw hundreds of children from Meghan’s school gather together dressed as Elsa, Anna, Kristoff, and even Sven (the reindeer). They sang ‘Let It Go’ and ‘Into The Unknown’ during the ceremony, which was a mixture of fun and touching moments, before being served snow cones and having fun on a Frozen-themed bouncy castle.

A Video Message from Beyond

Perfect For: Someone With a Sense of Humour

Sometimes, we have a chance to plan a funeral ahead of time. This can be a difficult process, but also quite healing and rewarding for everyone involved. If someone you know has come to terms with their death – and is even finding some dark humour contained within it – then getting them to record a message while they’re still alive, and then present it as coming ‘from beyond the grave’ at the funeral, can be a hilarious way to lighten the mood, as well as giving the sense of that person delivering a final message to all their loved ones.

Example: Barry was quite a character, and after his cancer resisted all forms of treatment, he accepted the inevitability of his death fairly well. Before he died, he recorded a video, which was then edited later on to lower the quality of the recording. The first lines of his message were ‘Sorry about the quality, the signal is pretty bad down here!’; the final line was ‘I love all of you here, and I always will. Unless you couldn’t be bothered to come down today, in which case you can shove it.’

An Open Call for Tributes

Perfect For: Someone With a Lot of Friends

If you’re expecting a lot of people at the funeral and aren’t really sure where to start in terms of who might want to speak, there’s an option to have an open call for tributes somewhere along the line – but just make sure your venue has the flexibility in terms of timings to accommodate it. This wouldn’t work in a crematorium, for example, which is why you should have a think about some alternative funeral venues. Have something prepared by one of the guests beforehand to avoid awkward silences, but once the floodgates open, you’ll often find people have plenty of things to say.

Example: Alicia died at the relatively young age of 55. She had been a Primary School teacher for thirty years and had seen many children grow up and even send their own children to the same school. The funeral was hugely well-attended, and there was time for open tributes towards the end, which saw current and past students speak about the impact she’d had on their lives for almost half an hour.

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