No doubt you’ll be aware of the numerous awareness and support campaigns that run each calendar year. Did you know these include several in support of grief and bereavement? There’s Bereaved Parents Day on 3rd July, and Grief Awareness Week in early December.
November 2024 sees the addition of a new fixture to note – Funeral Celebrant Day, endorsed by
Coffin Club UK.
Kate Tym of Coffin Club UK conducts a funeral
in an alternative setting. Image c/r Georgina
Piper Photography
Funeral Celebrant Day is a way to raise awareness of the profession, giving funeral celebrants a platform to explain what they do, enabling the public to recognise the range of knowledge and expertise that they have, and to encourage people to approach their local funeral celebrants directly for support.
The day is for all types of funeral celebrant - whether independent, humanist, inter-faith or spiritual - to join as a collective body to engage with the public nationally, and also as individuals, to connect with their local community.
Celebrant-led funerals have steadily grown in popularity, with most UK funerals now being celebrant-led. Sharing a dialogue with the public on Funeral Celebrant Day aims to empower people with options; to consider whether a celebrant-led funeral is for them (or their person), and if so, make their own informed choice of which celebrant is right for them to plan the perfect send-off.
Funeral celebrancy has evolved into a highly trained profession, with significant responsibility, and celebrants now offering a breadth of services beyond at-need funerals; that is, in the immediate period after a death. Typically, most people will organise just a couple of funerals in their lifetime, so funeral celebrants may not be ‘on the radar’ until a bereavement occurs, which is possibly not the best time to explain the intricacies and variety of the role.
As well as ‘traditional’ services, funeral celebrants create ceremonies with meaningful symbolism and ritual for the mourners, as suits them, from services with sing-a-longs, candle ceremonies, or rosemary wreaths for remembrance.
Mourners gather round the shroud to say a
personal farewell to a loved one with wild flowers.
Image c/r Georgina Piper Photography
Many celebrants offer additional services such as future funeral planning (equally for those with life-limiting conditions and those in rude health), and leading living funerals (sometimes called living wakes or pre-funerals) with the person being celebrated present. Some may offer ancillary services such as bereavement counselling or end-of-life doula support. With the growth of direct cremation, funeral celebrants can create a separate celebration of life event, and may recommend suppliers and alternative venues for this. It is still not widely known that it is permissible to hold a funeral service in many other places besides a crematorium, such as a cheerily-decorated village hall, or peaceful woodland clearing.
Similarly, many people are unaware that the majority of funeral celebrants are fully autonomous self-employed businesses, and that they need not go via a funeral director to book them. If you don’t yet have a celebrant in mind for when the time comes, or you have any queries about celebrant funerals, look out for #funeralcelebrantday posts on social media, and events held nearby or online - why not chat to some local funeral
celebrants? A little planning now may help lighten the load later.
For the public:
Events and drop-ins organised by your local funeral celebrants will take place within communities in November. On the day itself, celebrants will simultaneously share posts across social platforms so you may find and contact them. Alternatively, you may locate funeral celebrants by postcode search at: https://funeralcelebrants.org.uk/
For celebrants:
For 2024 the mass social media event takes place on Friday 22nd November. The theme is
#whatfuneralcelebrantsdo and the hashtags are
#FCD24,
#thefword and
#funeralcelebrantday. In subsequent years, this will take place on the third Friday in November.
Information and resources for Funeral Celebrant Day can be found at: www.funeralcelebrant.day or by contacting the organisers at
www.coffinclub.co.uk and
www.dawnkempcelebrant.com
Promoting Funeral Celebrant Day – Dawn Kemp, Alison Darlington, Tracy Ramos. Image c/r Ginny’s Photography
