It is hard to decide where to start when we are doing something a bit different like having a Living Funeral. Having a Celebration of Life whilst we are still alive, even if we don’t call it a ‘Living Funeral’, is still surprising to the majority of people.

Many people have never heard of Living Funerals and so I’ve created a series of  bite-sized ‘How to Plan your Living Funeral’ blogs.

Part one of ‘how to plan a living funeral’ is about guest lists and invitations. I enjoyed writing this blog and made a little invitation to what I would have for my own Living Funeral. I look forward to hearing about your plans.

These bite sized blogs are to help us all to work out ways to make planning a Living Funeral as fun and accessible as possible for all concerned. When we’ve decided to do it differently we need to think carefully about how to make people feel comfortable.

This first part of my series focuses upon the guest list and invitation to your Living Funeral. Each blog is short and sweet and won’t take up too much of your precious time. If you are interested in Living Funerals and want to know what they might look like do keep reading or check out my Youtube channel here more about my Living Funerals on Youtube.

I’ve also created some example Living Funeral invitations just to help us all to imagine what it might look and feel like to invite someone to celebrate our lives.

This is your Last Hurrah, everything about that is hard, distressing, devasting and in some cases tragic. Your living funeral can be an antedote to that, a reprieve in all the pain. Your living funeral is a chance to eat, drink, cry, tell stories and laugh together.

At your last hurrah you can share your experience in good company and be surrounded by love and happy memories.

Because this is the celebration of your life, you get to make it into the kind of party you’d like to be invited to and that doesn’t have to be a disco! You could have a barbecue on the beach or a picnic, an afternoon tea or a classy meal.

Anything goes at your Celebration of your life, informal, formal or off the wall occasions are all perfect if they’re perfect for you. An afternoon tea with your pals might be exactly right for you.

Find our more about my living funerals here:Living Funerals with Jess May

Give some thought to the kind of people you want at your celebration and the kind of person you are. Maybe you’d be really comfortable at a garden party with romantic lighting, fairy lights and good wine.

Or perhaps a pyjama party is for you, this especially helpful for those who are currently in palliative care of have limited mobility or energy at end of life.

When we first decide to have a party, the first thing we think about is who we’d like to be there. There’s no point of having a party full of people we don’t like or one where none of our favourite people are there.

I recently treated myself to a potter around Waterstones with my partner Min and came across a book called ‘You are invited’, you can find it here: You are invited book.

You can see a lovely little video of this book by clicking on this tiktok link: TikTok video of You’re Invited book

The book got me thinking about the beauty of old-fashioned paper invitations. The colours, designs and patterns, the words and typefaces made me feel nostalgic which is why I decided to write my first blog in this series about the power of the guest list and the invitation.

One of the great things about having a funeral before you die instead of a traditional funeral afterwards is that it means that you don’t have to have uninvited guests. You can avoid all those who you’d rather not have at your funeral.

For some of us refusing to invite people who really aren’t welcome is more important than it at first sounds. Many of us face loads of family dynamics that we have had to live with in life and we would rather not have to deal with all those politics as we are facing our own mortality. But that doesn’t mean we always take the decision to put ourselves first. 

If your face is going to look like this when the doorbell rings it’s a ‘no’! So, just to be clear, the third rule for our Living Funerals is that we don’t invite anyone to this party of our lives unless we really think they can help us celebrate our last hurrah comfortably.

Don’t invite anyone who doesn’t somehow bring meaning into your life. There is no compromising and inviting people who don’t bring you joy. Life is hard enough and if you offend them, well let’s be honest, that’s going to be someone else’s problem!

There is a brilliant book by Priya Parker about The Art of Gathering: ‘How we meet and why it matters’ which goes into depth about all of this and how to manage the complexity of feelings we have around obligation. You can find it here; Priya Parker The Art of Gathering, how we meet and why it matters’

“What’s wrong with an email? well, what’s right with it? An email signifies stress, overwhelm and unwanted demands. Most of us end up with hundreds of unopened ones and even more unanswered ones.

Making something special involves making it ‘out of the ordinary’. The term ‘sacred’ traditionally meant to ‘set apart’. To make something less ‘ordinary’ by setting it out as separate from the every day.

Religions still do this by designating certain days as ‘Holy’, like Shabbatt or Sundays. Sending out paper invitations to your Living Funeral does just that. It sets your event apart as a special day. If you can make an e-mail special that’s great, and you can…but whatever you do make it different from the kind of demand that usually ends up in an inbox.

A unique and carefully designed invitation speaks volumes about the importance of your event. 

It also makes clear to the recipient that they too are special because you have taken the time to create one and send it to them.

If you have a life-limiting illness which affects you day to day or a terminal diagnosis which is making you more and more tired and weak there is no way that taking on all of this organising is a good idea.

Delegate everything to your friends and then sit back with a drink and a comfy chair and ask them to bring you things!

However, the reason why it is a good idea to delegate is not only because of your energy levels. The beauty of giving friends jobs to do and areas of work to organise is that they generally speaking really need something to do.

Give your friends responsibilities if they want them and ask them how they would like to be involved. The only thing you need to do is insist that if you ask they are honest in their response and that you will respect their ‘no’ as much as their ‘yes’.

Generally speaking, if someone is asking you what they can do to help, it is because they need something to do that feels helpful. Offering them the chance to give something in this way is only fair.

The helplessness of having to sit by and do nothing and being unable to make things better is one of the hardest parts of being close to someone who is approaching end of life.

Making the bunting or pom poms is infinitely less stressful!

There are also a limited number of ways in which people can become involved at traditional funerals. If you are not close family or a public speaker the chances are those people won’t get to do anything for the person who has died.

If someone wants to create the invitations…let them! This is especially true for children.

If your friends are creative and love to make bunting, cakes and flower arrangements but hate public speaking there is nowhere for them to offer their skills in a traditional funeral scenario, but with a Living Funeral they get to tell you that they love you in the ways they know best.

So ask all your creatives to roll up their sleeves and trust them to say ‘no’ if they don’t have capacity.

I am also a firm believer in paying for professional services if you can afford to do so. This supports small businesses and offers you plenty of control over what you want without having to do anything yourself. I will be publishing another post about some brilliant small businesses who can create lovely things for your living funeral.

Asking people to reply to you to confirm their attendance is simply to ask for courtesy. Your life will be much easier if you know who is coming.

Make it easier for yourself!

I love this idea of having a QR code for replies, this image is from Little Perfections Little Perfections website.

The reason I love this QR code idea is because it makes it super easy for your time limited guests to reply. I may be a traditionalist when it comes to creating beautiful invitations but when it comes to the practicality of actually getting responses from hectic people technology can sometimes be the answer.

Although something a little more classic is also a really nice touch. 

Whatever you do try to make it impossible for people to forget to reply or overlook it because they are busy. Create a simple form or go all out and create handmade paper ones. Make your Living Funeral an RSVP event, even if that means giving people options like ‘yes’, ‘no’ or ‘I need some time to think’ will make it possible for you to organise the event exactly as you want it to be.

I hope that you found 5 tips for planning a living funeral and making it special helpful. The next blog will be around language and how to use it whilst planning a living funeral. Check out my blog What is a Living Funeral here to find out more about Living Funerals. More about Living Funerals.