Who
Takes the
Service
And who should i choose to host?
Who Hosts and officiate’s a funeral service.
Civil Celebrants
Church Of England
Humanist
Funeral Celebrants
A funeral celebrant or also known as a civil celebrant is the main host of a funeral or celebration of life and officiates at the service. They can perform a religious or non-religious service.
- Support, Host and officiate the funeral service on the day
- Advise the family about planning the service they want
- Help you plan the order of the service to reflect how the person should be remembered, including music, readings and poems.
- Ensure any specific funeral wishes are carried out
- They’ll usually meet with you and any family or friends involved to discuss your wishes and ideas.
- If you don’t live close by then you can keep in regular touch by phone and email.
- If they don’t already know you or the deceased, then they will spend time learning from you about the person and what they meant to everyone, what they believed in, also how they affected peoples lives and what it means now they have gone.
- They may use this to write an eulogy which they may deliver during the service.
- Most can also add humour for families who wish this to be included especially if the deceased like a laugh and joke.
- If you are giving a eulogy, doing a reading, or perhaps singing, the funeral celebrant will introduce you when its time to do so. (and if you decide you can’t do it on the day they will step in and either help or do it for you)
- The celebrant will completely tailor the service to the client’s wishes allowing as much or as little religious content the family want.
Vicars
An Anglican, or Church of England funeral service centres around a message of God’s love and the hope that people go to Heaven when they die – a place free from pain and suffering.
If the person who died or the family are churchgoers, their local vicar will help you to arrange a Church of England funeral service.
If the family weren’t churchgoers, but you’d like a Church of England funeral for a loved one, we will help you choose a minister in your local parish.
The vicar will usually arrange to meet with you to find out more about your loved one and the hymns, music and readings you’d like, which may include non-religious poem or music, and family members giving a eulogy.
During a Church of England funeral, the coffin is usually placed at the front of the church. If someone has died and already been buried or cremated, a Church of England memorial service can be held for them. A photograph of the person who has died is often a focal point in place of the coffin, at a Church of England memorial service.
Sometimes after the memorial service we will then follow onto the crematorium for a short comittal or to the graveside if a burial.
Humanists
What is the difference between a civil celebrant and a humanist?
The key difference between the two is the level of religious content in the service.
A humanist service is regarded as a non-religious ceremony, as such there is not
usually any religious content in the service. While some humanists may permit the singing of a hymn, there would not normally be any prayers or reading of passages from the bible.
