Services and ceremonies to remember and celebrate people’s lives are created with input from family and friends contributing words, music, and images. Traditionally, these services have taken place in conjunction with the actual burial or cremation. Increasingly, we are now seeing families choose to separate the two aspects and arranging a memorial/thanksgiving service or just a gathering for friends and relatives at a different time to the burial or cremation.
We always encourage families to be ‘hands-on’ with arrangements, having as much, or as little, direct involvement as they wish in all aspects of bringing the funeral together. This can even include helping to dress the person who has died and placing them in their coffin. We also have a private and peaceful visiting room where you can come and spend time with them.
We can help and advise about all the additional things too; from transport and vehicles, to flowers, stationery, newspaper notices and catering.
We can advise you about the choices that are available to you if you are organising a burial; either in a churchyard, a local authority or parish cemetery, a natural burial ground, or even somewhere on your own land. All these options also apply to burying ashes after cremation.
We work regularly with crematoria in Exeter, Taunton, East Devon, North Devon and Torquay, but we are happy to organise things at whichever crematorium you prefer to use. Services from these venues can be webcast, and onscreen photo slideshows can be set to music to create a visual tribute.
As well as religious services in churches and chapels, we are also used to arranging non-religious ceremonies; often in the crematorium or cemetery chapel, sometimes at the graveside, or even an alternative venue such as a community centre or someone’s home or garden. We’ll always arrange for you to meet and discuss the service/ceremony with the minister or celebrant involved.
Rather than opting to hand all aspects to a funeral director, we are now assisting an increasing number of families and individuals who are choosing to take a more proactive role in making, and carrying out, funeral arrangements themselves. At Countryside Funerals, we are very comfortable to provide as much or as little input as is required. Whether that may be supplying just a coffin; or selected elements of our services, we will be only too pleased to help.
