“You have a much more educated consumer and they want to run the show, whereas before it was, ‘You are the undertaker, we will do what you say’. It is very, very proactive now - the family part.
“We are still are very much involved in the church services, but more and more because we are our own celebrants we are getting involved in the designer funerals.
“We had a funeral recently where everybody had to wear pink, including us, so we went out and bought pink ties and Bronwyn wore a pink blouse. We had another where to celebrate a man’s love of his vegetable garden we helped organise a casket arrangement with carrots, cauliflowers and potatoes.”
Michael Crawford of funeral directors Charles Crawford and Sons agrees it is questionable whether the “celebration of life” isn’t itself a bit of a denial of death.
“Funerals have come a long way, but the ancient art of dying is never going to change,” he says.
“You can lighten the moment, but you know that at some point of time that coffin is going to go and that is the cruncher in the whole process - it is the physical separation between the living and the body.
“The baby boomers have kicked this off. They are the ones who want a party. The next generation will take it further and as we go down the track it will be different again.
-From 'Not so Grave Funerals' read the full article on Wyndham Weekly
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