Our Celebration of Life Memorial Services in Minehead, Taunton & across Somerset & Devon
Celebrate their life after the funeral
Whether formal or informal a celebration of life or a memorial can be an opportunity to say goodbye in the way you or your loved ones want to. With our creativity, let us inspire you to have a moment to treasure
Celebrate their life after the funeral
We know the importance of saying goodbye, having the space to grieve, and an opportunity of family and friends coming together to celebrate and reminisce about the departed. So with our award winning services and over 30 years experience in catering and hospitality, we offer to plan, coordinate and provide the perfect venue, food and drink and activities to make it a special occasion.
We understand there are many reasons why our clients ask us to support them with a separate celebration of life event. These include with covid restrictions meant people didn't have the funeral that they wanted, or traditionally the family invites all the mourners to a wake after the funeral to pay their respects, or those opting for a direct cremation there isn't the chance of saying goodbye together, or for those who want to honour a life with a memorial service or celebration of life in the future, such as on an anniversary or special date.
Whatever your style we can supply afternoon tea to fine dining in your favourite restaurant to even in your own home or on the beach. We'll listen to your ideas and offer creative ways to have quality time with your family and friends. Our wealth of experience in planning such occasions has resulted in a variety of special times of people celebrating, some including activities shared together, leaving us to do as little or all of the work.
And with our in-house celebrant services, we can offer informal or formal, religious or non religious memorial ceremonies and rituals, that could include scattering of ashes in your favourite place if you wish.
So if you want to spend time together to celebrate in your style from gentle to fabulous, then get in touch with us at Amanda-Louise Funeral Services to see how we can support you.
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Celebration of Life Memorial Event
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PERSONAL MESSAGE TO YOU FROM AMANDA-LOUISE
“I built my independent family run funeral business on kindness and experience with our desire to provide you with every aspect for you to arrange a funeral that reflects how you wish to say goodbye. So, I offer choice,support and value and am not rigid in our approach, so you only pay for what you want and need.Not all funerals are the same and no two funeral directors are the same either. Some funeral directors charge additionally for many aspects of the funeral elements. We care about the living and the departed and know how daunting it can be to arrange a funeral. So, with my heartfelt offering, below is my 10 point gift to support you in your important life decisions, warmly Amanda-Louise”
1. Our Pledge – your loved one remains in our local facilities
2. Our Compliments No Charge (if desired) - Collecting clothing in the local area, our flower placed on coffin if desired as sentimental touch, and delivery of ashes in the local area
3. 'Our Compliments No Charge - A Funeral Notice' online service
4. The ability - for Amanda-Louise Funeral Director to personally come out to your home locally to discuss arrangements in detail
5. Our Compliments No Charge - Choice is very important to us, so you have the option for your gentle funeral ceremony to be conducted by Amanda-Louise (celebrant capacity - subject to availability)
6. Our Pledge Our Heart is Local – we prefer to use only local crematoriums or cemeteries (and not take you out of our region)
7. Our Compliments No Charge - We believe that arranging a meaningful funeral can be a healing experience to support your grief journey. Amanda-Louise will personally support you and guide you through the practical aspects and offer to help you create a fitting ceremony and celebration of life. Our in-house trained bereavement support for adults and children, and open invitations to join us for our bereavement coffee sessions after the funeral enabling a comfortable space and shared experiences
8. Our Partnerships - Access to specialist bereavement counselling for those needing therapeutic structured support
9. Our Pledge for the Planet – we dedicate towards planting a tree in memory of your loved one and our unique way to benefit our environment for future generations by offering a variety of eco-friendly funeral procedures, arrangements, and products too
10. Our Pledge to Ease the Burden – we offer to provide everything you may want or need for a funeral, memorial or celebration of life under our one roof helping to remove some of the stress from your shoulders. From floristry, vehicles, orders of service and ceremony accessories, catering to venue provision and memorabilia and keepsakes
Our tailored celebration of life events
We make it easy for you to choose the event that’s right for you, to pay tribute to a loved one's life, and support you step by step. So if you want a uniquely designed commemorative function that suits the person's personality or particular wishes, or an occasion incorporating 'releases', together we'll curate a detailed plan.
We have over 30 years and award winning in planning unique events, we'll listen to your ideas, offering our creativity and recommendations if required of almost limitless possibilities, and delivering them in a heartfelt professional way. Often people tell us "that was so them".
We've experience in creating:
- Intimate Afternoon Tea to Lavish Full Catered Dining and Dinner Dances
- Fully Stocked Bar Events With Staffing
- Personalised Firework Event including catering
- Weekend Accommodation for Family get together with memorial service
- Balloon/Dove/Bubble Releases to help family members to acknowledge person has died
- Art Therapy Fun Workshops with Children to understand loss
- Balloon Rides
- Wreath making, or flower arrangement Workshops with Adults to come together as family activity
- Planting tree and other rituals as remembrance
- Celebrant conducted service
- We can also invite guests, send invitations, collate donations in memory, liaise with any suppliers and even supply a chauffeur with limousine, horse and carriage or luxury road vehicle to arrive in style.
Alternatively we can supply memorial and ceremony accessories if you wish to organise your own event
More services we offer
What to expect from us
The enduring strength of women
We care for you and your family
As your Lady Funeral Directors, Amanda-Louise can meet you in the comfort of your own home, or in our peaceful office, or via video call if you'd prefer. We will never tell you how 'things should be done', or rush you, but support you to understand and consider your choices, so that you can decide what is right for you and your family and friends.
We will listen to you, and can help you plan a funeral ceremony. We'll respect your personal beliefs, values and culture and ensure your requirements, and those of the person that has died, are reflected in the funeral. You may prefer a religious funeral, a more secular service or might want to include a number of different religious and spiritual perspectives within the same service.
We can help you to reflect on the life of the person who has died and enable you to create some positive memories to support you at a time when people can often feel sad and alone. We can support you to have a farewell that you desire - so we will support you to understand the wide range of options such as visual, musical, floral, donations, readings/poems for example, as well as organising venue and/or hospitality for your after funeral wake or reception, if you wish.
Importantly, we will be flexible to your needs and wishes and give you our time to help put your ideas into action. You can take as much control as you like. We are able to support families from across Somerset or Devon, are not regionally restricted, we can help you create an event at a time and place that is best for you.
Amanda-Louise Funeral Director, can also personally deliver a heartfelt celebrant led service on your behalf should you wish, or we can recommend other talented professional ceremony leaders including religious ministers, celebrants and humanists.
We work hard to support the wellbeing of every family we support (adults and children).We can also provide a wealth of practical bereavement information for adults and children, and we'll ensure the funeral is meaningful for you, which helps in coming to terms with loss too.
We care for the person who has died
In our care you have trusted us to look after your loved one and we take enormous pride in treating people with respect and dignity. From the very moment the person who has died comes into our care, to the moment they leave, we will treat them with compassion, kindness and consideration. We see this as part of the cycle of life
We reach out and support people from 15 to 50+ miles away from us, as we safely transfer the deceased into our facilities. We'll care for the person entrusted into our funeral home with compassion and dignity, and treat everyone as guests in our home. Or we can assist if you prefer the deceased to remain at home or liaise with a repatriation company for deaths abroad.
We provide a comprehensive range of coffins in different materials, including coffin accessories to suit all tastes. This is a very personal choice, so we happily talk about them or can show you the differences.
We can provide the ability for family to spend time with their loved one, and to change clothing if this is important to you. Plus you can be involved in as little or as much of their care as you desire. We will gently prepare them for their funeral following your wishes including hairstyles or makeup, and whilst we do not routinely embalm we can provide this if you desire. We’ll take great care of any person effects, and give them to you ,or they will remain with the person Plus we can arrange for your items to be placed in the coffin if you wish.
We can even support you to keep your loved one at home right up until their funeral if you wish.
On the day of the funeral
We understand that attention to detail is really important, from considering the way people enter the service to carefully calculating the journey time.
We can provide our professional pallbearers to convey the coffin. We can help you bear the coffin if that's important to you. We can arrange special routes to the funeral if you wish, or alternative hearses and limousines.
We can arrange to collect family from railway station or airport if helpful.
Some families prefer not to hold the funeral ceremony at a crematorium chapel or in church, so we can support you to have a service in a chosen hotel, hall or alternative venue that is meaningful to you.
Amanda-Louise will be by your side giving you that reassuring presence ensuring everything is going to plan smoothly, and we leave when you are ready for us to go. We can also provide attendance cards so you know who has attended the funeral ceremony service.
After the funeral
We remain connected should you need us. If we collected donations, we will provide you with audit trail so you know they have been forwarded to the relevant people, organisation or charity. We'll collect ashes if that's helpful & deliver them to you. We can arrange for you to scatter them or preserve them if you wish.
We will have spoken to you about the arrangements of the funeral flowers and carried out those wishes. And if required, we can organise graves and headstones to be put in place at a suitable time after a burial or ashes placed.
And we welcome you to stay in touch. Often our clients pop in to talk about how life is treating them, or to attend one of our coffee afternoons as life can be isolating at times following the loss of a loved one. Our kettle is always on, likely biscuits too. Rest assured, we will never stop caring - here for you whenever you need us, wherever you are.
Do you need more help?
"We all felt totally safe opening our hearts to Amanda-Louise and were so impressed in the skills and empathy she has to understand how we all felt."
Celebrations of Life Events
Our frequently asked questions to guide you
Will you take care of everything?
If you want us too, yes we can take care of every part of the process for you. We will discuss with you what you would like in terms of service, flowers, coffins, transport, obituaries, donations for example. You can trust our caring and professionalism to ensure it is delivered as you wish.
Who Should I invite to the funeral?
We can talk to you about venues and how many people they can comfortably hold. We recommend that one member of the family and friends takes the role of inviting people to the funeral, and making a note of who is going to attend to give you an idea on numbers. You could telephone, text, email or write to them; or some pop the message onto social media platforms, otherwise there is the traditional way of placing a death notice in the newspaper, or we at Amanda-Louise Funeral Services have an online notice of funerals offered to our bespoke funerals. However, you do it, don’t forget to tell them the place, date, and time.
As to who to invite, this is a personal choice. Some families give an open invitation, while others only want close family. There is no right or wrong way.
Nowadays not everyone invites everyone back to their home or to an organised funeral reception. But if you want to, let them know when you invite them, or the ceremony leader can remind the attendees during the service, and it can also be placed in an Order of Service that you wish to have printed. We can help you with this.
"Dedicated to giving you the funeral you deserve & want"
"With my vision on providing wrap-around-care from start to finish. Our team are here to help you with every aspect of planning and organising your funeral needs from the preparation of the body to events and memorial services, I will be with you every step of the way"