Darth Vader, Gandalf and naturists: the rise of eccentric funerals
Naturists, a funeral director dressed as Gandalf, and a greengrocer who wanted vegetables instead of flowers; as the traditional religious ceremony declines in popularity, Britons are choosing to organise more individual and eccentric funerals for loved ones.
Religious services remain the most common type of memorial, with 53pc still choosing them. But 56pc of funeral directors said they had seen a decrease in the number of the traditional funerals, as more mourners choose to have “celebrations of life” instead.
Funeral directors have dressed as Darth Vader to conduct services. In one case, the deceased man wished to be buried dressed as Father Christmas, while in another a gentleman in his 90s requested to be laid to rest completely naked.
Other celebrations of life included congas out of the chapel, attendees wearing high-vis jackets, Christmas jumpers or magicians’ stage outfits, and an Abba tribute band. One funeral even featured strippers, while a Scottish ceremony took place with mourners in cowboy gear.
It comes as the average cost of a funeral rises for the first time after they dropped during the pandemic.
The cost of a basic funeral in the UK now stands at £4,141, while the overall cost has risen to a record high of £9,658, according to life insurance firm Sun Life’s annual Cost of Dying report.
The family of Dixie King, who died in March 2022 and was a keen scooterist, organised a procession of more than 100 fellow scooter enthusiasts.
His step-daughter, Lucy Murray, said: “His coffin was ‘sticker bombed’ with scooter-related stickers from scootering clubs all over the UK and even further that had been posted to my mum for his funeral.
“Some of the scooters that arrived at my mum’s house while we waited for the funeral cars to arrive took up the whole street. It was very emotional to see how many people came to see him off,” she said.
In April 2021, Prince Philip chose to have a Edinburgh green Land Rover Defender hearse, which he helped to design, carry him to St George’s Chapel in Windsor to his final resting place.
In Netflix’s recent romantic comedy, Love At First Sight, Sally Phillips, playing a mother whose cancer has returned, has a “living” funeral, which sees her relatives and friends dress as Shakespearean characters.
Three quarters of those planning a funeral are using music that the deceased enjoyed or requested, while one fifth are altering dress codes and eight per cent are choosing bespoke coffins.
Direct cremation, which is when a person is cremated without service or mourners, has become more popular, and is the only type of funeral to have fallen in price in the last year. They are often accompanied by a separate memorial.
Organisers said the direct cremations were easier and quicker to organise, and many were arranged by the deceased before their death.
Funeral directors said that they are facing competition from remote firms that can organise direct cremations without the need for a premises, as the administration can be done online.
Mark Screeton, chief executive at SunLife said: “Some of the more unusual funerals that really stand out for me over the years are the unicorn-drawn hearse, the young man’s funeral where all his friends dressed as the ‘Honey Monster’, the lady who wanted to be buried with a life-sized cardboard cutout of David Tennant, and the circus funeral where everyone came dressed as clowns in a real celebration of life.
He continued: “Some of the requests for how the deceased should be dressed – or not in some cases – also tend to stick in the memory. Like the man who wanted to be buried dressed as Father Christmas, the farmer who was buried on a bed of hay, or the gentleman in his 90s who, alongside his whole family, was a naturist, so he was in his coffin completely naked. No one batted an eyelid.”
A spokesman for the National Association of Funeral Directors said: “Over the past decade or more, funerals – like weddings before them – have become more personalised, now often including the wishes of the person who has died and their loved ones to enable the funeral service to reflect and celebrate the life they have lived as well as say goodbye.”
