Choosing A Celebrant? You Have A Choice…

Yes, this is another ‘five things’ piece. But the work of a celebrant at a funeral should make the difference between how your final gift and tribute to your lost loved one will be experienced and remembered by everyone present and watching. Remember, ‘In the end they’ll be defined, by the story that they leave behind’ and it is up to the next of kin, usually a spouse, partner or adult child, to get that story right – so I hope this may help.

Five Things To Ask A Funeral Celebrant Before Choosing One

As an accredited, professional funeral celebrant, I hear all the stories about the profession. Some celebrants I have met are excellent, many are average, some are poor and too many are so sadly awful – and that is why I am writing this piece, to help you to avoid the worst and appoint the best for you. Because, just like everything else around funerals, you have choices – and you will judge the type of professional that is right for you using your own lived experience and knowledge of your loved one’s character and any left wishes.

To do that, you need to either trust the judgement of your funeral director who will make their own recommendation if you require a celebrant, or you can ‘shop around’ to find one that suits you. I recommend doing a little bit of both, by getting to know the proposed celebrant before they are formally appointed by the funeral director. For example, one of the biggest funerals I have led in terms of attendee numbers was when I was second choice after the wife of the deceased found that the appointed celebrant simply did not ‘get’ her late husband’s lifestyle and life story. The other celebrant had been appointed to lead the ceremony, but fortunately the funeral director stood her down following the meeting she had arranged with the client. I understand that many find the other celebrant to be fine – but the wife of the deceased did not want ‘fine’; she wanted much more. As I used to say to my colleagues when running creative, marketing and media groups, the best clients, who set themselves the highest standards, always get the best campaigns. The same is true now, with the clients who really want a funeral event which someone special, unique, admired, popular and much loved deserves, willing to go the extra mile. As the wife’s review of the funeral concluded ‘Bless your heart, and I know you will always have happy customers because I could see that you put your absolute heart and soul into whatever you do.’ Which I always do, but especially because she did on that occasion.

As I write in late 2025, it is reported that the UK government is planning the introduction of extensive government scrutiny and regulation to the domestic post-death sector following incidences of poor practice, negligence and worse, plus speculation regarding unscrupulous trading. Until that regulation is enacted, those in need of such services have to complete their own diligence when it comes the choice of funeral celebrant. To help you ensure that your last gift and tribute to your loved one meets with your aspirations, here are five key things to consider when making that choice.

1. Is your celebrant qualified? Properly qualified…

There is no legal requirement for a funeral celebrant to be qualified to conduct the service to formally say a final farewell to someone who has been at the heart of your life. However, unlike the “Wild West” of untrained, unlicensed, and uninsured practitioners performing cosmetic procedures on vulnerable people or the builder who owed 37 homeowners £1.25 million in respect of shoddy or incomplete work, there is only one opportunity to ensure that your loved one’s funeral is as perfect as possible. Trout-like lips can be addressed by qualified cosmetic surgeons and half-finished extensions can be completed by trusted traders. A cremation or burial can only be done once.

If a celebrant is recommended to you by a funeral director, the chances are that they trust them. But as with the wife in my story above, that does not necessarily make them the right one for you. You can ask to see their qualifications and then research whoever ‘trained and qualified them’. If they are ‘qualified’ was it obtained online by companies offering training for as little £200 with no pre-qualification requirements to join the course combined with stratospheric pass rates? The best training companies are Ofsted regulated and inspected, and their students need to pass the NOCN Level 3 Diploma in Funeral Celebrancy, which is the highest available in the UK. I completed my 12 weeks of training with Civil Ceremonies Ltd at Cranfield University, and I am happy to credit them with the fact that every review I have received since day one has been five stars.

2. Do they have public liability and professional indemnity insurance?

If your funeral celebrant is not covered by public liability and professional indemnity insurance then they will be unprotected should you need to make any claims related to accidents and any errors in their professional services. These two insurances provide financial protection for legal costs and compensation if you need to take action against any property damage or personal injury caused during their services or for mistakes made during the service itself, such as using an incorrect name during the committal and, as I know has happened in my own region, failing to attend the service – either on time or at all.

Perhaps no amount of money can compensate for failures at such an important event, when everyone your loved-one knew has travelled to pay their respects, and the service cannot go ahead as planned because the celebrant fails to deliver the service as you agreed. But at least their protection will enable them to recompense you to some degree.

3. Do they have and adhere to suitable terms and conditions?

All members of the Institute of Civil Funerals comply with a set of terms and conditions, and related processes, which serve to both minimise any form of disagreement between the client, celebrant and funeral directors whilst helping to ensure that you experience the precise funeral service that you wish for.

You can check whether a celebrant is a member at this link https://www.iocf.org.uk/find-iocf-celebrant/ . Other trade bodies exist, but this is the one that I chose and work with, so the only one that I am in a position to recommend.

4. Does your celebrant have the literacy and presentation capability to write an engaging and relatable version of the story of your loved one’s life – and deliver it on the day?

Most people in the UK have not had any form of writing education since they left school, and, more often than not, since age 16. Furthermore, the ability to write is like a muscle or a village shop or pub; if you don’t use it, then you will lose it; if you ever had it in the first place.

Some people are natural raconteurs and others have developed their own style of writing and presenting, but telling the story of a life, usually needing a) to be drafted and completed within a short period and b) to be presented within a 30 minute delivery and at an emotionally charged event can be much more challenging than it appears, as can be presenting a tribute or a eulogy on the day.

I have seen a highly accomplished, public speaking CEO who much admired his recently lost HR Business Partner crumble just a few sentences into his tribute. I completed it for him. I have also seen an 8-year-old read a poem she had written for her nan deliver it beautifully. You never know what might happen on the day, but in both cases, I have their script to complete the reading if needed – because there is only one chance to get it right.

When I said, in the introduction, that I have seen many ‘average’ celebrants, these are not the awful ones who fail to turn up on the day, or the poor ones who forget the names of the deceased, but the ones who simply gather the basic facts about the person’s life and regurgitate them like a list of bullet points which they insert into their own template.

And if, when you look at a celebrant’s website, or other online presence, they say that they ‘personalise every funeral’ – well of course they do. They can’t very well write one single life story about a fella called Kevin and use it for every funeral! Of course they are all personalised! But ask them what their process is? How do they both methodically and respectfully elicit the small details which make every individual as individual as they are and then evolve all those decades of life and love, friendships and fun, kindness and humour, endeavour and success into a concise, relatable 30-minute presentation which hits the tone that you want it to hit – whether that be solemn and mournful, formal but warm, or uplifting and joyous. Ask for examples of pieces they have created which evidence their ability to achieve your, or the deceased’s, vision for the ceremony.

5. Can your proposed funeral celebrant empathise with your loved one and their life?

Sadly, too many people are lost before their time. But the data show that deaths start to increase from a relatively flat line which lasts until age 49 and increases towards the average age of death in the UK of 79 years for men and 83 years for women as captured in 2023, and just over 81 years average combined.

An 81-year-old father, mother or grandparent would have been born at the end of the last war and suffered from the constraints of rationing throughout their primary school lives. And while every life is different, the majority of people worked in factories or offices making things and the median age for marriage for them would be 20 or 21 years. Fewer than five percent of this generation attended university compared with 49 per cent today. The non-white population was estimated at fewer than 0.1 per cent when they were born. They were still using coins with Queen Victoria’s head on when they were nearly 50 years old! Homosexually was only partly decriminalised when they were 22 and not entirely until they were 55. For many, decolonisation, feminism, LGBT rights, environmentalism, consumerism, globalisation only touched the later years of their lives, let alone wokeism. Through most of their lives, banter has been banter and was brilliant.

They also had stiff upper lips and got on with it. They were the generations that rebuilt Britain after the war, who invented the package holiday, who went out to under-developed countries and helped them to build their infrastructures, who democratised education and higher education and who lived through rock and roll, folk rock, prog rock, glam rock, art rock, punk rock, poodle rock and disco and bought the vinyl records, the tape cassettes and the CDs and before getting their grandchildren to download ‘that music app thing’ for them! They cloned Dolly the sheep and invented MIR scanners, the world wide web and IVF, let alone the bagless vacuum cleaner and VAR. Some were Teddy boys with brylcreemed hair, some had mullets, some were skinheads, and some had mohawks. Some were hippies, others were yuppies, many are boomers and a few thought that Aladdin Sane really did come from Mars.

If your loved one was anywhere near the average age when their time came, then you might want to consider a celebrant who can empathise with and understand the full arc of their life; because they were not always old!

And finally…

If you think that this piece also serves to provide an outline of the kinds of services that I am best qualified to add most value to, then that is because all celebrants are different, and this is me being me – with honesty, authenticity and integrity. Would I be the right celebrant for the funeral of a 12-year-old Benson Boone fan? Probably not; and whilst I would not decline to take the service if the family wanted me to do so, that is not my proposition. And that is my point – all celebrants are different and the right one is out there for you. Just remember that you have a choice…