Sarah Burley Celebrant

17/07/2025

3 minute read:
I’ve been asked by a few families this week, who are considering a celebrant led funeral service, “What do you actually do?”
That is often difficult to answer because it depends on what the family needs from me.
One family might need me to write the story of their loved one and relate it on the day in a way that resonates with meaning and love. It’s not about listing their accolades, but enriching everyone’s best memories. We are all so much more than our cv. I am a storyteller at heart and my skills are in taking a rambling conversation and bringing it back to the family with coherence as a story of life, love and joy.
Another family might simply need me to curate the day so they can speak their own stories, introducing everyone along the way. I am an officiant but with a background in event management and theatre staging.
I am the person who manages the technical side of things, sorts the music and photos (presses play/fade out etc)
I keep everything running on time without feeling rushed.
Your funeral arranger will arrange the care of your loved one, liaising with me, the printer, the director who attends the service, bearers and drivers. They will arrange death certificates and paperwork with you etc… We all have our different jobs, but my role is to ensure that the family members reach the day of the funeral knowing they can say goodbye entirely their own way.
This week I’m planning a celebration that will be, in essence a tea party with many stories told, which is a perfect way to remember and celebrate this lady’s life.
I’m also planning a celebration in a hired venue, where I shall mostly be managing lots of people to ensure the speakers can be heard in an unconventional venue. I’m an MC, and ‘people-wrangler’ leading the day with sufficient authority to ensure some structure is maintained, so the day remains about the person being honoured, not just a big-ol’ reunion of friends.
But I’m also busy planning something more formal and traditional, with a chapel space and a burial. I shall receive the mourners and the funeral directors and lead the service with dignity and reverence.

When my full time role was as a party caterer I sent menus and plans to a client and she thanked me and suggested she could get it cheaper by buying platters from Costco. This is true. But there is a difference. Yes, you can try to do everything yourself but hosting a party without a caterer is exhausting and doesn’t allow you to appreciate or really enjoy the experience. It’s hard work looking after guests!!

But a funeral is not like a party.
It’s literally a once in a lifetime occasion that needs everyone to truly be present for their loved one, to know that it has been led by a professional, allowing the family simply to remember, to mourn, to celebrate and to be together in remembrance.

I lead funeral services. Every day is as different as every life is unique. I am the completion of commemoration for lives that are complete, however you want to honour that life.

14/07/2025

Sometimes you need to just take a breath. And in the quiet moments you can find the most incredible beauty.

11/07/2025

A private wedding chapel in a country house hotel, in a friendly little town beside the sea. 37bedrooms for your guests and a choice of caterer for your party of up to 100. This has to be the ideal wedding venue!

07/07/2025

Can there possibly be a more perfect place to be returned to the earth to rest in everlasting peace? One day this whole area will be a mature woodland nature reserve. For now it is part meadow and partly planted with saplings of native trees. But within the trees, grasses and wildflowers are the dreams and memories of those we have loved.

30/06/2025

I wish I could have shown you a photo of the incredible coffin decoration at the service today. It’s the first time we’ve had jewellery hung as a garland and a glitter ball on the top!!!
But the readings were perfectly chosen. The second one in the photo is one my own mother loved. She framed it and it was hung in the bathroom of my childhood home. It’s written with a little tongue-in-cheek, but became my daily mantra. How lovely to hear it again today!

29/06/2025

I’m really not sure that I’d want to create a ‘bot’ of a lost loved-one. It feels a strange way to manage grief. Is this really the future of AI?

https://www.bbc.com/reel/video/p0lhls9s/how-griefbots-allow-people-to-talk-to-the-dead- How 'griefbots' allow people to 'talk to the dead' - BBC Reel

Tech Now explores the growing trend of 'griefbots' or 'deadbots' that allow people to 'talk to the dead'.

21/06/2025

For the first time this year I have been invited to write the story of a life, when I am not the officiant for the service. But at heart this is what I do and the most wonderful part of my job. I’m a writer of spoken words and it’s such a privilege to be able to take all the ‘facts’ and all the memories contributed by those who knew her, and transform them into a tribute that will reflect her soul, her essence and her joy.
Even when a vicar leads the service in church, there’s a special place for a celebrant to make a meaningful contribution too.

30/05/2025

A 3 minute read about what I do:
Being a celebrant doesn’t really explain it. My job isn’t a celebration.

Grief works in so many different ways. My role involves speaking to those who are sometimes traumatised, often entirely numb with their loss, angry, defensive, lost. Sometimes I meet people desperately reaching out, who need to tell me every detail of what they’ve experienced. Sometimes I meet those completely unable to articulate their emotions and who close down completely.
And wonderfully I also meet people who want to share their fondest memories, and want me to share them beautifully. In so many ways, when I lead a funeral service, that’s what I hope and aim to do. But even when I’m asked to meet a family who says they want “a real celebration of their life,” I have to ensure my approach to them is carefully measured.

I can never walk in their shoes, or understand the depth of their personal loss. Everyone grieves uniquely and every family member can be feeling or experiencing a different emotion when they speak with me. Sometimes they don’t even want to speak to me. Sometimes they’re not even speaking to each other.
This poses a few challenges.

I work in the bereavement industry. I’m not a counsellor. My ‘job’ is to lead a funeral service that allows every member of the family to say a formal goodbye to their loved one and allows them a sense of completeness in so doing. This is a delicate and ever changing process of gently drawing out the needs of each family member.

We also have a duty to ensure I adhere to the strict time constraints, so another family is not left waiting and delayed. There are deadlines to meet, as in any other job. Printers need decisions to be made in a timely way, music and photos might need to be chosen.
Those who wish to speak on the day need to know that they can say everything they want to, but sharing those thoughts and words with me ensures I can curate the day to accommodate that for them, and that their words and mine don’t repeat those of others.

Family members who don’t want to do that sometimes get angry at the idea that their personal feelings are being intruded upon, or that I’m somehow ‘marking their homework.’ But in truth, it’s about ensuring everyone’s feelings are taken into consideration and everyone has the opportunity to say goodbye in their own way.
For families who are traumatised or families who are in conflict with each other, this can be a challenging time. For me it is a delicate process. I don’t always connect with every family member in the same way.

One poor man, a distant relative, who had not replied or responded to me, and who was the last of several to speak at a service, arrived with 12 pages of hand written notes and became distressed because everything he’d written had been said already by others. He leafed through his pages, desperately trying to find something in his notes and then moved away from the microphone and spoke so quietly nobody could hear his heartfelt tribute. It was awful for him and for the others in the room, as he fussed and muttered to himself for nearly 15 minutes, so we ran out of time and the planned end of the service had to be adjusted to be significantly shorter.

Another time, when we had a lovely venue with plenty of time for everyone to share their long and fascinating stories, a family member attempted a kind of ‘joke séance.’ It was meant to be lighthearted, but it was quite distressing to a couple of people in the room. Talking things through with the celebrant in advance can really help ensure nobody adds to their anguish.

In truth, a celebrant’s role is about emotions. And everyone feels their grief differently. All I can do is support families in any way they may need. Sometimes that’s in weaving my own words to tell their story and sometimes it’s in supporting families to tell it themselves.

However a service is led, I truly hope that as each person walks away, they do so with a sense of completeness, feeling that they have all been given the opportunity to say goodbye entirely in their own way.

14/05/2025

Chosen to live another day in this beautiful world, enjoying the sunshine.
Thank you Donna Ashworth for always reminding us to value this life.

I have a Google alert on my name. Something I may change soon but it’s been useful the last few years to keep track of lovely people sharing my work and so on. Mostly joyful, until the critics got a hold of me 🧐.

Anyway…

For the first time ever today, I recieved an alert for another Donna Ashworth. An obituary alert, no less. It really shocked me in the moment. Made me stop in my tracks.

And then I scroll down to see that we share the same birthday. 😳

Now, random is never random if you ask me. Every synchronicity that occurs is connected somehow and if you trace your soul’s finger along its silvery line you’ll find a message.

Today I’m receiving a reminder that everyone is living on borrowed time. Which does not mean we must rush… no. The opposite.

We must create time by stealing from the machine. Shape it. Use it for our own requirements. Bend it where we can. It’s not illegal to run to your own schedule, you know. We are free people.

On days where you feel lacking. On days that feel empty or dull. Remember you have been chosen. To live another day on this planet.

It’s a lottery. And you keep winning it every day you wake up.

My love to Donna and all the souls who have gone home to the light today and every day. And my heart to those who miss them.

You’ll meet again. They never really left.

Donna

(This pic was behind the scenes at my hello magazine shoot because I don’t know what photo to use here 😂)

25/01/2025

This is the reason I do not prioritise the quantity of reviews on my site. I only want to hear from those who I’ve actually worked with, but the nature of what I do means I’m never going to push people to write a review. They have enough grief without me asking them to revisit it for my clicks.
For real reviews, visit my real site.
uk.trustpilot.com/review/sarahburleycelebrant.com

27/12/2024

Sarah Burley, Celebrant.
I celebrate life. I mark the vital moments.
If 2025 is when you celebrate a new partnership, or is when you finally make the transition to become your true self, I’m here to support you and create the ceremony that marks your milestone.