The Individual Funeral Company Ltd

21/12/2025

We had the opportunity to make some very special friends this week after our client requested four black horses.

With thanks to the amazing Brunswick Carriage Company, these beautiful boys were impeccable throughout the entire journey.

It’s really important to us that when our clients request something special, that we work with the very best of the best.

To ensure that these special touches remain affordable, we have never and will never add to the cost we are charged by specialist carriage masters and our clients are only ever charged for the costs we pay.

Why do we do this? It’s because we want everyone to have something special without it becoming unaffordable.

We love being able to put together a really bespoke funeral service and for us, we want our clients to have exactly what they want.

After all, we will forever believe that everyone deserves an individual funeral.

15/12/2025

We remain on call 24-7 over the Christmas and New Year period.
It could be for immediate help by bringing a person into our care or it could be for a quotation or question you have. Whatever you need, Lucy is personally taking all calls.

Our office will only be open when clients who have arranged an appointment to see us between Christmas Eve and New Years Day.

It’s important that we work around our clients and their needs so if someone wants to come to our office on Christmas Day to talk through arrangements, we will make it happen.

While we wish we weren’t going to be needed as the year draws to an end, we absolutely remain committed that our family is here to help yours should you need us.

We are only ever a phone call away on 01865 714130.

We believe in helping clients make funeral arrangements as bespoke and individual as you would like.
All FB posts, Tweets and pictures are © of Lucy Coulbert

09/12/2025

Lucy was having a walk around Oxford earlier and spotted this brilliant painting by and immediately fell in love.
So much so she had to stop and take a picture.

While she would love it on the walls of her office, alas, it is sadly out of our price range but we love it.

It basically sums up why she started The Individual Funeral Company.

Employed by national funeral directors and having to work to their rules, Lucy never really felt quite at home.
‘A square peg trying to fit into a round hole,’ is how she usually describes it.

So, she broke every single ‘rule’ that was in that particular world and started her own company. Being ethical, honest, kind.

We know, that sounds crazy. Those three things should be the very basics that funeral directors should be but she found that wasn’t necessarily true.

By being human and just a decent human, her clients recommend us. Not just publicly by writing reviews but 95% of our clients come to us because they have attended a funeral service she has arranged or a past client has recommended us.
That is something she values above all things.

‘You can’t buy recommendations and you can always rely on your friends being honest with you. It’s why it means so much.’

So, here’s to all the rule breakers and wherever it takes you.

03/12/2025

Nothing we love more than helping people arrange funeral services in some pretty unique places.
Over the years we’ve been asked to go to many Oxford colleges and it’s always a really humbling experience.

To walk into their chapels and know that long after we’re gone, these buildings will still be standing.

We go to the colleges, meet the chaplains, talk through every part of the service way in advance of a funeral taking place. Often, we make multiple visits just to be completely certain that we know what will happen and then make multiple plans for every eventuality.

Some of my professional colleagues think this is excessive. I would counter that by working this hard in advance means that on the day of a funeral service, there is no doubt in our minds that everything will be perfect.

As Lucy always says - ‘I will accept nothing less than perfection.’
She really means it too.

Making sure everything is perfect is just completely ingrained in her. This is personal. Funerals matter. They have to be perfect.

This is why she works to hard but even she admits that on a beautiful winter morning, it’s hard not to think how lucky we are.

10/11/2025

It’s that time of year again where we are taking over funeral arrangements from other companies and are being inundated with enquiries from families to see how we can help them.

Our clients are being told funerals can’t happen until the middle of December and so are turning to our company to help them instead.

This is beyond outrageous and there is no reason why anyone should wait this long unless it is something they have specifically chosen.

On average, we can arrange even the most complicated services to take place within 7-14 days when we have the green form.

We think 7-14 days is a respectful timeframe in which to have a funeral service take place. Being asked to wait 4-6 weeks is incomprehensible.

Even after instructing a funeral director, if they can’t do what you’re asking, you are under no obligation to stay with them and we firmly encourage people to walk away if they can’t do what you’ve asked.

Our clients are our boss. If they want something, we make it happen.
We work to their requirements and availability not the other way around.

I would like to ask everyone to share this post far and wide so people know they don’t have to put up with this. No one should ever wait for a funeral service and families absolutely have the right to employ someone who can.

We believe in helping clients make funeral arrangements as bespoke and individual as you would like.
All FB posts, Tweets and pictures are © of Lucy Coulbert

28/10/2025

My family and I took a trip to Edinburgh last weekend for a very special visit.
Our grandad spent decades in the Royal and Merchant Navy but he served on a very special boat - Her Majesty’s Royal Yacht Britannia.

While all of his stories began ‘When I was in the Navy,’ I don’t think any of us quite believed him when he told stories of being on board with the Queen.

You see, Grandad was a bit of a character and no matter what we needed, it was always in the loft.
Need a surf board - ‘there’s one in the loft.’
Need a microlight - ‘there’s one in the loft.’

And then one day - ‘I’ve got a menu in the loft from Britannia. I think my hat ribbon is up there too.’

Now you can see why we didn’t quite believe him - until we found the menu. And then the pictures of him on deck with the Queen. And more pictures of him in the Caribbean with Princess Margaret.

For us to visit a boat he was actually on was quite something. All his others are sadly no longer.

And then we saw his office. All of us clearly remembering the photo he showed us once of him sitting in it but still thinking he was pulling our leg.

Obviously we were hugely proud of him anyway but from our tour, we now know that only the very best of the best got to be on Britannia and just what a huge deal it was.

So, here’s to you Grandad and everything we are yet to discover in the loft!

07/10/2025

We are often asked why we don’t post pictures of funerals and our answer has always remained simple - our clients grief is not our marketing opportunity.

When someone dies, often people can feel vulnerable. We want to protect people in their grief.

So in those early stages of navigating their new world, for us to take photographs or ask if we can, doesn’t seem quite right.

A lot of what we do at The Individual Funeral Company is based on feeling. If it doesn’t feel right then it probably isn’t.

Our clients get a protective bubble around them. We don’t take pictures. We don’t post them on our social media. We don’t tell people who our clients are.

Protecting people on their grief is exceptionally important to us.

There are times where clients have been overwhelmingly generous and have sent us pictures giving us permission to use them and even then, we wait months, often years before we do and we still check beforehand.

So while you may not see some of the extraordinary work we do, it is for a very good reason.
Sometimes it is better to be silent than shout the loudest.

25/09/2025

We get to work in some beautiful places but nothing beats going into Oxford on a beautiful, crisp autumn day.

09/09/2025

Today marks the 12th since year The Individual Funeral Company first opened the doors for the very first time.

Back then we couldn’t have comprehended what would happen in over a decade.

How many amazing clients we would have worked for and the variety of ways in which they could dream up the perfect ending and how we could help them achieve it.

But very little of this is down to me. I work with the most amazing suppliers from coffin makers, carriage masters, florists, printers, celebrants, vicars, photographers and bearers services who work tirelessly to make sure my clients get the very best.

This year hasn’t been easy with the death of our beloved Joplin & Bunny. Both of whom came to my office and were cared for here in exactly the same way as we care for everyone else until the day of their funeral. As our office dogs for a decade, it was only right they stayed with us until the very end.

I realised that life without a dog in it just wasn’t right so welcomed rescue dog Gloria into our lives so we could all heal together.

So, what does the future hold? To change nothing. We don’t want to be the biggest. We want to be the best. To focus on a small amount of clients at any one time and give everything we have to make everything perfect. To remain small but mighty!

To continue to be unapologetically individual in absolutely everything we do.

So thank you to every single client who has trusted us for over a decade. My family for their understanding when I have to run out the door. My colleagues for always exceeding our expectations and for you all for liking posts, commenting, leaving reviews and telling people about us.
Because of you I get to work for myself, do something I love every single day and I get to be as individual as the company I created.

Thank you all and happy birthday to us!

03/09/2025

Given the weather recently and then the torrential downpours today, finding a rose bush thriving in an old cemetery is really something.

It may not be at its best, but it’s still surviving.

It’s a bit like grief….some days we just weather the storm. Some days, the sun shines and it kind of feels ok. Some days, we just have to keep on keeping on.

There are no ‘seven stages of grief.’ Grief is something that can change minute by minute.

I tell our clients two things.
Eat
Sleep

Just doing the basics like eating and sleeping, which I know is sometimes easier said than done, will get you through the initial days.

We’ll walk right beside you in these early stages. We’re here 24/7 for all of our clients so they get our total support and attention just when they need it most.

25/07/2025

We always work extremely hard and over weekends and always deep into the evening.
Providing 24 hour support to our clients has always been the thing that drove Lucy to start her own company.

That support always continues no matter where we happen to be at that particular moment.

Today, Lucy drove down to a gorgeous South Devon to spend the day with her grandmother who was celebrating her 95th birthday…..and yes, she was still replying to emails from clients while wading in the sea!

Our family knows exactly what it is like to be in the position of our clients and actively encourage us to take our time to talk to someone on the phone or reply to an email.

When someone is a client of ours, they get around the clock access to us because in Oxford, Devon or Scotland - no matter where we are, we’re always walking right beside you every step of the way.

27/06/2025

A lot of people would think the word ‘bespoke’ just means expensive.
That’s not what it means to us though.

Bespoke means choice.
Bespoke means simple or really intricate.
Bespoke means only charging for what you want.

From the highly elaborate to the beautifully simple funeral services, that is what bespoke is for us.

Chapel services at an Oxford University chapel to a funeral held in your garden.
Funeral services held in a church to one at a natural burial ground.
Being in the UK to going abroad and from having weeks to plan to a matter of hours to make a service happen.

We believe in putting our clients firmly in control and this is why we specialise in bespoke funeral arrangements which covers anything and everything you could possibly think of.

Lucy, supported by her excellent team, constantly and consistently manages to arrange what other companies may seem impossible.
But this is exactly where she thrives.

While our clients can give us any request at any time, Lucy seems to work effortlessly to bring a families ideas for the perfect funeral service together to create something perfect and meaningful.

We don’t know how she makes everything look so easy and so calm even under the most demanding of times.

But that’s just what we do. To create bespoke services, however that looks to a client, in a really calm, thoughtful and considered way while giving people her total and undivided attention from the second she answers the phone to way after a funeral service has happened.

It’s this bespoke service and calm confidence which has led us to work for some extraordinary clients who demand perfection - no matter what a funeral service looks like to them.

As Lucy always says - ‘I accept nothing less than perfection,’ and we’re sure this is the reason our clients always recommend our services to others.