Unusual Ideas Now Make Funerals a Celebration of Life

If you have a fear of being buried or cremated alive, then respect for the person who was seen off with a whistle around his neck after worrying would wake up in the coffin.

It’s one of a list of unusual funeral requests which cropped up during SunLife’s Cost of Dying report.

If you’ve been to a funeral recently, it’s not unusual to be asked to wear bright colours or go along with a theme as part of a ‘Celebration of Life’.

According to the 1524 people who have recently planned a funeral and 100 funeral directors who took part in the poll, funerals are becoming much less formal.

One in seven of the recently deceased also made special requests in advance. SunLife released thirty unusual funeral ideas they discovered during the research, listing them as:

Funeral procession did the conga out of the service
Steam engine to draw the coffin from the family home to the cemetery
Plane shaped coffin
Deceased’s motorbike instead of a hearse
Drag queens dancing at the service
Sheep’s wool coffin
Funeral service held on a boat
Funeral with Doctor Who music and a Tardis
Milk float instead of a hearse
Everyone to wear Star Wars outfits (including funeral director as Darth Vader)
Ex-race horses leading the hearse
Everyone dressed as cowboys and Indians
Dance couple performing a waltz after the cremation
Big rig lorry instead of a hearse
Ashes made into jewellery
Motorbike and side car to transport the coffin
Coconuts in the coffin
Everyone (including funeral directors) in football shirts
Gothic theme (deceased in goth clothes, black coffin with black interior)
Asking everyone to write a message and sign the coffin with a marker pen
Family photos printed all over the coffin
Deceased cremated with a whistle around their neck because he was worried he would wake up in the coffin
Turning the deceased’s ashes into a firework so they could ‘go out with a bang!’
Bright pink coffin
Everyone to wear wellies
Funeral party dancing around the crematorium to Led Zeppelin
Everyone to wear Hawaiian shirts
All the men to wear lime green ties
Coffin propped up in a jeep to transport to woodland burial
Banana skin coffin