Outline of a typical Australian funeral ceremony

This is the first post in my new series on Australian funeral ceremonies. Through this series I’m going to give you all the details about:

• what usually happens (including in this post, an outline of a funeral ceremony), and
• how those different elements work and fit together.

This first post is an overview of the outline of a funeral ceremony. Each subsequent post in the series will examine one element of the funeral proceedings in depth.

With almost all the posts in the series, you can substitute the word “funeral” for the word “memorial” and it will still be relevant. When a post is not relevant to memorial ceremonies, I’ll be explicit about that!

So let’s get started.

What can and can’t be changed

The outline below is of a traditional Australian funeral ceremony to help with your ceremony design. There are absolutely no required or legal elements when it comes to a funeral. Everything can be thrown out. You can throw other things in. We can mess with the order.

Having said that, when I’m working with families to design their loved one’s funeral, the vast majority stick with a traditional funeral proceedings structure (although they often leave out bits that are not meaningful to them). Tradition and ritual are part of what makes us human. We love and crave familiarity; there is safety and security in repeating the actions of those who have gone before. And there’s nothing wrong with that! It’s just important to me that you know alternatives are available, and that you can be as creative as you want.

I’ll admit I’m not particularly creative. Give me information and I’ll weave it into a beautiful, authentic ceremony for you. But I’m not great at coming up with different ways of paying tribute to your person. My dear friend Fiona Garrivan is an exceptionally creative funeral celebrant, always coming up with new and interesting ideas for her families. I encourage you to check out her Instagram for just some of the interesting ideas she’s helped her families bring to life.

Outline of a funeral ceremony

The structure of a traditional Australian funeral ceremony is based on the Christian funeral ceremony. However there are some important differences allowing the ceremony to be more personalised to the deceased person and their history. So here’s an outline of a funeral ceremony:

• Opening music
• Welcome and introduction
• Candle lighting
• Readings / prayers
• Words of comfort
• Eulogy (the life story of the deceased)
• Tributes from loved ones
• Reflection
• Final thank you and invitation to refreshments
• Committal (farewell)
• Final words of comfort
• Closing music

What will the funeral ceremony for your loved one look like? Will you follow this traditional structure of funeral proceedings? Do you have any creative ideas to suggest?

More information

Read all the posts in my series about Australian funeral ceremonies here.

Find information about grief resources and organisations here.

If you’re a celebrant wanting help with all things celebrancy, come and join us at the Celebrant Institute!

Australian Funeral Ceremonies

• Opening music at a funeral
• Introduction to the funeral ceremony
• Outline of a typical Australian funeral ceremony
• Candle lighting in a funeral
• Religion in a civil funeral