Handmade Funerals
Endings can be hard.
In the fog of grief, there are suddenly decisions to make — a funeral to arrange, a body to care for, phone calls and paperwork and choices about things you've never had to think about before.
Most people don't know they have options.
The funeral industry is skilled at making their way seem like the only way — expensive, standardised, professionally managed, kept at arm's length. But there is another path, quieter and much older, where families and communities take back the care of their loved ones into their own hands.
You have more freedom and choice than you might think.
What the Law allows.
In the UK, you are allowed to care for your own dead. You can:
Keep the body at home
Wash and dress your person yourself
Build or decorate a coffin with your own hands
Transport the body in your own vehicle
Arrange the funeral without ever hiring an undertaker
You can use a funeral director for everything, for nothing, or for only the parts where you need help. The choice is yours.
Many families simply don't know this is possible.
This isn't about rejecting professional support. It's about knowing what's possible so you can choose what feels right, what feels manageable and what honours both the dead and the living.
“The way we die and how we care for dying people, and how we carry the dead: taken all together, this work makes our village life or breaks it.”
Before Death
If someone you love is dying, or if you're thinking about your own death, we can work together now — gently and slowly while you are able.
This might include:
Sitting together to talk through how you might want your funeral to be.
Thinking about where and how you want to die, and who you want with you.
Planning practical details: who will care for the body, where it will rest, what kind of ceremony
Life review and story-keeping — gathering what matters, what you want passed on, what you want remembered.
Supporting the people who love you to prepare.
Making decisions about belongings, wishes, and how to care for those you love.
After Death
I can walk beside you as you:
Wash and dress your person at home.
Keep vigil — sitting with the body, lighting candles, keeping quiet company in the hours and days after death.
Learn the practical work: how to cool and position the body, what needs doing when, how long you can take.
Guide you in arranging burial or cremation.
Transport the body yourselves to burial or cremation if this feels right.
Build, paint, or decorate a coffin as an act of love and labour.
Understand what's required and what's optional, so you're not guessing.
Creating the Funeral
A handmade funeral makes space for grief, for gratitude, for storytelling, and for the fierce particularity of the life being honoured.
These ceremonies allow families and communities to slow down, to remember together, and to shape a farewell that reflects the person who has died — their loves, their strangeness, their beauty, their belonging in this world.
We work together to create a ceremony that is spacious and heartfelt, rooted in what mattered to your person. This might include:
Gathering in a place that holds meaning: woodland, garden, riverbank, the sea, home or village hall.
Candlelight, song, poetry, silence.
Stories spoken by those who knew and loved them.
Offerings made and given by family and friends.
Rituals shaped around who they were and what they cared about.
Natural burial, cremation, or other choices.
These conversations are tender and necessary.
They give shape to what can otherwise feel overwhelming, and they're a gift to those who'll be making decisions in grief.
This work isn't for everyone, and it doesn’t need to be.
There is a wide range of ways to be involved in death and after-death care, and no expectation that you do everything. Some people want to step closer to certain parts and not others; some want guidance, not hands-on care.
Throughout, my role is to offer companionship, clarity, and steady guidance — without pressure or prescription.
Exchange
The work I do—holding the thresholds of marriage and death—requires a particular kind of containment and heart-work. To keep this work sustainable, and to honour the lineage I carry, I work with a model of financial reciprocity.
Because every ceremony is handmade and bespoke, the exchange varies depending on the level of holding you require. I ask that you choose an amount within these ranges that reflects your financial reality and the value this work holds for you.
For Ceremonies (Weddings & Funerals)
The suggested exchange ranges from £500 to £1200.
The lower end reflects a simple, beautifully held ceremony; the higher end reflects deeper, often multi-day work such as home vigils, body care, ritual design, and close accompaniment.
Practical & Preparatory Support
This offering is for those who need help orienting themselves—understanding options, preparing for what lies ahead, or making sense of what is already unfolding—without commissioning a full ceremony.
Short-form, ceremony-adjacent support is offered at £60–£80 per hour.
A Note on Accessibility
I keep a portion of my time available for those whose hearts are full but whose pockets are currently empty. If you are in a time of genuine hardship, please do not let cost be the reason you don’t reach out. We will find a way that honours us both.
You can read more about my Financial Policy here.
Longer-term mentoring and integration work is held in a separate container and described here.
Time — real time — to grieve together without being hurried along
Work with Emma
-
Grief Tending
For grief that asks to be met, not solved. Witness and accompaniment, ceremony and steady presence - a place of honour at the table for grief to speak in all its forms.
-
Death Wisdom - A School for Community Deathcare
A reclaiming of the old, forgotten skills of being alongside the dying. Bringing death back into relationship — not as an ending to be feared, but as a companion to living well.
-
Grief Retreats
Held time for tending sorrow, nourishment, and the slow gathering of oneself, with simple home-grown food, wood-fired saunas, gentle company, and rituals shaped by the land.