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Written by Emily Cross.
25 minute read
At a time when you are processing the loss of a loved one and facing change and upset in your life, it may be difficult to make choices regarding the funeral. There are many options when it comes to who can lead a funeral service, such as religious ministers, humanist celebrants, and celebrants who provide a combination of religious and non-religious funeral services. In fact, there are no legal requirements you have to follow when it comes to deciding who conducts a funeral.
The funeral itself is not a legal requirement, which means deciding who can conduct a funeral service is a matter of complete choice for the family. While this may come as something of a surprise, it can also give you the time and space you need to plan a service that you feel best reflects the wishes, personality, and approach to life that your loved one took.
Here at Aura, we believe that everyone has the right to grieve and process loss in their own way, including if you prefer to see the service as a celebration of life as opposed to a solemn, quiet occasion. We can guide you through alternative funeral options, such as direct cremation, and also provide kind and compassionate support at a pace you feel comfortable with.
To help you through this process, we have put together a guide that will talk you through everything involved with choosing who will officiate the funeral, and how to ensure the service feels right for your family.
Key takeaways:
There are no legal requirements in the UK about who can conduct a funeral. Legally, anyone can lead a funeral service — whether that’s a religious minister, a celebrant, a family member, or a close friend.
The only legal requirements relate to registering the death and arranging a burial or cremation. The ceremony itself is a personal choice, and there is no need for the person leading it to be officially qualified or registered.
This means that you are free to choose someone who you feel will reflect the tone, values, and wishes of your loved one — whether that’s a trusted friend, a community figure, or a professional celebrant.
Organising a funeral the people in attendance will feel reflects the values and personality of the person who has died can feel like a heavy weight at what is already a difficult time. Understanding the role and purpose of a funeral officiant may provide you with a starting point for planning your loved one’s funeral.
A funeral officiant’s role begins with meeting the family and gently learning about the person who has died: their life, values, and the kind of farewell that feels right. They’ll ask thoughtful questions without overstepping, giving the family space to share memories and preferences at their own pace. From there, the officiant offers guidance and suggestions based on experience, helping to shape a service that feels personal and true to the individual. Their responsibility is to ensure the ceremony reflects the loved one’s character and beliefs, while creating space for family and friends to connect, grieve, and share in remembering their loved one.
One of the most important tasks the officiant may fulfill is to write and deliver the eulogy or to provide guidance to the family on how to do so. They might also offer eulogy examples to help loved ones find the right words, especially if writing doesn’t come easily during such an emotional time. Making sure that it combines the right balance of factual information, sincere expressions of emotion, and authentic representations of the loved one’s personality and beliefs is central to the role of the funeral officiant.
Alongside the eulogy, they may recommend adding funeral poems to bring comfort and beauty to the service, as well as taking care of the order of service. The order of service outlines elements such as songs, music, readings, and any other elements the family has requested fit naturally into the service. They will generally offer advice and guidance related to timings and conventions the family may wish to be made aware of.
On the day of the service, the role of funeral officiant is central to the experience of everyone in attendance. They will meet attendees and mourners, direct them into the venue in a timely yet compassionate manner, and deliver the service itself. This may cover everything from leading prayers and providing readings to inviting close friends and family members to stand and share their own thoughts and feelings if they so wish.
While loss and grief are always such deeply personal journeys, it’s the role and responsibility of the funeral officiant to guide mourners through the service. They will do this in a way that is kind, caring, and compassionate so that no one feels rushed from one element of the service to the next.
If the officiant is aware of a member of the family who is becoming particularly outwardly emotional and struggling, they may choose to slightly redirect things or pause for a moment of reflection as both a sign of respect and as a means of providing respite. Funeral officiants will be well-versed in speaking to mourners who may find that their emotions come out once the service has ended and may choose to gently redirect them to any number of services that may help, such as the Sue Ryder grief support service.
Although anyone can officiate a funeral, there are certain things that will influence who can conduct any given service. For example, if the family or person who has died followed a particular religious teaching or faith, it would be customary to have a religious leader from that religion conduct the funeral. While this may not be legally required, it is something that many mourners of faith will come to expect as a matter of course. Making a choice that is acceptable to the close family and that respects the wishes of the person who has died is the focus here.
You may also find it insightful to briefly consider the difference between formal and informal funeral services. A formal service will typically be more traditional and conservative, in which case it will be more common for a religious leader to conduct the service. An informal service, on the other hand, is more about a free-flowing celebration of life, in which case it may feel more fitting for a close friend or family member to conduct the funeral.
Other families who do not feel they have a minister or relative they can ask to fulfil this important role choose instead to look for an experienced celebrant. Here at Aura, we partner with the Association of Independent Celebrants, and can help you to find a suitable celebrant to conduct the funeral to your wishes.
The choice is a personal one and not something that the family should feel pressured or rushed into deciding. A period of reflection and contemplation may help if there are several competing options to choose from.
When planning a funeral, there are several different people who can conduct the ceremony. Your choice may depend on the setting, your family’s beliefs, or what feels most personal and comforting.
The role of a funeral director is to, in part, provide assistance to religious families by liaising with their choice of minister or celebrant to make sure the fine details are taken care of. Religious beliefs in death and funerals can influence many aspects of the service—from the choice of music and prayers to who leads the ceremony. These elements often follow long standing customs that bring comfort and meaning to families in mourning.
Religion is at the epicentre of many families and is something that may provide a real source of strength and reassurance at a challenging time. Different faiths will have their own traditions and customs that have been passed down from generation to generation, and they each deserve to be respected by everyone who is in attendance. You may wish to ask a faith leader — such as a priest, minister, rabbi, or imam — to lead the funeral service in line with those traditions.
We mentioned a little earlier that there is no legal requirement to have a funeral, and therefore, anyone can conduct one, but there are some deeply held traditions that may need to be factored in. If you wanted to conduct a funeral in a religious building, for example, it would then be highly unusual to have a secular person conduct the service. Religious officiants will naturally fill this role as part of booking the venue and will be well-versed in all of the cultural and religious nuances involved. They will also be used to welcoming mourners from a diverse range of faiths and backgrounds and will make themselves available to you if you need advice and guidance on how to make the service as inclusive as possible while at the same time respecting the faith of the person who has died.
Any guide on who conducts a funeral needs to say a few words about who conducts a non-religious funeral. In this case, we speak of civil celebrants, humanist celebrants, or other secular officiants. A civil celebrant is someone who can blend personal, cultural or even light religious elements into a ceremony, depending on what the family wants. All are focused on leading a service that is free from formal religious tradition, and shaped around the life of the person who has died.
If you’re considering a humanist or celebrant for a non-religious funeral, the key difference is in how religion is approached. A humanist will lead a fully non-religious ceremony, while a celebrant may include spiritual or religious elements if requested. Both focus on honouring the life of the person who has died in a way that feels personal and respectful.
While secular services are defined as being free from religious rituals, humanist services go further and specifically focus on the life, legacy, and values of the person who has died. They are seen more as a celebration of what they achieved, saw, and influenced during their life as opposed to including religious elements such as hymns, prayers, and readings.
Some families may decide that they wish to have a modern funeral whose primary function is to bring friends and relatives together. If the person who has died and their next of kin are not religious, this may well be done without a religious leader in attendance.
One of the points to note about non-religious funerals is that they may afford you more chances to personalise the service. Because religious services are rooted in tradition – and a tradition that many people of faith derive great comfort from — they may be less likely to take on more personalised elements. A non-religious service is different in this regard and can be shaped to serve as a celebration of life.
Families sometimes choose a close friend or relative to conduct the service, while others prefer the distance and time for grieving that hiring a professional celebrant can provide. Discussing these choices with your family may help you to decide which one feels right, given that you are all still processing your grief and coming to terms with your loss.
Officiants are typically religious leaders who are tasked with conducting traditional religious ceremonies, whereas funeral celebrants do not follow any particular faith or belief system and are typically used for non-religious services.
The choice is a personal one, and one that the family will make when they feel ready. Although the mourners who attend may be from a diverse range of cultures, backgrounds, and religious followings, it is the beliefs of the family and the person who has died that will ultimately determine who leads the funeral service.
Structuring a ceremony that isn’t built around any religious elements provides greater room for personalisation, but with that can come more choices, and this may feel overwhelming. You may find that it is helpful to break things up into smaller decisions and tackle them one at a time as and when you feel mentally and emotionally ready:
It is natural to find this daunting if you are not used to planning and organising events that a large number of people will be attending. You may find it helpful and insightful to talk to a funeral director who will be able to provide guidance regarding timings and conventions. You could then use these as a starting point and consider personalising the service from there.
Choosing someone you know personally to lead the service may make the day seem more real, personable, and an authentic reflection of who your loved one was.
Relatives and friends can officiate at the funeral because there are no legal qualifications that determine who can do so. Religious leaders traditionally officiate within the confines of religious buildings, but friends and relatives are becoming an increasingly popular choice when the venue is a secular public building.
If you are asked to fulfil this role and you feel strongly about abiding by the wishes of the family, it’s natural if you feel some pressure in the days leading up to the service. In this case, you may find it helps to sit quietly and reflect as you put pen to paper while writing the eulogy. Finding the words to express how you all feel about your loss could help you to process your own emotions so that you feel better prepared to offer comfort and support to others on the day.
Community figures are also people who can conduct a funeral service, and they are common choices because of their experience. As you would expect, they will typically have many years of experience in addressing large gatherings of people and finding words befitting of the occasion. Alternatively, some funeral directors may also have experience in leading a funeral service, so this is something you may wish to clarify as part of making your initial arrangements.
You may decide that choosing someone prominent in your local community is preferred to a close friend or relative because they will not be trying to come to terms with the same sense of acute loss. A professional who is used to speaking in front of people and who has a degree of distance and separation from the person who has died could serve as a reassuring and stoic presence on the day of the funeral.
Because of the personal nature of any funeral service, there is never a definitively right or wrong way to do things — this is all about personal choice and how you and the family choose to remember your loved one. Finding a funeral officiant or celebrant who feels like the right fit is a matter of reflection and asking questions about how they conduct funerals.
Choosing someone to lead a funeral is a personal decision. You might want to think about their connection to the person who has died, their experience or comfort with public speaking, and their ability to reflect the right tone.
Some helpful questions to ask might include:
Readings, music, and tributes are all things that you may decide you want to integrate into the service so that you can add some personal touches. Doing so doesn’t just help reflect the life and legacy of the person who has died, but it can also help with the grieving process as it allows emotions to come out in a natural way.
If you wish to personalise the service, an element of collaboration with the officiant will typically be necessary. They will be able to guide you through the fundamentals of a service and then ask you questions that give them a much better picture of what your loved one was like, who they were, and what they meant to you. This will allow them to make recommendations that you can then take to the rest of the family as you reflect on your choices and consider your options.
Some families choose to have a simple farewell or direct cremation with no formal service or leader. This is completely legal and can still be a meaningful way to say goodbye.
In these cases, the funeral director can still help with logistics, and the family might arrange a private gathering, a short committal, or a celebration of life at a later time.
There is no requirement for someone to ‘officiate’ or lead if that doesn’t feel right for your family.
We hope that you have found some helpful guidance, perhaps even words of comfort, during the course of reading our guide. Figuring out how you want to lead a service that is a fitting tribute to someone you have lost can be an overwhelming prospect, but it’s also something that you may feel has a healing element to it.
Taking the time to plan a funeral service is something that some people find can be a welcome distraction, a chance to process emotions, and a time for personal reflection. No matter how you choose to see it and go about the process, we are always right here when you need us.
If you are looking to arrange a funeral for a loved one who has recently died, Aura provides family-run unattended and attended direct cremation services. We also offer prepaid funeral plans that give families peace of mind, financial clarity, and the freedom to design a farewell that truly reflects their wishes.
You may be surprised to learn that anyone in the UK can legally conduct a funeral because the funeral itself is not a legal requirement. While you are legally required to register a death, there is no law in the UK that states that you have to have a funeral service. Although many funerals choose to do so, the matter is very much one of personal choice.
Because there is no legal obligation, you may choose to have a family member or close friend conduct the funeral service. Other families will choose a religious leader who aligns with the faith of the person who has died, or a civil celebrant or humanist celebrant if their loved one was not religious. You may also consider asking a funeral director to conduct the service as they will have experience in working with families from all backgrounds and cultures.
There is no right or wrong choice here — it is all about reflecting the wishes of the person who has died and the next of kin they have left behind.
A funeral celebrant helps plan and lead a service that reflects the life and values of the person who has died. They meet with the family to learn about their loved one, then guide the structure of the service — often writing and delivering the eulogy, suggesting readings or music, and supporting any personal touches the family wants to include.
On the day, the celebrant leads the ceremony with care and compassion, helping everything run smoothly while creating space for people to grieve, reflect, and remember.
No, although priests are commonly asked to officiate funerals in the UK, there is no legal requirement for a priest to be present or to take part in any capacity. Families who choose to ask a priest to officiate typically do so due to either the faith and belief system of the person who has died, a sense of tradition, or a combination of the two. Others may decide that while they want a priest to be present, they also want to involve close friends and family members by asking them to deliver readings where they share memories of their loved one.
Yes, anyone can conduct a funeral service in the UK, which allows for a diverse range of options. Although in principle, anyone can lead the funeral, it is common for the next of kin to feel that their grief and sense of loss is too much to allow them to lead the funeral service in a way they would feel comfortable with. This is something that is completely natural and very common and not something that you should feel will detract in any way from the tributes you’re paying to the person who has died.
If you want to be heavily involved in planning the funeral service but don’t feel emotionally ready to take a leading role on the day, putting yourself forward to give a short reading may be an acceptable compromise. It’s important to be kind to yourself at what is already a difficult and emotional time and not attempt to force yourself to take on too much.
A funeral celebrant is the name given to anyone who leads a non-religious funeral ceremony. A humanist celebrant will lead a personal, thoughtful, and compassionate service that focuses on celebrating the life of the person who has died, as opposed to following traditional religious rituals.
One of the key responsibilities of a human celebrant is to work closely with the family and next of kin to shape a personal service that combines marks of respect with the unique energy and personality of the person who has died. They will be active when it comes to gathering information about their life, relationships, friendships, and the values they chose to live by. This is then all brought together to write a eulogy around which the rest of the service can be based.
There are a number of funeral options and alternatives if you don’t wish to have a traditional religious funeral. Humanist ceremonies that focus on life, direct cremations that provide flexible options, and family-led funerals are all becoming increasingly common as alternatives to traditional church of England services.. Others who want to mark the passing of a loved one who was close to nature may decide to consider woodland burials or green burials, if that feels right for them. Taking time to reflect can help you arrive at a choice that truly honours the wishes of your loved one.
The first thing you will need to do is contact your local register office so that you can register the death. This is a legal requirement and is the only way to obtain the death certificate. Next, you may wish to choose between a burial or cremation and then contact the cemetery or crematorium as needed.
Transportation, the choice of venue, and who will lead the service all need to be considered, as will the nature of the service itself. Deciding who will read the eulogy, who will give additional readings, and which songs will be played can be a deeply emotional experience. Being kind to yourself and working through things one step at a time may help.
If, for any reason, you find that you are struggling with the emotions involved with planning a DIY funeral, remember that your family and friends are always there for you. Finding someone you can talk to who perhaps wasn’t quite as close to the person who has died, and who is therefore further along in terms of processing their grief, can help you feel like you are never alone during the planning process.
Anyone can deliver the eulogy at the funeral, and it is very much a matter of personal choice for the family. If you are a family with a strong religious tradition or you want your culture to be reflected in the service, having a religious official present who will read the eulogy and lead the service is a common choice. Other families, whether they are religious or not, may decide that having a close friend or family member read the eulogy is more befitting of the occasion.
If you decide that you are going to read the eulogy, you may wish to take a moment to practice it with a close friend listening. The emotions you feel on the day may become overwhelming, as can speaking in front of people if that is not something you are used to, so you may find that you feel a little more confident if you have had the time and emotional energy to practice saying what you have written.