Funeral send-off costs rise as unicorns and disco hits add sparkle

Spending on the extras that turn a funeral into a celebration of life soared last year, with a “unicorn-drawn” hearse and drag queens belting out LGBTQ anthems among the more unusual requests, says a report.

The average amount spent on a funeral send-off – which includes things such as catering for the wake, flowers, limo hire and other extras – reached £2,306 in 2019, up almost 12% in a year, according to the insurer SunLife’s Cost of Dying report. It says the increasing popularity of personalised funerals appears to be a major driver behind the rise.

Funeral directors and consumers were quizzed for the report, and here are some of the more unusual requests from this year’s:

• Items in, or on, the coffin “We had someone whose favourite meal was a roast dinner,” recalled one funeral director. There was a wish for that to be reflected in the service, so flowers in the shape of a chicken were offered, but this was rejected in favour of a traditional arrangement with a rubber chicken sticking out of it. “It made everyone chuckle and was a great representation of what she loved.” At another funeral, for a farmer who lived in his wellies, his boots were attached to the foot end of the coffin “so it looked like his feet were sticking out”.

• Unicorn-drawn hearse “We had one [family] that wanted horses with unicorn horns, which was really nice – the girl liked unicorns,” says one contributor to the report.

• Clowning around This year’s report included details of a couple of circus-flavoured funerals. “I had a deceased that wanted to be dressed as a clown with full make-up because he and his partner enjoyed dressing up and he thought it would be hilarious to be dressed as a clown. His family didn’t, but he got what he wanted,” says one contributor. Another recalls: “We conducted a funeral recently at Coombe Abbey [in Warwickshire] in a marquee. There were fire-breathers there and everybody was dressed up – also there was a band playing.”

• Drag queens and disco hits SunLife says one of its favourites is the funeral which included drag queens doing a cabaret show at the end of the service and singing I Am What I Am, the Broadway musical song turned disco floor-filler.

• Only Fools and Horses “An Only Fools and Horses themed funeral where the car from the TV series was used and the theme tune was played in the crematorium.”