What this site does for you right now
It stops you having to say it again. In the days after a death, dozens of people need exactly the same information. Which day. What time. Which chapel, and is there parking. Whether there is something afterward, and where. Whether flowers are wanted. Each person asks separately, and each time you answer you begin the sentence from the top.
One link answers all of them at once. You send it to the family group chat, the neighbors, the people from work, the friends from decades ago whose numbers you barely have. The details travel without you carrying them. When somebody forwards it to a cousin you forgot to tell, that is the page working properly rather than something you have to apologize for.
It also holds what never fits in a text message. A photograph you love. Two paragraphs about who they actually were. A place where people can write what they remember.
We build each one by hand, so a custom celebration of life website looks like the person it is for rather than a template with a name dropped into it. Send us what you have: a note on your phone, a voice message, three photographs, the order of service the funeral director emailed. We do the assembling, and if the service is close, we can do it today.
What goes on the page
Everything someone needs in order to come, and nothing that asks anything more of you. It opens with their name, their dates, and a photograph if there is one you like. Below that, in plain order, sit the details people keep calling about.
Be specific with us about the practical things, because those are what generate the phone calls. Whether the service is religious or secular changes what people wear and what they expect. Whether children are welcome is a question nobody likes to ask out loud. Parking at a crematorium on a weekday afternoon is a real problem, and solving it in one line is a kindness to eighty people.
Flowers deserve a sentence of their own. Many families would rather have donations, and naming the charity plainly removes the guesswork: the hospice ward, the research fund, the dog rescue, the church roof. Give us the name and a link and we will place it where people see it without feeling instructed.
What usually goes on:
- Their name, their dates, one photograph.
- The service: day, time, the full address, and a map that opens in one tap.
- Religious or secular, and which tradition, so nobody arrives unsure.
- Afterward: the reception or gathering, where, what time, and whether everyone is welcome or only family.
- Flowers or donations, with the charity named and linked.
- The live stream link, for the people who cannot be in the room.
- A place to write a memory, open to anyone you send the link to.
- Practical notes: parking, dress, whether children are welcome, step-free access, and one contact who is not you.
The memories wall
Families tell us this is the part that mattered most. The memories wall is an open space on the page where anyone can write what they remember, sign it with their name, and add a photograph if they have one.
What arrives is rarely what you expect. A man who worked with your father in 1988 describes exactly how he handled a difficult customer. A neighbor remembers being driven to hospital at two in the morning and never forgetting it. Colleagues tell you things you never knew, because almost nobody is the same person at home and at work. Old friends surface out of nowhere, having heard from someone who heard from someone.
It also gives the people who cannot be at the service something to do with what they are feeling. Grief with nowhere to go sits heavy. A text message to a grieving family feels like an imposition, so people hesitate; writing on the wall does not, so they write, at two in the afternoon and at four in the morning, from wherever they are.
The wall is moderated. Entries come to you, or to whoever you nominate, and nothing appears on the page until it is approved. An old grievance, a rambling stranger, an intrusive question: none of it lands in front of the family. If you cannot bear to read them yet, nominate a friend and leave it alone for a month.
Afterward, the wall can be downloaded and printed as a book, entries, names and photographs together. Many families read a handful aloud during the service. Others save it unopened and read it on the first anniversary, which is often the harder day.
Live streaming, without complications
A private stream on the same page lets the people who cannot travel be there anyway. There is almost always someone. A brother in another country who cannot get a flight in four days. A sister in a care home who is not well enough to sit in a cold chapel. Grandchildren eight time zones away. A friend recovering from surgery who would come if their body allowed it.
The stream sits on the page everyone already has the link to, and that is the entire point. No new app, no meeting code, no unfamiliar sign-in screen, no phone call to an eighty-year-old to talk her through a download while you are trying to write a eulogy. She opens the same link she opened yesterday to check the time, and at the right hour the service is there.
Most funeral homes and crematoria already have a camera and can give you a stream we can place on the page. If yours can, send us the details. If it cannot, one steady phone on a small tripod at the back of the room is genuinely enough; nobody watching is judging the production.
Our guide to live streaming a memorial service covers the practical setup, including what to ask the funeral director.
Words for the hardest lines
Nobody should have to compose these from nothing at four in the morning. Below are two short pieces of copy you are welcome to take and change. Swap the names, the dates, the places. Cut anything that is not true of your family. They are deliberately plain, because plain is what people can absorb when they are upset.
Peter Hale died peacefully on Sunday morning, at home, with his family beside him. A service will be held at St Anne's Chapel on Friday the 14th at 11 in the morning, followed by tea and sandwiches at the village hall. Anyone who knew him is welcome. All the details are here.
Peter asked for no fuss and no flowers. If you would like to give something instead, the hospice nurses who cared for him at home have a donation page, linked on his page. Anything at all, given in his name, would mean a great deal to us.
If writing even this feels beyond you, send us the facts as a list and we will draft both, then you change whatever does not sound like you. Some families ask a friend to deal with us instead; tell us who to speak to and we will not trouble you. We have written these lines many times. You have not, and you should not have to be good at it.
Celebration of life, memorial, funeral
These three words overlap, and families use them differently, so nobody here is wrong. In broad use, a funeral is the service with the body present, held within days, usually following a set form. A memorial happens without the body present, sometimes months later. A celebration of life is shaped around the person rather than around a liturgy.
- Funeral
- The service with the coffin present, held soon after the death, most often led by a minister, priest, rabbi, imam or celebrant according to the family's tradition. It carries the burial or the cremation with it.
- Memorial service
- Held after the burial or cremation, sometimes much later. The delay gives distant family time to travel and the family time to plan properly. There is often a photograph, and sometimes an urn, where the coffin would have been.
- Celebration of life
- Shaped by the life rather than by a fixed order: their records, their poems, friends speaking, the food they liked, frequently no black. It can be religious, partly so, or not at all.
- Wake, shiva, repast, reception
- The gathering afterward, named differently across communities, where people eat, tell stories and stay a while. Many families need this on the page even more than the service, because the address is different and nobody is sure whether they are included.
The page is called whatever you call it. We use your family's words, not ours. Our guide on the difference between a celebration of life and a funeral goes further into how families decide.
Privacy
The page is hidden from search engines from the moment it goes up. Someone searching their name six months from now will not find it, and it will never sit in a results list beside advertisements. That matters more than it sounds. A private family's service time, home address and photographs of their children have no business in a public index, and we treat that as the default, not an option you have to ask for.
You can add a password, shared only with the people you choose. Some families want one, particularly when the circle is small or the death was written about somewhere. Many do not need it, because an unlisted link that only reaches the people you send it to is already quiet.
The memories wall is not a public comment section. Nothing appears until you, or the person you nominate, approves it. There are no reaction buttons, no visitor counter, no follower list, nothing that turns a private loss into an audience. Nothing on the page is ever sold, shared or used for anything else.
What it costs, and how fast
Ready in 24 to 48 hours when the timing is tight, and often the same day if you tell us the service is close. A single page carrying the service details and the memories wall is $490. If you want the private live stream and a full photograph gallery as well, that is $990. Both are one-time, with no monthly fee and nothing to remember to cancel. The page stays online for twelve months, extendable for as long as your family wants it there.
We ask for a 50% deposit, invoiced securely, wherever you are in the world, and we begin before it clears if the service is in two days. We are not going to leave a grieving family waiting on an invoice.
If timing is the problem, say so in the first line of your message and we will move. Give us the date and the hour of the service and we will work backwards from it. And if what you need is smaller than anything on this page, ask anyway. Sometimes a family needs one page with six lines on it.
If you need this quickly, tell us.
We answer within a few hours, and we can have a page ready in a day.
Questions families ask
What is a celebration of life website?+
A single private page holding the service details, a place for people to share memories, and (if you want it) a live stream. Its purpose is practical: in the days after a death, dozens of people need the same information, and each one calls or texts to ask. One link answers them, which means you do not have to repeat the hardest sentences of your life twenty times a day.
How quickly can the page be ready?+
Within 24 to 48 hours when the timing is tight, and often faster. Tell us what you need and when the service is; we will work to that. A single page with the service details and a memories wall is straightforward to build quickly, and we would rather move fast than have you waiting.
Can people who cannot attend still take part?+
Yes, in two ways. A private live stream lets family abroad or relatives too unwell to travel be present for the service itself. The memories wall lets anyone write what they remember, at any hour, from anywhere. Many families read entries aloud during the service, and the whole wall can be downloaded and printed afterward.
Is the page private?+
Yes. It is hidden from search engines, so it does not appear when someone searches their name. You can add a password shared only with the people you choose. The memories wall is moderated, so nothing unkind or intrusive appears. Service details, addresses, and family photographs stay within the circle you decide on.
We build one-page websites for the days a family will remember, services and memorials among them. If you are arranging one this week, we are sorry, and we will be quick. Updated August 2026.