Personalized Funeral Services Designed to Authentically Celebrate and Honor Your Loved One's Life

Crafting meaningful memorial ceremonies and slideshows for this unique person who lived, so that you can find solace in the shared memories.

Secular Celebrant and Memorial Slideshow Services

At Grief Pictured, I craft personalized funerals and Celebration of Life events for non-religious individuals which authentically honor who your loved one was. I also specialize in emotionally poignant memorial slideshow videos, using a carefully edited montage of photographs set to music to create a powerful tribute to the life that was lived.

My process is highly collaborative, involving discussions of what your loved one would have wanted. We also discuss what elements matter the most to those mourners left behind. I conduct an in-depth family interview, write a eulogy that captures the essence of who your loved one was, and handle all ceremony logistics. My events foster a positive and supportive atmosphere, allowing those grieving to find comfort and closure through shared memories.

I am based in Maryland. As a funeral celebrant, I proudly serve my local region, including Maryland, Washington D.C., Virginia, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. You are welcome to contact me if you are further out, and we can discuss options for me traveling to you or helping with your event remotely. My memorial slideshow services are available for individuals worldwide, regardless of their location.

What is a Funeral Celebrant?

A celebrant is the type of professional who will craft and officiate a celebratory ceremony for a significant life event and ensure the ceremony is tailored specifically to this person’s or family’s life story or desires.

There are Celebrants for funerals, and also for other types of significant life transitions such as weddings, welcoming the birth of a new child, coming of age events, celebrating remission from cancer, and more.

We are the officiants at the events, yes, however we are also so much more than just officiants. Officiating is only a small part of what a Funeral Celebrant does. We are writers and designers of ceremonies who collaborate with you over the course of days or even weeks prior to the event in order to bring an artistic vision to life, in addition to being the skilled public speaker who will perform the ceremony the day of the event.

A well-crafted, personalized non-religious Celebration of Life ceremony is a profoundly healing experience. Regardless of a person’s worldview and belief system, grieving individuals tend to universally agree with certain sentiments about life, love, and how a person lives on in our memories. We humans all can connect over realizing their specific legacy—the impact they left by having lived.

What Elements Are Incorporated in the Ceremony?

I was trained by the Celebrant Foundation and Institute in the art of narrative and capturing the essence of your loved one’s life story. As a certified Life-Cycle Celebrant®, my ceremonies celebrate the person who died in a respectful, compassionate, and beautiful way.

Their intensive training provided a solid foundation of skills, perspectives, and resources for crafting ceremonies which include creative small rituals, symbolic objects, lyrical language, philosophically poignant themes, music, and poetry & prose readings which speak powerfully to the experience of bereavement and honor the specific tastes of the person we are celebrating.

I will write a beautiful, unique, comprehensive eulogy (a “soul-sketch” style eulogy) that authentically encapsulates your loved one’s unique personality and captures the essence of who they were as a person. I add a special touch to the funeral ceremonies I preside over with personalized readings, music, symbolism, and rituals. The ceremony also contains an opportunity for friends and family to share their anecdotes and remembrances.

Before crafting the celebration of life event, I will interview the honoree’s closest family and friends in order to learn more about who they were and how best to celebrate them. Chosen family is always welcome at these interviews. I ensure that each aspect of the ceremony is well-planned, high-quality, and thoughtful.

Every moment of the ceremony is intentionally designed to highlight specific memories and who this specific person was. And every ceremony is carefully written to remain inclusive of both religious and non-religious friends and family who are in attendance. I am skilled at crafting secular ceremonies which remain neutral on what is or isn't true about spiritual matters and respect the specific truth about what the honoree believed, regardless of if they held some spiritual or religious beliefs or not. I write the ceremony in a very tactful and respectful way, so that it will still resonate with any mourners in attendance whose beliefs differ from what the honoree believed.

Being certified as a Life-Cycle Celebrant® means I can guarantee your ceremony follows a satisfying emotional arc. My ceremony script first acknowledges the emotion this specific loss stirred in you and gently meets you and all mourners where you are at, before diving deeper into the most painful reminders of who the world has lost (which can be validating and cathartic despite how difficult it is to feel deep sadness and hurt), and then finally brings the tone back up in a comforting way, leaving all attendees feeling emotions like nostalgia, gratefulness, and hope, and invoking confidence that you all are indeed equipped to handle carrying your grief forward as you exit the event.

I work primarily with non-religious individuals, whether you are agnostic, a secular humanist, a non-practicing member of your religion, an atheist, or simply do not have connections to a particular religion. Sometimes, I work with people who are religious, but need to fittingly honor a person who was not. I am also glad to assist people who need to find ways to creatively combine multiple religious belief systems into one ceremony. I became a Secular Funeral Celebrant because I am passionate about providing this needed service.

As a secular celebrant, I provide an alternative to the typical religious ceremonies most people here in North America are familiar with. Instead of highlighting an afterlife, which not everyone believes in and can be the opposite of comforting for many, I focus on the life lived by the individual and offer hope in moving forward to friends and family.

Memorial Slideshow Services

Unlike most funeral celebrants, I have the ability to provide an expertly edited memorial slideshow life tribute video. I draw on my 17 years of video editing experience to add subtle artistic touches such as targeted slow zooms, text captions, color correction, and attention to pacing and flow. These artistic touches add to the overall positive experience of watching a montage of smiling photographs of this beloved individual. The background music chosen for the video has the power to set the tone for the entire Celebration of Life event.

Memorial slideshows pay tribute to the person’s entire life, and often help start conversations at an event where people often don’t know what to say. There is a power in the visuals and their ability to capture a unique side of the person’s personality. Attendees viewing a memorial slideshow typically feel grateful to be reminded of what it really means to reflect back on and honor the life that was lived, even if they also feel an intense mixture of other emotions when seeing their face again.

Those grieving have the privilege of seeing a glimpse of so many significant moments they did not witness firsthand but which shaped this beloved person’s life. Being both the celebrant and the slideshow creator means I work on the slideshow with the vision of the entire event in mind, and work on the ceremony with a fuller understanding of your loved one’s life story and personality.

My Services

I offer both celebrant/officiant services and slideshow editing services for individuals who have lost a loved one. Grieving and processing the loss of your loved one drains you of so much energy, and figuring out ceremony logistics entirely on your own when you are at your lowest adds unnecessary stress to your plate. Let a professional who is an expert at impactful Celebration of Life style funeral ceremonies handle as much of the process as possible. I’m here to help and to offer you more time and space to grieve.

Celebrant Services

Memorial services are best run by an officiant with expertise in crafting and hosting a ceremony. There is a lot that goes into such an event, including writing the eulogy, selecting the readings, creating the slideshow, incorporating music, coordinating all the friends and family who wish to speak at the microphone, and more. I understand how important it is for you to experience the closure that comes from a thoughtful service that paints a full picture of the life your loved one lived. This service is what I promise to provide.

Slideshow Services

You can trust me in both the artistic design and technical aspects of this service. I am here to take the weight off your shoulders and provide you with a quality, well-edited video of your loved one that highlights their best moments. I am an experienced video editor who has been honing my skills for 17 years. It is my privilege and honor to “get to know” who your loved one was, in a way, even though they are gone, through seeing so many photographs that made up their life. I will take the utmost care to create an emotional and beautiful slideshow that honors your loved one fully.

Take time to grieve your loved one and leave the video editing up to me.

Note: I may not have time to do both the slideshow and the ceremony if you have a very quick turnaround time for the funeral. I would be happy to do one or the other if you have only a few days. The growing trend for many Celebration of Life events is to allow more of a cushion of timing, for exactly these reasons.

Please let me know if you have further questions about my services, or you can visit the Services Page.

Why Choose Emily Karp to Craft Your Loved One’s Funeral?

Guaranteed a memorable, compassionate, and respectful memorial service that captures the essence of the honoree
Specializes in non-religious ceremonies which remain respectful toward all attendees’ beliefs
Understanding and empathy for your current situation
Knowledgeable, experienced, and skilled in creating quality memorial slideshow videos
Flexibility in location and timing
Personalization and customization for this special event celebrating your loved one’s life
Affordable price for a meaningful event which honors someone so important to you

Set Up Your No-Fee Consultation Call with Emily Karp Today.

I would be honored to assist you with a memorial gathering or Celebration of Life event, and/or with a memorial slideshow. Please contact me today and we can begin discussing details and the next steps. I look forward to working with you.