What You're Really Paying For: A Transparent Look at the Value in Every Package
I want to be upfront with you about something most celebrants don’t talk about openly: the price you see listed for each package represents a significant amount of skilled, dedicated professional labor — not just the hour you see me at the front of the room. I spend significantly more time on these projects than most people expect, and I want you to understand exactly what that time involves.
I am a certified Life-Cycle Celebrant® with formal training in the art of narrative, eulogy writing, and ceremony design who started my Celebrant work about four years ago, and I’m a professional video editor with two decades of experience. When you hire me, you are hiring both of those things fully. Running a small business as a creative service-provider also involves real costs beyond my own time — software, website hosting, professional tools, printing, skilled support, and more, all of which I rely on to deliver the best possible result for your family. A portion of every package goes toward keeping those things running well. What I charge is not all money I take home. These business expenses are significant additional costs that allow me to do this work at the level it deserves.
Here is an honest look at what each package actually involves.
Package by Package:
Simple Officiant Services — $475
Approximately 1 full working day of my time.
This is my most streamlined package, and even here, more goes into it than most people realize.
Before I ever arrive at your venue, I spend time in an initial consultation getting to know your situation, preparing a contract, and reviewing the materials your family provides. I write personalized opening and closing remarks — not generic words pulled from a template, but remarks shaped specifically by the circumstances of your loved one’s passing, the tone of your gathering, and the understanding I gain about your loved one after receiving your written eulogy. I prepare a ceremony binder, rehearse my delivery, and ensure I can pronounce every location, workplace, and family member’s name correctly and speak with steadiness and care on such an important day. This preparation alone typically takes me a full afternoon.
Then there is the ceremony day itself: driving to the venue and arriving early to familiarize myself with the space, test the microphone, and ensure I am fully prepared before your guests arrive, officiating the service as requested, possibly traveling with the procession of cars to a nearby location for a burial, and guiding the flow throughout everything with professionalism and compassion.
So you are hiring me for at least one full day of focused, skilled professional work — preparation, performance, and presence. I do not rush any part of the process, as I strongly believe each life deserves my full care and attention.
Memorial Tribute Video — $550
At least 3 full working days of my time, often more (with the slideshow package add-ons being quite time-consuming to provide).
I collect and carefully review every photograph you provide — often over 100 images for many of my clients, although only 60 are included in the base price, and after that, people are paying for what is essentially an extra day of my professional time — assessing quality, color, chronology, and which other photos it thematically seems to match as I work to figure out the storytelling arc of the video, that is, capturing the life story in a way that feels intentional and deliberate.
I often apply color correction or sharpening effects to older or poorly lit photographs. I obtain the licensed music you selected, or if you prefer, I will select the piece for you that fits the tone and personality of your loved one. I then match the entire slideshow to that music, timing transitions to the natural rhythm of the music while also ensuring each photograph lingers for the right amount of time to take in all the people and details in it — some photographs need more time for appreciation than others. I build the slideshow using professional video editing software, adding thoughtful pacing, smooth transitions, intentional zooming and panning to draw the viewer’s eye toward the honoree, and optional captions or text.
I send you a draft for review, revise in ways to align with your feedback, and deliver a final high-resolution video file your family can keep and share for many years to come.
My goal is always to shape a visual story that feels cohesive, moving, and genuinely worthy of the life being honored. That level of care and craft takes at least three full working days for the base package — plus clients who want extended length, detailed captions, or other add-ons can expect significantly more hours of work. My pricing has to be aligned with this reality.
Fully Personalized Celebration of Life — $1,250
At least 5 full work days — a complete work week, dedicated entirely to your loved one, valued at $250 per day. When needed, I can condense this into ~4 days, often requiring working overtime at least one of the days.
This is my most requested package, and it represents the fullest expression of what I do.
As I may be serving other families simultaneously, and because I prefer to give your family adequate time to review the draft without feeling rushed, it is often spread over more calendar days, but I always dedicate at least one full professional work week worth of hours entirely to one person’s life story. Here is what all those work hours actually contain on my end:
Planning the timeline & logistics: The first few hours go toward often including multiple no-fee consultation calls and emails, establishing exactly what your family desires for the ceremony, drafting up a custom contract with specific deadline obligations, and coordinating when various family members and close friends might be available for the family interview, as well as (if available) starting to read the obituary or additional written submissions.
Note: if the obituary hasn’t been written, I can write it for a small additional fee after writing the full ceremony script.
Getting to know the honoree fully: Depending on how much notice we have before the ceremony date, I can commit to either 45 min or 2 hours of time on the family interviews gathering answers to expertly chosen prompts to help me build a cohesive narrative for the eulogy. I often will do additional research when it’s appropriate — in addition to the obituary mentioned above, I’ve read resumes and LinkedIn profiles, seen published newspaper articles from internet archives, received a 200-page PDF of a privately written memoir, been forwarded emails with memories from friends — I do have to limit how much I’ll accept without an extra fee and/or enough notice prior to the ceremony, but I’m often very willing to take the extra time if it’s something that will help me build a fuller picture of who this person was. At that point, all the details collected need to be organized into usable notes from which to write, which itself requires significant time and careful attention.
Writing the eulogy and ceremony: This is where the majority of my time goes, and it is the hardest part to explain to someone who hasn’t done it. Writing a soul-sketch eulogy alongside tracking down the perfect poems or quotes that resonate as particularly fitting requires deep, sustained concentration. I tend to write longer eulogies than some of the other celebrants around, often 15 to 20 min on the main eulogy alone, all while being careful not to repeat stories that may already be planned to be covered during a later personal remarks section.
I invest all my energy into discovering an emotionally poignant thread that connects all the stories I’ve learned about this person’s life, and then craft it into something that I am confident will be powerful for the entire room of people gathered to grieve and celebrate this person.
I typically spend 2 to 3 full working days on this alone — writing, rewriting, and refining until I feel it genuinely does this person justice. After I send it off to you to review, whenever the timeline allows it I prefer to take a whole day to decompress from all the intense writing while simultaneously providing your family the benefit of at least a full day to catch if there were misunderstood small details that need correcting or things that you’d prefer be framed differently.
Revisions & Rehearsal: After the family sends over their suggested edits, I meticulously implement exactly what was requested and send off a finalized draft. I spend time carefully preparing my ceremony binder. Then I rehearse my delivery, ensuring I can pronounce every location, workplace, and family member’s name correctly. Occasionally there are additional logistics that also fall to me during this preparation day, such as being sure to bring my portable Bluetooth speaker for the music. These are additional hours of focused work that occur after the writing, yet before I ever leave my home.
The ceremony itself: I drive to the venue earlier than most of the guests, test the microphone, and officiate the ceremony which is often an hour long, introducing and guiding other speakers, and remaining present and supportive throughout.
Writing-Only Ceremony Script — $1,000
At least 4 full working days of my time.
This package includes almost everything in the “Fully Personalized Celebration of Life” package: see above for my description of the process I go through to interview the family and learn through in-depth research about your loved one, and how much time it takes me to write the soul-sketch eulogy and personalized ceremony script complete with selected readings that fit your loved one. Even the revision process is very similar.
The one main difference is that in these cases, I’m not there on the ceremony day to officiate it myself. Someone else will deliver the words I’ve so carefully prepared.
The $250 difference in price reflects the roughly one full day of work I am not doing: the binder preparation, rehearsal, travel, and officiating. The research, the interviews, and above all the writing — the most skilled, intensive, and time-consuming part of what I do, requiring days of deep focused creative work — are identical between the two packages.
This is ideal if your family prefers a loved one or clergy member to speak, but you still want the full life story captured and written with depth and craft. I write the final script to be delivered smoothly and meaningfully by whoever you have chosen — and I am available to answer any questions they have about delivering it well.
My ceremony scripts are color-coded for clarity, with stage directions, speaker cues, and sections that are visually distinct with their own headings and easy to follow. Whoever you choose to officiate will find it straightforward and professional to work from, and it will incorporate various family members and friends who desire to share readings or their own personal remarks as well.
Deluxe Package: Ceremony + Memorial Tribute Video — $1,700
At least half a month of my professional life. Typically 2 full work weeks or more.
This package combines everything in the “Fully Personalized Celebration of Life” package with a professionally edited Memorial Tribute Video — and it represents the most significant commitment of time, skill, and focused creative energy I offer.
The writing and ceremony process alone takes a full work week of deep, concentrated work. The slideshow creation takes at least three full days of skilled video editing, but for most clients it takes longer, since many opt for additional photos beyond the base package, or the revision process can require a few rounds of back and forth when cherished photographs are unearthed at the last minute.
Together that is roughly two complete work weeks. In practice, because of the complexity of coordinating both deliverables under deadline, and the care I put into ensuring the slideshow and ceremony feel cohesive with each other, this package routinely extends beyond two weeks of intensive professional work.
There is something genuinely unique about having the same person write your ceremony and create your memorial video. The slideshow becomes part of the same artistic vision as the ceremony itself — the same depth of feeling, the same attention to who this person really was, expressed in two different forms. I also find that doing both together makes my experience of officiating their ceremony something truly special: by the time I stand at the front of the room, I have spent weeks immersed in this person’s life through both their words and their photographs. I feel like I genuinely knew them.
When you hire me for this package, I dedicate over half a month of my professional life entirely to ensuring this beloved individual’s life is fully celebrated in the kind of farewell they deserve. I live and breathe your loved one’s story for weeks, and their story, along with your family’s love for them, is etched into my memory forever.
A Note on Estates Covering the Costs
If one of my packages sounds like exactly what your loved one deserves but you’re not sure you can afford it, it may be worth knowing that funeral expenses are generally considered a priority claim against the deceased’s estate in Maryland, D.C., and Virginia — meaning the estate may be able to pay or reimburse some or all of my fees. I am not a lawyer, and the specifics vary by state and situation, so I’d encourage you to speak with an estate attorney for details relevant to your circumstances.
Please also remember that payment plans are available upon request. For everyone, only a third of the fee is due upfront. I want to make my services as accessible to as many people as possible.
