FUNERAL planning is an emotional and daunting task.

Event Planner and Funeral Director, Karin Slade, believes that establishing your wishes beforehand helps to alleviate the stress and uncertainty in preparing for that final celebration of life.

In 2021, Karin published her guide to funeral planning, titled Where There’s A Will There’s A Wake, to help the general public in articulating their end-of-life wishes, and outline the tasks that may need to be undertaken in the event of a loved ones death. Karin Slade has been intimately involved with all forms of event coordinating ¬ from weddings to birthdays to wakes – for over three decades. Karin provides catering and funeral planning on the Northern Beaches of Sydney with her businesses Heavenly Catering, and Funerals by Design.

‘I’m an event person, a caterer. A funeral in my world is an event,’ states Karin Slade.

Subchapters in Where There’s A Will There’s A Wake include advice and discussion on planning your own funeral and end-of-life care, the necessary steps to take when a loved one dies, how to write and deliver a eulogy, options for burial, cremation or body donation, and ways to add personality to funeral celebrations.

According to Karin, "the way we do funerals must change." She believes that funerals should be more than just a sombre occasion and should instead focus on celebrating the life of the deceased. ‘I’m an event person and a caterer. As a funeral director I bring my event experience to create a celebration in a style and setting that is personalised" states Karin.

Karin passionately discusses her acronym guide to organise your funeral, which she has coined “FROG Files”. The steps she outlines include formalising your finances, recording the rituals you want performed, organising digital assets, and giving away your goods. Karin would like for her term FROG File to become vernacular in the funeral planning space.

When asked if Karin has completed her own FROG File, she answers, ‘The thing about the FROG File is you have to revise it every birthday… It’s not a matter of “have I done it?”, it’s “is it current?”’

For more information regarding Karin Slade, visit www.karinslade.com

ENTER TO WIN:

Write to Editor@hkpost.com.au telling us why you would like to win an autographed copy of Karin's book by 16th May 2023.

Winner will be emailed & announced on FaceBook.