• Customer Stories

"I am sure it helped them demystify death and remove some of the taboos involved. Death is distressing enough without making it more so with the normal macabre ceremonial of a funeral."

From the moment the 39-year-old HR advisor was told that it was unlikely she would survive the cancers that had compromised her immune system on and off for the previous 10-years, she set about planning her send off.

A plain wooden box, everyone dressed in black and the Victorian paraphernalia of the traditional English funeral was just not for her.

Instead, the mother-of-two chose to design her own coffin, featuring everyone and everything she adored, and have a funeral filled with laughter and memories of the fun loving woman she was.

Richard said the fact that Sarah was helped to achieve this by the designers at Colourful Coffins, made the process so easy.

The result was a casket covered in pictures of Cadburys mini-eggs, photos of her family and their black cat Rocky, a passionflower from the garden and cards that the children had written, saying 'I love you Mummy'.

"When the coffin came in to the church, that was when it became an extraordinary occasion," said Richard. "There was absolute astonishment. A lot of jaws gaped and there was an almost audible in-take of breath. It was very, very emotional at that point."

"I had seen the mock-ups of the design, but nothing had prepared me for quite the extraordinary sight it was - it was visually arresting."

For Richard, despite his monumental loss, the experience of knowing he had adhered to his wife's every wish at the funeral, is a soothing one.

"A wooden box just looks like death to me. It is cold and not a personal thing, says Su, a retired nurse, from Lichfield. "Instead, the coffins we designed just made you want to smile. They turned what could have been a morbid, sad day, into a celebration of life.

"I found the whole experience very uplifting and I feel privileged to have done it. It feels like giving a final gift to the person you love and miss so much.

"Mary was so kind and understanding, she actually said she felt she knew Mandy and my Mum by the end of it and that was really lovely.

Knowing her sister, a healthcare assistant on a hospital maternity ward, loved her holidays to Thailand, Su came up with photos from those trips, including a palm tree with a sunset and ships in the distance, plus butterflies, a rainbow and dolphins.

Just as she was slowly coming to terms with her sister's passing, Su's mother, Sylvia Cope, a 77-year-old ex-Wren and nurse suffered a heart attack following complications after a fall in her garden.

With the help of Colourful Coffins, Su opted for a cream casket featuring the Casablanca lilies she gave her Mum every week.

Su said the coffin is still a talking point for mourners who attended her mother's humanist funeral, and added: "Everyone loved the look of the coffin and I am still having comments now that if you can say a funeral is a nice thing, this was it'."

"Dad died on the Sunday, we got in touch with Colourful Coffins on the Monday to talk through ideas of doing a tram design, I sent some photos of a model tram Dad had made himself, and by the Tuesday we had a proof on email and I was smiling and showing everyone," said Jill.

"It was incredible, the model tram was a single decker so it was the right proportions, we had Terminus written on one end as the destination and it was absolutely perfect, it couldn't have been better."

Jill says the investment in a picture coffin was well worth it in terms of quality and both she and the funeral director were full of praise for the way it was made.

With the coffin safely delivered a few days later, Jill took lots of pictures and when the day of the funeral came, she topped the coffin off with her father's flat cap and white roses from Yorkshire, where he was born and bred.

"Dad was quite well known in the tram world because of the modelmaking, he had been a member of the Model Tramway Society all his life. Lots of people came to the funeral to say goodbye and everyone wanted to take a closer look at the coffin and to take pictures," she said.

"It made such a difference to our family, it was exactly right and a really fitting celebration of everything that was him."

Jill's Colourful Coffin was supplied through Harold F Miles, South Cadbury, Somerset.

They chose a rainbow design, but asked the design team to use stronger and brighter colours which Hamish would have enjoyed and had his name emblazoned in red along the side. At one end of the coffin was a favourite photograph of the teenager, while at the other, was a copy of a plaque from his bedroom door, which read 'Brave knight sleeping, wake with extreme caution'.

"It was my eldest son who said Hamish liked rainbows, so that's why we chose a rainbow for his coffin," said Katharine.

"Colourful Coffins allowed us to bring our other children along to the workshop so they could see them making the coffin. It was more like a gallery and they were able to touch and feel the coffin and that really helped them talk about what had happened and be part of the process. It was a very special atmosphere."

"We were able to keep a piece of the design which was used and after Hamish was cremated we had a replica of the coffin in the same design produced as an ashes casket, which we've kept."

Katharine is full of praise for the attention to detail and effort that the design team put in. "Having had a colourful coffin for Hamish, I can't imagine why anyone would want anything else," she said.

"It was a very difficult time, the funeral director gave me catalogue after catalogue but I kept saying 'that's not my husband'. Then they gave me a leaflet on Colourful Coffins and I knew straight away that was what I wanted," she said.

With daughter Nicole, she chose a design which showed lots of photographs of Terry and the family in happier times; on their wedding day, pictures of Nicole as a child and of Terry with friends.

"A lot of the photographs were old-style prints, but nothing was too much trouble and they were able to scan photos in once I'd picked the best of them," said Alex. "When I saw the finished coffin, I couldn't believe it, I was so, so pleased. Nothing was impossible or too much trouble for them and I described them as like angels sitting on my shoulders. It was wonderful."

"I thought it was a wonderful idea, so I called Mary and we talked through some ideas. She was brilliant, asking me about Sue's favourite colours and what she liked, it just sounded so good."

Karen's choice of personalised coffin included a rainbow on a soft sky blue background with clouds and, because the couple had always been cat lovers, Colourful Coffins also created a design featuring cats in a basket.

In a final special touch, Karen also ensured her nickname for her partner was printed on the coffin, as well as her name.

"It was so apt for Sue, I felt the last thing I could do for her was to give her a happy send off," said Karen. "We wanted to celebrate her life instead of being morbid and, when the undertaker brought the coffin in, it lifted the mood and stopped any sadness and tears. It helped make the day go with a smile."

When she lost her mother, Sheila Harris, only a short while later, Karen and her sister turned again to the Colourful Coffins team.

This time they chose a Spring flower design, featuring their mother's favourite flowers of iris and freesias, intertwined with two doves, representing their mother and late father being together again.

"Once again, everybody said how beautiful the coffin was and how it brightened the occasion," said Karen.

"Mary really went out of her way to do a wonderful job, even down to finding a special lilac lining which we wanted for mum's coffin. They were so patient and the end result was just beautiful."

Karen's Colourful Coffin was supplied through J Wagstaff, Peacehaven, East Sussex.

Her father especially loved the Greek Islands and used to spend the summer holidays going island hopping. The night he died he was due to head off there again and Lucinda felt by choosing some of the best photographs to be reproduced on the coffin, it would help ensure his final journey was an extra special one.

As a finishing touch, she even chose a bouquet of bougainvillea to complement the Greek Island theme.

"When the coffin came into the church it did make people smile and everyone spent time looking at it and several took photographs," she said. "I did worry in case some people felt it was a bit tasteless, but most of them just thought it was amazing and it was such a talking point."

"I didn't want Dad's funeral to be miserable because he was a bright and colourful character. Having a Colourful Coffin totally changed it from being a sad and miserable day into a much more cheery and uplifting event. Dad would have definitely enjoyed it."

Lucinda's Colourful Coffin was supplied through a funeral director in Finchley, London.