10 Special Celebration of Life Ideas for Your Loved One

If you need celebration of life ideas, you likely lost someone close to you. When you have lost a loved one, honoring them with a memorial service is a monumental task. While many choose to stick to a traditional funeral, a celebration of life is also an option for those who want to focus on the joy their late loved one brought to the world. This practice of having a party in honor of the death of a loved one is very common in Hispanic cultures, the most widely recognized tradition being Dia de Los Muertos. However, people of all backgrounds and religious denominations can host a celebration of life event. 

The first thing you need to sort out is where to host the celebration of life. If the person you’re memorializing had a favorite place of worship, like a church, temple, or synagogue, naturally you may hold it there. However, that is not the case for everyone.

Enter Peerspace. As the largest online marketplace for hourly venue rentals, we the place to turn to when you need a venue to host a celebration of life. On our platform, you’ll find homes, churches, community centers, and other solemn yet welcoming spaces that you can rent for a few hours. It takes the guesswork out of planning a memorial during a difficult time. With that said, here are some celebration of life ideas that can help you create an event that is personalized, meaningful, and truly representative of everything that special person meant to you.

1. Incorporate your loved one’s favorite things

Honor what they loved most by serving their favorite food and drinks, hosting their favorite activities, and playing their favorite movies or TV shows. This could also mean designing the event around a theme or a color scheme they loved. Think of books, movies, shows, musicians, celebrities, animals, and sports they liked and go from there.

Choose floral arrangements, tableware, food and beverages, and decorations that fit the theme, and consider asking guests to show up in relevant costumes. It is tough to narrow down one aspect of a person’s personality to celebrate, so picking a few central themes that meant a lot to them can be helpful when you are trying to come up with celebration of life ideas.

2. Design a personalized playlist

In the words of Hans Christian Andersen, “When words fail, music speaks.” During this emotional time, it may be best to let music express what you want to celebrate about the loved one you lost.

Create a playlist with all of their favorite songs. Then, pass Spotify around at the event and ask all of the guests to add a song that reminds them of the person being honored. To start off your list, add “Evergreen” by YEBBA. It is a beautiful song for a celebration of life.

3. Personalize the celebration with a special Peerspace venue

Places can be deeply symbolic. One particular place might have meant a lot to the person who has passed on. Select a venue based on places your loved one felt most at home. (This could be a garden if they had a green thumb, a bar if that was their favorite hangout, a bookstore if they always had their nose in a book, or a theater or art gallery if they were into the arts).

With Peerspace, the sky’s the limit when it comes to choosing a venue. We have thousands of memorial-worthy spaces in cities and towns across North America and beyond.

A few suggestions include:

• This creative gallery studio in Chicago, IL (pictured above) with an open floor plan and beautiful artwork created by the host and gallery owner
• This historic versatile event space in Seattle, WA with tables and chairs for 110 guests, a stage, A/V equipment, and a kitchen
• This modern event space in the heart of Prairie Village, KS with a chic black-and-white color scheme, modular furnishings, and a large-screen TV
• This flexible studio space in La Mesa, CA with tables and chairs, a Bluetooth speaker, a break room, and modular furnishings
• This beautiful auditorium in Conyers, GA with seating for 90, a stage, A/V equipment, and an outdoor area

As you can see, you can find well-equipped memorial-worthy venues in cities across the country. Contact your chosen venue’s host if you need help arranging the catering, musicians, a videographer to put together a memorial video, and more. They will be happy to help you in any way that they can.

Need a large, open venue? Then learn how much it costs to rent a community center and how to rent one here.