Lucy Murphy | Wedding and Funeral Celebrant

Hello - my name is Lucy and I’m your family, wedding and funeral celebrant in North Yorkshire. I live with my husband Andy in a small village just south of the historic city of York. I’m a keen artist and love to use charcoal and graphite and tend to sketch horticultural subjects - I always have a sketch book and pencil in my bag. I also sculpt in clay and I’m currently working on a miniature fruit bowl and fruit. Both of these hobbies give me a sense of peace and calm.

I’m passionate about reading – I love getting lost in a good book. I read both fact and fiction and I enjoy poetry. I really love words and I love any kind of word puzzle – crossword, acrostics, anything that means you have to use your logic and your brain. I try to do the Times crossword every day. I love classical music and I practice tai chi and meditate every morning.

My professional background has been office-based but always to some degree customer facing which I enjoy. In my mid-twenties I studied for a Law degree and as a result I spent 5 years working in the field of legal prosecution. During this time most of the cases I worked on were of a sensitive and distressing nature. This means I am used to dealing with people who are upset and vulnerable in both a respectful and considerate manner.

I decided to become a celebrant because, over the course of the last 10 years or so, both Andy and I have lost most of our respective families and several close friends. I’ve seen the effect a funeral can have on the bereaved. A good, well-balanced funeral can be a great comfort to grieving family and friends and plays a vital part in the grieving process. A bad funeral, on the other hand is a very unsatisfying affair and leaves one with a sense of unfinished business and missed opportunities to commemorate the life of the deceased.

Planning a funeral is one of the most difficult things to do, coming as it does at one of the most distressing times in your life. I know from personal experience how valuable it is to have someone guide you through the process of tailoring the ceremony to your needs and helping with readings and music choices.

And so my goal is very simple. To work closely with you to ensure that you get the ceremony you want on the day, for you to feel that your wishes have been acknowledged and respected. As much as a life has been lost, a life has also been lived and I want to create a ceremony that you feel comfortable with and one which captures all the elements essential to honour and celebrate the life of a loved one.

It's a privilege for me to be trusted to create such a ceremony and I take that privilege very seriously. My approach, which I like to think is collaborative and compassionate aims to not only capture the life and character of your loved one but also to ensure that family and friends leave the ceremony feeling that their life has been commemorated in an fitting way.

Although I don’t, personally, have a religious faith I am respectful of those who do and I am willing to include faith elements.