Page 229 - Guerin Media Ltd | Active Retirement Ireland Members Annual 2016
P. 229
THE GLAM REAPER TAKE A BOW
The Glam Reaper
“Yes, this is my full time career – all things funeral
I am an author, journalist, reporter, jewellry maker and innovator on all things funeral!
-Jennifer Muldowney
Young Jennifer Muldowney is not what you would and helping people to plan and preplan funerals with
the same creativity.”
expect in a funeral planner. She’s passionate
about inspiring people young and old to take Farewell was born. It has evolved since conception. The
charge of the final memory they leave with loved initial idea was that of a wedding planner but for
ones. For many of us our funeral is the last thing funerals but that idea was too ahead of it’s time in
we would want to consider planning for but Ireland – they are only just accepting it in the States
talking to Jennifer it starts to make sense. where it is widely considered they are ten years ahead
SO HOW DID JENNIFER BECOME KNOWN AS “THE of us in the industry. So I had to go back to the drawing
GLAM REAPER”? board. I had all this information, I had done so much
With over 10 years experience in a variety of roles that research and was knowledgeable in a way the public
incorporated event management Jennifer launched were not. If I couldn’t help people and save people
Roxypop Events, a wedding and party planning business, money or show them how the industry works through a
in 2010. planning service then maybe I could take the
information from my brain and put it into words. Luckily
for me a publisher believed in this idea too! Say
“I didn’t grow up surrounded by death. I haven’t suffered Farewell, Your Way, a funeral planning guide for Ireland,
a dark childhood nor lost too many loved ones. But I was launched on my 31st birthday in June 2013.
have lost a few people close to me. They included both
young and old and, for me, that was a wake-up cal. I
suddenly understood that death wasn’t an ‘old people’s
disease’. I started thinking differently about death. It was
dealing with this, my loss/grief and the fact that logisti-
cally weddings and funerals are similar that this ‘brain-
wave’ was how Farewell came to be.”
Sometimes it can be hard for people to understand how
similar weddings and funerals are but if we really get
down to brass tax on the logistics - the only difference is
the focal point - a body or a couple. That can be hard to
swallow but it is a fact.
While people can spend tens of thousands of euros on
planning a wedding, a funeral has to be turned around
in a matter of days, typically with no budget whatsoever
allocated for it.
“I decided to leave the pretty and often narcissistic life “For some moments in life there are no words.”
of weddings behind and put my energies into funerals
-David Seltzer, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
www.activeirl.ie Active Retirement Ireland 229
The Glam Reaper
“Yes, this is my full time career – all things funeral
I am an author, journalist, reporter, jewellry maker and innovator on all things funeral!
-Jennifer Muldowney
Young Jennifer Muldowney is not what you would and helping people to plan and preplan funerals with
the same creativity.”
expect in a funeral planner. She’s passionate
about inspiring people young and old to take Farewell was born. It has evolved since conception. The
charge of the final memory they leave with loved initial idea was that of a wedding planner but for
ones. For many of us our funeral is the last thing funerals but that idea was too ahead of it’s time in
we would want to consider planning for but Ireland – they are only just accepting it in the States
talking to Jennifer it starts to make sense. where it is widely considered they are ten years ahead
SO HOW DID JENNIFER BECOME KNOWN AS “THE of us in the industry. So I had to go back to the drawing
GLAM REAPER”? board. I had all this information, I had done so much
With over 10 years experience in a variety of roles that research and was knowledgeable in a way the public
incorporated event management Jennifer launched were not. If I couldn’t help people and save people
Roxypop Events, a wedding and party planning business, money or show them how the industry works through a
in 2010. planning service then maybe I could take the
information from my brain and put it into words. Luckily
for me a publisher believed in this idea too! Say
“I didn’t grow up surrounded by death. I haven’t suffered Farewell, Your Way, a funeral planning guide for Ireland,
a dark childhood nor lost too many loved ones. But I was launched on my 31st birthday in June 2013.
have lost a few people close to me. They included both
young and old and, for me, that was a wake-up cal. I
suddenly understood that death wasn’t an ‘old people’s
disease’. I started thinking differently about death. It was
dealing with this, my loss/grief and the fact that logisti-
cally weddings and funerals are similar that this ‘brain-
wave’ was how Farewell came to be.”
Sometimes it can be hard for people to understand how
similar weddings and funerals are but if we really get
down to brass tax on the logistics - the only difference is
the focal point - a body or a couple. That can be hard to
swallow but it is a fact.
While people can spend tens of thousands of euros on
planning a wedding, a funeral has to be turned around
in a matter of days, typically with no budget whatsoever
allocated for it.
“I decided to leave the pretty and often narcissistic life “For some moments in life there are no words.”
of weddings behind and put my energies into funerals
-David Seltzer, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
www.activeirl.ie Active Retirement Ireland 229
