Karen Dempsey

And this couple knows, they know what's ahead.

And they know that they are still here, hand in hand, pledging their love and commitment to one another in marriage.

Yes, there is a profound joy and relief in getting the couple to this part that they want.

And there is a joy in them completing this cycle of the relationship together, because that means that the spouse who is left behind can call the other person their husband, wife, spouse.

And socially, we cannot underestimate the power of that in the social contract and in legacy and in how they go on to speak about their person from there on.

Because people really understand the profound loss of a partner.

But even how it's recognized when there's a marriage is very different.

So that's really, really important.

Yeah, in other types of ceremonies, I will always make space for the voices of the people at the centre of the ceremony and their people.

So if it's a funeral, if there's going to be a eulogy and poems read, again, if we're on a tight schedule, I will always make sure that those voices have most of the space.

And then I'm setting the intention, welcoming people, grounding them in, create space for all those voices and then having a solid close, a solid beginning and a solid ending are really important in ceremony.

because otherwise people are ungrounded.

So that's the space that I take in an end of life wedding.

I mean, you could have the risk of feeling like there should be some profound words shared or some poems or all of that is beautiful, but actually irrelevant, really.

The profound piece is the couple marrying one another and they marry one another.

I don't marry them.

I think that's really important for them even to feel empowered to.

and the other thing is very often one spouse the one who's dying very often doesn't have a lot of breath we have to remember that you know we can't ask them to pledge a big vow or to say big words very often i do is as much as they can say so i want to take as little space even when you're like the room is so small and if a person is struggling to breathe

You can't even take up space in the room, air in the room.

It's as literal as that.