Need Help Writing an Obituary? A Celebrant's Guide to Honoring a Life in Print

How to write an obituary that sounds like the person, not a form.

The cursor blinks. The funeral home needs something by tomorrow morning, the family group text keeps pinging, and you're the one who said you would write it. Now you're staring at a blank screen, trying to sum up an entire person in a few hundred words, on no sleep, in the worst week of your life.

If that's where you are right now, take a breath. Writing an obituary is hard for almost everyone, and it's harder when you're grieving. Here's a celebrant's guide to writing an obituary that honors a life in print, whether you write it yourself or ask someone to help.

What an Obituary Is Really For

An obituary does a few practical jobs at once. It announces a death, shares the service details, and names the people left behind.

But its real work is quieter. A good obituary is the first place a community gets to pause and say, this person was here, and they mattered.

That's why a list of dates and survivors, while perfectly correct, can still feel hollow. The facts are true, but the facts aren't the person.

Start With the Facts, Then Find the Person

It helps to gather the basics first, so the blank page stops feeling so blank. Most obituaries include the full name (and any nickname), the age, the city where they lived, the date of death, and where they were born.

From there, families usually add education, work, military service, marriages, children, grandchildren, a faith community, and the groups or causes that mattered.

Write all of that down plainly. You can shape it later. Getting the scaffolding in place is often the hardest part to start, and the easiest to finish.

The Details That Bring Someone Back

Here's the part most people skip, and the part that matters most. The facts tell us what someone did. The details tell us who they were.

She loved her family is true of almost everyone, so it tells us almost nothing. The chipped coffee mug she refused to replace, the way she answered the phone, the booth she always asked for at the diner, those bring her back into the room.

So once you've got the facts, ask a few questions. What did they always say? What couldn't they stand? What were they doing on an ordinary Saturday? What would their oldest friends laugh at, knowing it was true? One or two specific, honest details will do more than a whole paragraph of praise.

Writing About a Complicated Life

Not every life fits neatly into a few hundred admiring words, and you don't have to pretend otherwise.

People are estranged. People struggle. People are loved and difficult at the same time. An obituary doesn't have to confess everything, but it also doesn't have to lie.

You get to choose what to include and what to keep private, and you can write honestly about who someone was without flattening them into a saint. When in doubt, choose the words you could read aloud to the people who knew them best.

A Few Practical Notes

Length and cost vary by where the obituary runs. Many newspapers charge by the line or the column inch, while funeral home websites and online memorial pages are often free and allow more room. Confirm the current rates with the specific outlet, since those change.

Choose a photo that looks like them, not only their most formal portrait. The candid one, caught mid-laugh, is often the one people actually recognize.

Read the whole thing out loud before you submit it. Your ear will catch what your eye misses, and spoken rhythm is closer to how people really remember one another.

Where an Obituary Can Live

You have more than one option for where an obituary appears, and you can use several at once.

The funeral home's own website is usually the simplest. Most include the obituary and an online guest book at no extra cost, and it's the version friends are most likely to find first.

A newspaper, in print or online, is the traditional route. Print notices are typically charged by the line or the column inch, and many papers post the online version through Legacy.com, a long-running service that partners with newspapers nationwide.

Dedicated online memorial pages let a family build and control their own tribute, with photos, stories, and a place for others to leave memories. Well-established options include Ever Loved, ForeverMissed, and Keeper, and they range from free to a one-time fee. They're a good fit when you want something lasting and personal that isn't tied to a newspaper's format.

Many families also announce a death and gather memories on social media, often by memorializing the person's Facebook profile, alongside a more formal obituary somewhere else.

One gentle word of caution. If you search your loved one's name, you may find their obituary already reposted on a site you've never heard of, sometimes with details changed and surrounded by ads for flowers and candles. These third-party sites copy notices without the family's permission; the most cited example is Echovita. You don't have to engage with them. The obituary you publish through the funeral home, a newspaper, or a memorial page you control is the one that counts.

How I Help Families With Obituaries

Sometimes a family knows exactly what they want to say and just needs a second set of eyes. Sometimes no one can face the blank page at all. Both are completely normal, and I help with both.

As a celebrant in Mt. Pleasant, I write and edit obituaries as part of my work with Central Michigan families, often alongside the eulogy and the ceremony itself. We talk, you tell me stories, and I shape them into words that sound like the person you're honoring.

You should never feel like you're handing your loved one's story to a stranger working from a template. The story stays yours. I just help you get it onto the page.

Ready to Talk?

If you're facing this right now and the words won't come, you don't have to do it alone. I'd be glad to have a no-pressure conversation about the person you're honoring and how I can help.

Schedule a conversation: celebrantmichelle.com/contact →

Michelle Sponseller is a Certified Master Celebrant and Certified Funeral Celebrant based in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan, serving families and funeral homes across Central Michigan. She specializes in personalized end-of-life ceremonies, religious, secular, and everything in between, and also officiates weddings and other life-milestone services. She serves as the End-of-Life Instructor at the Celebrant Academy.