Welcome to your guide

This guide will help you easily create a unique and beautiful virtual memorial service, without the need to hire someone else.

It is based on research and conversations with others who have lost friends and family members during the COVID-19 pandemic and have been forced to create virtual memorials with little support.

By using this guide, you will leave with:

• A comprehensive, personalized memorial service program befitting of your loved one.

• The confidence to set up and run the technical aspects of the virtual service yourself, with a focus on how to design a service through Zoom.

• A personalized set of well-designed slides, to serve as the visual foundation for your service. Virtual services obviously make use of a screen--and even if you aren't a professional designer, you will need to take into account how to use the screen to honor your loved one in a special way. We'll make this easy for you with our customizable slide templates.

This guide is loosely patterned after common forms of memorials and not intended to represent any particular religious or spiritual tradition, although it can be readily adapted to any faith. It can also be adapted for traditional funeral formats or ceremonies that involve the presence of a physical body or ashes. You may wish to share this guide with any religious figures who are assisting you in this process. Before you begin going through this guide, we suggest you find a comfortable place to sit, and maybe have a notebook for taking notes. You can go through it all at once (which may take an hour or more), or you can go through it in shorter pieces using the navigation on the left.

Navigating this guide

You'll find links at the bottom of each page to take you to the next or previous step in the guide.

If you're viewing this on a small screen such as a phone or tablet, tapping the three horizontal lines on the top left (next to "Virtual Memorial Guide") will show a list of sections and pages. Try it now.

The Virtual Memorial Guide & Template was produced as a volunteer effort by Quaranteam and Reimagine End of Life. If you found this guide useful, we invite you to help improve this guide.