Let Someone Else Carry It — Celebration of Life Planning in Sacramento, CA
We plan celebrations of life, memorial receptions and remembrance gatherings so that your family can be present at them. Often within seventy-two hours, and always at whatever pace you need.
You Should Not Have to Be the Organiser This Week
Foxglove was founded in 2014 by a former hospice social worker and a caterer who had spent years watching bereaved families run their own receptions badly, because nobody had offered to do it for them.
The work is mostly logistics — a venue, food, chairs, parking, a sound system that works, someone at the door. But the reason families come back is the part before that: one unhurried conversation about who the person was, from which everything else follows.
We have helped six hundred and forty families. We can be ready in seventy-two hours when we need to be, and we can also take four months if the gathering is a year from now.
- ✓Founded by a hospice social worker and a caterer
- ✓640 families across the Sacramento region since 2014
- ✓Ready in 72 hours when the timing demands it
- ✓Someone answers the phone outside office hours
Everything That Is Not Grieving
You make the decisions that matter. We do the rest.
The venue and the room
Found, booked and set — with seating for everyone who will need to sit, step-free access, and somewhere quiet to withdraw to.
Food and drink
Catering arranged around what the family can actually manage, with dietary needs handled quietly and enough for the people who arrive unannounced.
The order of the day
Who speaks and when, how long, what happens if someone cannot get through it, and how the room moves from the formal part to the informal one.
Photographs and music
Gathered from the family, sequenced and tested. We will chase the cousin who has the good pictures so you do not have to.
Someone at the door
Greeting, directing, holding coats, and quietly managing the guest nobody expected. It is a small thing that changes the whole afternoon.
The practical aftermath
Flowers rehomed, hire items returned, leftover food packed for the family, and the venue cleared. Nobody in your family stays late.
How We Help
Whatever shape the gathering needs to take.
If you are not sure what you need, that is completely normal. Call us and we will work it out together — there is no charge for that conversation.
Twelve Years of Quiet Days
Photographed with permission, and never a family who did not want to be here.
Four Questions We Ask, and Nothing Else Until You're Ready
Who were they, to you?
Not a biography. One or two things that were true about them — the joke, the habit, the thing they would have found ridiculous about all this.
Who is coming, and who is difficult?
Families are complicated and grief does not simplify them. Told once, quietly, we can seat and manage the room so nobody has to raise it on the day.
What can you actually manage?
Some families want to speak; some cannot. Some want a formal order; some want people to simply be in a room together. Both are right.
What would they have hated?
Surprisingly the most useful question we ask. It rules out more than the first three combined and families are often relieved to be asked it.
We Can Be Ready in Seventy-Two Hours
Sometimes there is no notice. A death is sudden, or family are flying in and can only be here for a few days, and a gathering has to happen this week.
We keep capacity for exactly that. Venues we can call directly, caterers who will take a Thursday booking for a Saturday, and a plan we can execute from one phone conversation rather than four meetings.
If you are in that position now, call rather than fill in the form. Someone answers outside office hours, and we would rather talk to you today.
- ✓Venues and caterers we can secure at short notice
- ✓One phone conversation, not a series of meetings
- ✓Someone answers outside office hours, including weekends
- ✓No premium charged for urgency
Three Steps, and We Lead Two of Them
There is no charge until you ask us to begin.
One conversation
Twenty minutes on the phone or at your kitchen table, whichever you prefer. Four questions and no paperwork.
We propose the day
Venue, timing, food, the order of the day and a fixed price — as one plan, not a list of decisions for you to make.
We run it
We arrive early, hold the room, and stay to clear it. Your family are guests, which is the entire point.
What Families Tell Us Afterwards
My father died on a Tuesday and the service was that Saturday. I could not have organised a lunch, let alone a hundred and forty people. Foxglove took all of it and asked me exactly four questions. Everything else they simply handled.
What I did not expect was how much they got out of one conversation about who he was. The music, the photographs, the fact that they served the terrible instant coffee he loved as a joke. People kept saying it felt exactly like him.
Our family is split between two faiths and there was a lot of quiet tension about how it should be done. They navigated it without ever making us say the difficult part out loud, and both sides felt the day belonged to them.
Call, or Write When You're Ready
There is no charge for the first conversation and no obligation after it. If the timing is urgent, please call rather than write — someone answers outside office hours.
Things Families Ask Us
How quickly can you arrange something?
Seventy-two hours when it has to be, and we keep capacity for exactly that. If you're in that position now, please call rather than fill in the form — someone answers outside office hours, including weekends.
We don't know what we want yet.
That is the normal starting point, and it's fine. Most families come to us with nothing decided. One unhurried conversation — four questions, no paperwork — is usually enough for us to propose something, and you can change any of it.
What does it cost?
Guest count and catering drive it more than anything else, and we'll give you a fixed price rather than an estimate that moves. We don't charge a premium for short notice, and there's no charge at all for the first conversation.
Our family is divided about how it should be done.
That's common and we're used to it — differing faiths, estranged relatives, disagreement about how formal it should be. Tell us once, quietly, and we'll shape the day and the seating so nobody has to raise it in front of everyone.
Can you work with our funeral director?
Yes, and we often do. They handle the service and the arrangements; we handle the gathering afterwards. We'll speak to them directly so you're not relaying between two sets of people.
Is it strange to plan something while the person is still alive?
Not at all — we call those living tributes and they're some of the most valuable days we plan. Being able to hear what people would have said is a rare thing, and families are almost always glad they did it.
Write to Us, or Call
There is no charge for the first conversation. If the timing is urgent, please call — someone answers outside office hours.
- Visit us1215 Twenty-First Street, Sacramento, CA 95811
- Call us(916) 555-0193
- Email ushello@foxglovememorial.com