Planning Meaningful Farewells: A Conversation with Jennifer Muldowney

Jennifer Muldowney shares her fascinating journey from party planner in Ireland to funeral celebrant and author dividing her time between New York and Florida. Her innovative approach bridges celebration and mourning, helping families create meaningful memorials while acknowledging grief.

Jennifer Muldowney

• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheGlamReaperMuldowney
• Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/muldowneymemorials
• Email: glamreaperpodcast@gmail.com
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifermuldowney/

• Born and raised in Ireland before moving to Washington DC then returning home to establish her funeral planning business
• Faced challenges as a young woman entering the traditionally male-dominated funeral industry
• Balances celebration of life with necessary acknowledgment of grief in her memorial services
• Works collaboratively with funeral directors rather than competing with them
• Expanded from New York to Florida to serve clients with connections to both locations
• Published her first book in just two months, writing between 10pm and 4am
• Delivered a TEDx talk about her unique perspective on grief and memorials
• Primarily grows her business through word-of-mouth referrals after clients witness her approach
• Creates ceremonies ranging from intimate 14-person gatherings to events with 700 attendees
• Emphasizes that everyone grieves differently: "Twins don't grieve the same"

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Transcript

Voiceover 0:03

Tales from the Wild. Stories from the Heart. A journey into the mind and soul of Biden business professionals where they share their vision for the future. And hear from a different nonprofit organization every month as they create awareness of their goals and their needs. Dive into a world of untamed passion. As we join our host, Shireen Botha, for this month's episode of Friends from Wild Places.

TanyaScotece 0:34

Yeah, what an exciting, exciting journey, though. I mean, just from all the um, you know, the publicity, the, you know, author, published author, um, and just the you know how you kind of evolved within within the funeral space. So yeah, uh, I think I think it's a you know a great, great, um, as you said, like, you know, for for what you do for the media, the podcast, it's a very fitting name. I think it's great. And then you have the other side as you're sharing with families that you're sitting with and doing more of the celebrant services. I think it kind of ties, you know, very nicely. So so can you just share a little bit, um, Jennifer? I know you said, you know, born and raised in Ireland and now spending time uh between Florida and New York. Why Florida and why New York?

Jennifer's Journey to Funeral Planning

JenniferMuldowney 1:17

Great question. Well, originally over 20 years ago, I lived in Washington, DC. So I did what I hadn't done the J1 visa. Usually when you go to college in Ireland, most college students will do a J1 visa a summer in the US and I never did. I went to Germany instead, and I did sort of Europe. So when I got my first job out of college, um, which was a great job, but I still had that itch to sort of go to the US. And we went on a trip to New York with my family, and I just fell in love. So the second I got home, I started applying for jobs, and I ended up in Washington, DC. Not New York, Washington, DC, and I stayed there for two years. I had great friends, still have great friends from all over the world, um, that you know, in classic kind of I feel like DC and New York, they're such metropolitan areas, they're such melting pots that you meet friends and then they kind of go back to their respective areas all over the world, and you know, you stay friends. Um, but I was there for two years. I moved back home to Ireland, which is 10 years later, was the was a good decision and in some ways a difficult decision because everyone I had moved from Ireland to the US with, we were all on a visa, but they all went on to get their green cards, uh, contentious to pay right now. And I didn't. I moved back home because I was working in a in a restaurant in a um just an environment that I felt like this could lead to not great future, and I really, really am very ambitious, and so I felt like no, it's time to go back home, which I did, but I lost the opportunity to then progress onto the green card status. So fast forward, you know, 10 years later, when I'm now you know trying to get back into the US, um, it was a little bit of more of a difficult journey. Um, but uh when I moved back home, I went straight back into college. I did a diploma in public relations, uh, I did digital communications. I think I did about four diplomas at the same time while holding a job, um, and then I went on to set up my own party planning business. And it was in that those couple of years then that the two friends of mine passed away. My grandmother had passed away while I lived in DC as well. So just there was we had to put our dog down, there was just a lot of things happening. So it was a very interesting time because I was back sort of re-educating myself, setting up this business, dealing with sort of mortality in a way that when you're in your 20s, you're kind of not typically used to, I guess. And it was all of that that just inspired me to start farewell funeral planners, it was actually called back then. And when I started that business, I knew because I still had my ties in the US, and some of my friends had gone from DC to New York, so it just made sense to sort of come over, visit New York, and I started going to the funeral conventions over here, the ones the NFDA, Tanya knows the NFDA, the ICC of A, all these national funeral conventions. We don't have those in Ireland, and we just about have them in Europe. I mean, um, definitely again in the past 20 years, things have developed so much in that space, but the US was definitely leading in terms of conventions. So I would come over here and I would just see all these amazing innovations and just started making these relationships with people that just weren't available to me in Ireland. Love Ireland, but it is so small, everyone knows everyone, and you know, starting the business there, I was I was female, I was young, it was I wasn't born into it, it was very strange. I remember the two big funeral um families in Ireland sort of brought me in, quizzed me, and sort of set me on my way effectively. Um, and it was just it was all it was a very eye-opening experience. It's a very, I think worldwide, but definitely in the US and Ireland, I know for sure in Europe, uh, it's a very white male-dominated space. Um, so that was hard as well, you know, being different and and having a different opinion as well. You you know, you have to remember I was trying to come in being an event planner, a wedding planner, but for funerals. So funeral directors were like, Who is this? What is this about? Um, so it was, yeah. So I basically started coming over and back to the to New York and um and traveling to the different conventions, but New York just felt like home. It's just the hustle, the bustle, the you know, the the work hard, play hard. I loved it. For the time that I was in in my life, I absolutely adored it. So gradually I eventually moved over. I've been over and back for 10 years now. I'm always very much at home. I go home like four or five times a year, so I'm very attached to home as well. But um, last year, well, it actually started in 2023, I think, that I started investigating the Florida um option. And so I'm living in New York, and all of my clients are predominantly New York, some are European, and so I'm still traveling a lot to all the conventions, but I did notice that a lot of my clients had ties to Florida, they either had lived in New York all their life and then retired in Florida and therefore passed away, and they might want a service in Florida and New York or vice versa. And I noticed actually as well in the event space, so funeral space over here, event space here, in the event space, a lot of like my vendors, like the printers and the the florists and stuff, they also had um offices both in New York and Florida. So there just seemed to be this tie between the two that just made sense, honestly. And I guess I'll be completely honest, and coming from Ireland, a little you know ghost-looking thing from Ireland, I also was attracted to the sunshine, I'm not gonna lie. Um, New York I love the winters, can be harsh, um, harsh AF, um, as the kids would say, and um, so I just I really enjoyed um any visit I took to Florida, and you know, then not to be sort of crass or or whatever, I hate saying it, but it is the retirement capital of the world. And I guess if you're in the funeral business, there's no better place to be. Um, so yeah, so we're I just moved there uh down here at Christmas. I'm still between Florida and New York very much though, um, which is probably why I'm just so exhausted and going trying to split myself between the two. But I feel like that's part of entrepreneurship and you know, trying to expand, you know. So yeah, that was a very long-winded answer. Sorry.

TanyaScotece 7:39

Fascinating though, fascinating about how you know I'm always curious about when people come to the US, how they pick, or does the places pick them? So thank you for sharing that, Jennifer.

JenniferMuldowney 7:48

Um I think I I definitely think it's a case of uh for me, it it kind of picked me. It it just sort of I followed my nose, you know. It definitely I didn't make an active choice, like I want to live in the United States, and that's all I've ever wanted. It was just sort of a breadcrumb effect, I think. Yeah.

ShireenBotha 8:07

I love that. Um, yeah, I wanted to ask you. So then do you deal with the funeral director directly? Then then so it's the client, you as a middleman, and then you deal with the the funeral director, kind of, or how does it it's it honestly it can be different in every situation.

Working with Funeral Directors

JenniferMuldowney 8:28

So I just if there is any funeral directors out there listening, I am not your competition in no way, shape, or form. Um, and it's it it works both ways. So it's rare a family will contact me um when somebody immediately passes away, right? It is rare, and but it does happen, and so there then sometimes I will recommend a funeral director I know um or I'll handhold them through that process. Um, so but that is rare, um, which can be troubling, a little bit troubling for me in terms of um business, new business, right? Um, because it's sort of like who do I target in terms of trying to build a business, which sounds awful being in the funeral space at all and even using the word target, but I'm somebody who I don't shy away from it is what it is, and it is a business. And you know, I know people in the business don't like using the word funeral industry, and fine, but I just why are we shying away from it? You still have lights to turn on, you are still a service provider. Like, I wish we wouldn't be so like, oh, well, we can't say this and we must say this because we don't want to hurt people's feelings. Um, because at the end of the day, I just feel like honesty is better, but that's just who I am. Um, so what I do is um usually a funeral home will either bring me in or the family will bring me in in addition. Um, so the funeral director still does all the funeral director stuff, which can be um everything from body disposition, and then maybe they bring me in for the service, or the family with the funeral director will do body disposition and a service, a visitation in the funeral home, and do do a certain amount of stuff, and then the family maybe a month, a year later, even they will have a larger memorial. Um, I do services, everything from like we we just recently this past weekend did one with 14 people in the room, and this coming weekend we're gonna have up to 700 people in a room. So it's mine is mine is massively different. A funeral director, again, typically um is their bandwidth is usually only their funeral home or like the local church, right? Because they don't have time to be sort of wandering off with a family, you know, looking at 10 different venues, you know, in Manhattan, say, for example, that maybe maybe it's not even in Manhattan, maybe it goes all the way out to Queens. Like um, I really do talk to families about all different types of things, and I just um I guess we have the bandwidth because we're just doing that, um, we have more of a bandwidth to sit with families and to sort of serve them 24-7 because that's what we're paid to do. We're not um dealing with sort of 20 families at the same time. Like a funeral home can kind of have to sometimes. Um, and I've worked with you know incredible funeral directors. There, yes, there are cowboys out there, and you know, I want to hit that nail on the head. There isn't every business, um, and I feel like the funeral space gets um double down on, especially in the media, in terms of if they're always giving out to you about price or about like that one case, like the HBO's mortician. I'm sure you guys have divulged you know gone into that, but it it's it there's always the one bad case, and it makes massive news, and that is like one percent of the business, it really is, and one percent of the people that's in it. Like most funeral directors and funeral homes are fabulous people that are really selfless and doing this out of the you know, out of love. It's not it's actually not a moneymaker. A lot of you people will assume that it is, it really, really is and it is terrible hours, it's you know, you're it's sad all the time, you know, even when you're celebrating life, um, which I actually want to come back to in a minute because that is something that um is I'm pigeonholed a little bit in. Um, but yeah, I work with funeral directors. Um, so sometimes the funeral home will call me and sometimes the family calls me. And whichever one it does, I just I blend in seamlessly. I always say to the funeral home, we are working together as a team. Because here's the thing: if if we do well together, that family will give nothing but praise to both me and my company and the funeral home and their and theirs. Um, you know, we're not against each other, and pitting ourselves against each other is just gonna end up with nobody being happy. Um, and I've witnessed that too as well. Um, because it is it is a tough business, and there are people out there who are scared of competition and sort of or you know, think they're a little maybe old school in their opinions and think, oh, such and such is trying to take over the business or you know, change it and stuff. Um, and so just to come back to what I mentioned about the life celebration, um, I only spoke to somebody, I don't know if it was a podcast or an interview or something the other day, anyway, where they they said, you know, oh, I'm a life celebration planner. And I said, I am, but I said that term has been touted around a little bit, it's become a bit of a trend, it's almost like the death doula where it's where it's becoming a little confused, I think. So a life, I absolutely do. Do I celebrate people's lives? Yes, I do. And when people come to me, we celebrate. I it was actually the opening line, I think, of my first book, where I'm like, please celebrate the 30 years. If I die tomorrow, please celebrate the 30 years that I've been on this planet and not the 60 that I haven't. But what is so important to remember, and if if there's anybody out there listening who wants to get into this profession and into this line of work that I do, it's such a fine line between celebrating a life and having a party and mourning that loss. It's so important to acknowledge the empty seat that's now at the bar, at the kitchen table, at the boardroom, wherever it is. You cannot just, and actually, if if a client comes to me and says, We just want to party, and they won't actually listen to me, um, I'll nearly won't take them on because it's so important to me that we acknowledge the grief. And it might not be like the person planning it, maybe they're not grieving, maybe they've already sort of they're at peace with it. But no matter who you're inviting, even if it's just 14 people, there are people in there that need that grieve, we all grieve differently. Like, literally, that's what my TEDx talk is about. We are so different. I don't know why it's assumed that in the worst times of our lives we would all follow this, you know, stereotypical like framework of okay, now we go into this stage and we go into this stage. We're so different. Like, some people come to me and they're so angry, some people are so happy. Um, but like their their sibling could be devastatingly sad. It's we're just all so different. Twins don't grieve the same, so yeah, I don't know why we would ever try and box it. So the life celebration thing, I love it because it's opening people's minds a little bit more, but I am really cognizant of saying that you know, we need to also this is about repair and healing and just you know allowing people to come together in community because that's really what a funeral is all about, you know.

TanyaScotece 15:19

So interesting, interesting. Um I Jennifer, do you your clients? You said I know you you have your own way of reaching the in, you know, families, right? Like the family. And then you also said that you like to connect with funeral homes, aka funeral directors. So, how do you target or market your families direct?

Marketing Challenges in Death Services

JenniferMuldowney 15:44

Well, that is something that I'm still struggling with after 16 years with a degree in marketing and diplomas in public relations and digital communications. Honestly, I mean, I as my mum used to joke, she's like, if you ever if you went to go for work for Google, you'd be CEO or CMO at this point. I'm like, probably, but I chose a quite difficult space. Um, and I used to help other funeral homes actually in in marketing over the last uh decade or two as well. But it's it's very difficult. Honestly, being completely honest, the majority of my business comes from referrals from families I've already worked with or funeral homes. Um, so word of mouth um is absolutely key to me, and thank God Touchwood, I have nothing but five-star reviews. Um and it's for me, like I notice a lot with the funeral homes. You can send a hundred emails, newsletters, you know, mail things, things like that. Um I've tried all of them, you know, I haven't sent hundreds, but I've tried all of them in different um degrees, and it's actually they need to witness you. They need to witness you to buy in. That's what I have noticed has worked for me. So, what I have tried to do in New York, I haven't yet done it in Florida. Um, I still consider myself quite new down here, but in fl in New York, what I've done is um I tried to have services or like offered my services free of charge or held like a celebration of something. So I held a 15-year celebration of my business and invited people to come, and therefore they could see me speaking, they could see a celebrant, I have celebrants say poems and things like that, so they can kind of witness what it can look like because sometimes that helps, and that was a huge success. People walked away and they were like, Jen, I never knew a funeral could be like that. That was crazy. So, yeah, for me, it's that's the tricky part. Um, you know, going to assisted living and retirement facilities and having I do workshops, um, so this is where I do bring in the glam reaper and I have workshops and we do bucket list, you know, getting people prepared bucket list wise. And I do have a free pre-plan on my website that I let people download for free. And you know, if they have any questions, I do my podcast, I'm on socials, um, you know, and I try to be just engaging and not your stereotypical, like I, you know, I make a joke that I think a lot of the public thinks we're all like um, what's his name? Lurched from the Adams family, but we're not, you know, we're really not like like I show the fun and festivities at conventions on my socials, and you know, just really try and show people that we are actually human beings, you know, who just happen to do this work. Um, so yeah, but I haven't yet hit the nail on the head, as one would say, um, in terms of of how the best way to market to families or funeral directors is. Um, for me, it's really just once they witness it, and that seems to be the key. Yeah.

ShireenBotha 18:37

No, that's good. I mean, I love it.

JenniferMuldowney 18:39

All suggestions, welcome, ladies.

ShireenBotha 18:41

Definitely, definitely. Um, Jennifer, I think I want to ask you a little bit more about the books that you've written, but before we do, um, I do want to just pop in here with a little bit of a Buzz Sprout blurb. Uh, listeners, you know that we use BuzzSprout when it comes to our podcast. It's really a very innovative um platform to use. Um, it makes things very easy uh when it comes to starting your own podcast. You can join over a hundred thousand podcasts already using BuzzSprouts to get your message out to the world. Uh, when we started the podcast, I didn't actually know anything about how to do it, and I felt quite overwhelmed. So with BuzzSprout, they made it super easy and straightforward. Uh, you can just upload it once and it gets uploaded to every single hot streaming channel there is from iTunes to Deezer to iSpotify to all of it. Uh, so it really does make it uh very easy. So if you do want to get your own message out to the world and start your own podcast, then please go ahead and go into the show notes and you'll find a link there. Um you can get a $20 Amazon card if you follow this link and this lets Buzz Sprout know that we sent you and it does support the show. So Buzz Sprout, let's create something great together. We'd love to see you there. All right, Jennifer, your book. As an author, uh, every author normally has that one book that impacted their life the most. What book would you say has done that for you personally and why?

From Non-Writer to Published Author

JenniferMuldowney 20:35

Ooh, um they're all they're all they're all little babies to me. Um, you know, they're all uh I'm all I'm only on book four right now. I say only. I mean I uh you know if if you'd have said, yeah, if you'd have said I said that term 20 years ago, I would have been like laughed because I I will have to say my first book. I will have to say my first book. Um is the most um yeah, it it was just mind-boggling to me. I'll never forget it. I wrote it in two months, um, and I was at home in Ireland and I would write it from about 10 o'clock at night to four in the morning. Um, I'm a total night owl, and it's where I do my best work, although that's kind of changing now. I don't know if that's my 40s or what's happening there. I'm like, what's going on here? So I'm a bit all over the place. I'm a bit of a morning person and a night owl, so I don't know what's going on. But I wrote it from 10 to 4 in the morning over two months with the a trip to New York, so back to the like this is coming full circle, back to the original question um at the start of the show. I I had a trip to New York planned, and that was my incentive. So I had to get this book, all the content written by the time I was getting on that flight to New York, so I could send it to my editor. And I am very good with like goal-oriented things, which is probably why I'm so kind of good at what I do. Because with a memorial, with a funeral, you know, there's there's a date, and everything is aimed towards that, and then once that's happened, you can kind of and everything's done. So I yeah, I still laugh at oh my gosh, because I never thought I was a writer, ever, ever, ever. It never crossed my mind. I'm always been kind of arty, I've always been somebody who spoke. I did public speaking, you know, in school growing up. I was never necessarily a writer. I even I think, yeah, in English, um, I don't know how you guys grade over here, but in in English, like I would only ever get a C. I remember the one time I got an A, um, and this is actually even an interesting story. Well, I think it's an interesting story. My uh I was always a C student, and then this one time Um the our English teacher asked us to write a uh story about a place we loved, and I'll never forget I wrote it about Blessing to Lakes, which is this beautiful place in Wicklow in Ireland, uh, which is actually where in later years I always said I wanted my ashes to be scattered, so it all kind of ties in, it's funny. But anyway, I wrote this essay and he finally gave me an A. Now to go from a C to an A was like, oh my god, this is amazing. And so I'll always remember that essay, and it's it I I'll come back to that why that's so important now, I guess. Is so then I start this business, farewell funeral planners, and I'm a funeral planner in Ireland. Nobody knows what the hell it is. Everyone's like, if you're not a funeral director, what are you? We don't get it, you know. Business was not booming. Let me just say, you know, I was doing my my best. I set up a website, I made resources for people to just help people. That's all I really wanted to do was help people who felt helpless. In in Ireland, like when somebody dies, they can be in the ground or cremated within three or four days. Like it's super fast. So I then had this idea, okay, maybe a website is is good, but maybe it needs to be in a book. So I contacted um a local sort of business, um, you know, one of these sort of council business companies that help for free, and they put me in touch with a uh publisher because I wanted to find out about a book. And I remember sitting down and saying, like, like, how do I do this? Do I get a ghostwriter? Like, how do I get the information from my brain into somebody's, you know, else's brain to like put on paper? I remember this is how basic I was thinking, and we chatted for a couple of hours, and eventually he said, I want to publish your book. He said, and he technically, because he was actually a free mentor, he was not supposed to do that. And he said, I'm letting a secret out now, but he was like, I'm not supposed to do this, I'm not supposed to offer to work with people, but he said, I really want to publish your book. I am not even joking, you I fell off the seat. I was in such shock. I fell off the seat. I was like, wait, what? I'm not a writer, I don't get this. So there that was how the book sort of came out. Say farewell your way. It is it was not like a New York Times bestseller or anything like that, because I picked the niche or the nichest, as you guys would say, niche market. Like I picked, you know, it was if the how to plan your own funeral in the smallest country nearly in the world, like you know, but listen, you've got to start somewhere. So and I'm so proud of it, so so so proud of it. And it just started everything for me, and um you know, it it really it's I still have copies of it, it still sells, um it's still valid to this day, you know, except for a pricing and obviously has changed, you know, a lot since. But I had like the book launch on my 31st birthday. I mean, it was incredible, and it led to my TEDx talk, which you know, uh back to the story of talking to the English professor, the English teacher who gave me the A, when it comes, I don't know if anybody has done a TEDx talk or uh I'm not sure about the TED talks, but for a TEDx talk, when you're brought in to you're gonna be speaking, you know, they give you coaches who's gonna who are coach you on what exactly you're going to speak on. And so I show up and I'm ready to like rock everyone's worlds about funeral planning, and I you know, write my speech and I'm doing some coaching lessons with the coach, and he's just like, No, Jen, like this isn't hitting. And I felt like back to it was almost like the C's for my English teacher all over again. And eventually he's picking away, he's picking away, doing what good coaches do, and eventually we and I this is a spoiler alert, I guess, but eventually we get to talking about my dog that we'd put down, and that was where he was like, That's it, that is the story you need to tell. And exactly like what happened in in English, I went from a C to an A, and it was it's only a five-minute talk, but for me, it's still so so so relevant, and like I re I talk about it all the time because the the point of it um and everything I'm trying to get across is still so valid and so important to me today. But yeah, it's amazing how things just come full circle. But yeah, my first book has to be the it was the catalyst.

ShireenBotha 27:00

Oh my gosh.

JenniferMuldowney 27:00

And I'm not a writer, I still don't think I am.

ShireenBotha 27:02

Tune in next week for part three of Friends from Wild Places.

Voiceover 27:08

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