Still largely based on Victorian mourning culture, with all its staidness and uptight etiquette, funerals are tense affairs. Which means there’s plenty of opportunity for awkward moments.
Here, counting down to the most cringeworthy of all, are ten of the very best we could find.
10. Bad Jokes
Jokes can be risky at a funeral. Obviously, there’s a lot of tension to break through, for which people might be glad for some humor, but there’s also a reluctance to laugh. In other words, a zinger can be met with awkward silence.
Sometimes, though, the deceased pranks the mourners, turning the whole respectful solemnity thing on its head. In Ireland, as Kilkenny man Shay Bradley’s coffin was being lowered into the ground, friends and family heard his voice from inside, screaming: “Let me out, it’s f***ing dark in here!” He went on to ask, “Where the f*** am I? Is that a priest I can hear?” before saying, “This is Shay, I’m in the box.” The assembled crowd was shocked, especially, apparently, Shay’s sister. But they soon realized they were hearing a recording.
He finished with a bit of singing: “Hello again, hello, hello, hello, I just called to say goodbye.”
9. Irreverent Music
Whether chosen by the deceased or their grieving loved ones, funeral songs are emotionally important. They stay with the bereaved and, in somber moods, will often be played to remember them. So when “Stayin’ Alive” by the Bee Gees was accidentally played at an old woman’s funeral instead of the Chopin requested, everyone present was appalled. Her brother actually fainted mid-speech.
The guy in charge of the music, a med school student, had apparently arrived late from a first aid course where he’d been teaching kids how to give CPR. He’d been using the rhythm of the Bee Gees song to help them pace chest compressions. And when he’d left in a hurry, he unplugged his phone from the speaker without stopping the song, then when he got to the church late, he simply plugged it into their speaker and the song resumed playing—at full volume, no less, and in the middle of a speech. Worse still, because he was in shock, he was slow to react. In the end, the Bee Gees managed to belt out a whole two lines of chorus before they were finally stopped.
The same song made an appearance at another funeral as a ringtone, but this time, mourners saw the funny side. In fact, people often choose funeral songs for a laugh. One of the most popular, according to a survey of British undertakers, is “Another One Bites the Dust” by Queen. One woman even paid a flash mob to dance to it at her funeral.
8. Laughing
Nietzsche said we should all laugh at death; it’s the only way to handle such an absurdity. It frees us from its grip. Yet, despite being quite a common response (out of hysterics, or what psychologists call manic defence, more than mirth), it’s still quite taboo at a funeral.
But sometimes people can’t help it. When something genuinely funny happens to break the tension of a typical funeral, it’s hard to contain your laughter—especially when you’re not a close friend or relative and aren’t that sad to begin with.
Responding to a Reddit thread about the funniest things encountered at a funeral, one commenter recalled a time at a friend’s parent’s funeral. When the deceased’s sister, an old lady, went to throw a rose into the grave, her crutch slipped, she lost her footing, and fell into the grave after the coffin. She was only saved in the nick of time by a relative who jumped up and grabbed hold of her ankle, yanking her out (said the commenter) “like a farmer pulling a sheep out of a ditch”. Although traumatic for the family, someone else sniggered and set the Redditor off laughing—so much so that he had to leave the cemetery, apparently “buckled with laughter”.
7. Dove down
Releasing a dove at the end of a funeral is a heartlifting gesture symbolizing the soul’s journey to the afterlife. It’s a popular choice. But it can go wrong—YouTube-worthy wrong.
At the funeral of a man named David, the pastor, holding a dove, spoke to friends and family present. He said he’d heard the deceased say just the other day, “if [he] had wings like this dove then [he] would fly away.” Then the pastor released it, throwing it into the air. Almost immediately, however, it landed on the ground with a thud—its feathers fluttering like confetti in the wind. The mourners were shocked, but some found it funny. After some time, the crowd began to laugh, with one man glibly pointing out the obvious: “He didn’t fly.”
As it turned out, the dove had succumbed to a fatal heart attack from the stress of being handled. But it probably wasn’t given a funeral.
6. Wrong name
Getting the name of the deceased correct is kind of essential for a funeral. It’s not something you’d expect to go wrong. But it does.
In 2020, one Whitby family engaged the services of their local Go As You Please Funerals to sensitively and somberly handle the interment of their husband and father. This was despite its reputation for quirky joke ceremonies. To give you some idea, the company’s portfolio includes coffins covered with Irn Bru cans and the face of Elvis Presley. But the family wanted a “standard” coffin, said the son. They paid £3,000 for the funeral package only to find that the nameplates on the coffin were wrong. Instead of showing the name of the deceased, they showed the name of his son.
The family found it funny at first, but later tried to claim compensation. They refused the company’s offer of £250, instead running to the press to try and get the funeral for free.
5. Body mix-up
After getting the right name, the next most important job for a funeral home is getting the right body in the coffin. The body of the deceased is, most of the time, a funeral’s centerpiece. It gives mourners an object to focus their grief on and say goodbye to, as well as providing a sense of connection post-mortem.
But in 2023, a family was devastated when they looked in the coffin to find an imposter dressed in the clothes of their loved one. The funeral home had mixed up the bodies. Bizarrely, though, they argued with the family, insisting they hadn’t got it wrong—that it was the family who’d made the mistake. Ultimately, the matter was settled in court.
This wasn’t the only time a mix-up like this ever happened. In England in 2015, the body of deceased Member of European Parliament (MEP) Philip Bradbourn was accidentally substituted with the body of one Philip Bradburn. Apparently, they’d died just a few days apart and their bodies had been stored at the same mortuary. Philip Bradburn, unlike the MEP, didn’t have any relatives.
It also happened in Wales in 2023, when the body of a man with no surviving relatives was mistakenly released for someone else’s by the NHS. This time, because the family only found out later, they had to have a second funeral.
4. Body spill
Coffins can seem like a rip-off but, as one video from an Indonesian funeral procession goes to show, you get what you pay for (or don’t). In the clip, which quickly went viral on LiveLeak, mourners can be seen carrying a simple, and presumably cheap or homemade, green canvas coffin until suddenly the unthinkable happens: The body drops out the bottom. The coffin wasn’t strong enough to hold it, and the procession came to a halt. Although wrapped in a shroud, the corpse was a grisly sight (even for those who didn’t know the deceased let alone those who did), prompting horrified screams from the crowd.
In Peru, meanwhile, it was a pallbearer who fell onto the coffin—breaking its lid and revealing the body as it was lowered into the ground.
Sometimes it’s not the mourners but the funeral home cutting corners to save a bit of cash. For one COVID funeral, for example, undertakers borrowed straps to lower a coffin into a three-person grave, and, this being lockdown, graveside staff had been reduced to a minimum. As a result, one of the deceased’s relatives had to help. And when one of the straps snapped, the coffin plummeted eight feet, the lid came off, and the body was exposed. Needless to say, the family was traumatized.
3. Corpse brides
In 2012, Thai TV producer Chadil Deffy made headlines around the world when he married his dead girlfriend at her funeral. A video of the joint ceremony, which saw him kneeling beside the body of his lover and putting a ring on its finger, quickly went viral on his Facebook page. Deffy explained they’d always planned to marry, but their schedules kept putting it off—and ultimately she was killed in a car crash.
But was it legal? One of those commenting on the story as it drew international attention was the lawyer Mrunalini Deshmukh. Interviewed by the Times of India, she said there can be no legal union between a human and a corpse, since it essentially amounts to an inanimate object. And, despite the news stories (like the one about a woman marrying a Santa Fe train station), she’s right. Marriage is a legal contract between two consenting parties, for which consciousness is an absolute minimum.
Still, it was a touching gesture—even if it was a little awkward for other mourners.
2. Inappropriate confessions
In Uganda in 2009, the preacher leading a funeral service surprised mourners by confessing his affair with a married woman. She wasn’t the deceased. In fact, his confession had nothing to do with the funeral, but the woman in question was present—seated in the front row with her husband and kids. It wasn’t a slip of the tongue, either. When the humiliated adulteress tried to sneak away, the preacher pointed her out and shouted her name.
Meanwhile, in Connecticut, a pastor secured his own funeral by confessing adultery to his congregation. After Sunday service, he asked them to stay a little longer than usual, saying he had something to confess. He’d already told his wife. But the stress of telling his flock apparently proved too much, and he suffered a fatal heart attack.
1. Inappropriate content
Despite being our two main drives in life, sex and death are best kept apart. Which is why it outraged mourners at a funeral in Cardiff to see a pornographic film come on screen.
To be clear, this wasn’t the kind of funeral where you might see the funny side. Hundreds of people were there on the day to pay their respects to a father and his unborn son, who tragically died in a car crash. His pregnant wife survived and was present at the funeral, obviously still traumatized from the accident. The video was meant to be a heartfelt tribute. Instead it was hardcore porn. The reverend leading the ceremony had his eyes on the mourners when it started playing. So he only realized something was wrong when people rushed towards the screen to turn it off.
It wasn’t clear how it happened, but the reverend was adamant it couldn’t have been the fault of chapel staff. But the hows and whys were irrelevant. The video is now burned into the memories of all who were present. And, worst of all, it played for a good few minutes before anyone managed to stop it.