A Las Vegas funeral home is selling more than burial caskets and flowers.
Palm Mortuary now offers funeral backdrops with giant playing cards, oversized dice or a colossal slot machine to memorialize your dearly departed loved one in the gambling capital of the world. Huge casino chips and the signature "Fabulous Las Vegas" sign are also at hand to give gamblers a special send off.
The appeal of personalized funerals stretches from coast to coast as the $10 billion industry looks for new sources of revenue.
Ashes can be launched into space for those whose death is the start of another kind of exploration, or packed into a duck decoy for the discerning hunter who has fired their last shot.
So far, six of the Vegas backdrop funerals - including one of the gambling ones - have been purchased. They rent from about $1,000 to $3,000. There is a photo album of backdrops to peruse, and mourners can select one appropriate for their deceased relative or friend.
For the cowboy, there's a fake horse, bales of hay, wagon wheels, cacti and a cowboy boot that could fit Paul Bunyan. Garden, military and kitchen settings are also at hand. Some may want to choose the golf package, complete with beautiful course scenery, gigantic irons and regular club bags.
Other funeral homes are beginning to take notice. One in St. Louis offers the "Big Mama's Kitchen" setting that includes Crisco, Wonder Bread and real fried chicken props in an acknowledgment of Sunday meals, and the women who prepare them.
What about a "Fabulous Las Vegas" tombstone? Even in death, Viva Las Vegas.
Of course, it's not always possible for friends and family to attend a funeral service, and one funeral home is trying to solve that dilemma by allowing absentee mourners to experience the next best thing. You guessed it, Funeral Webcast by Palm.
Funeral Webcast by Palm permits family and friends who can't make the journey the chance to commemorate the life of a loved one no matter where they are in the world.
While the Funeral Webcast may seem public, it is still a private affair. You get to select how you want others to access the ceremony and watch the tribute to the recently deceased.
Funeral Webcast also allows you to view the ceremony again later in a more private setting. You can access the Webcast online for for fifteen days following the service. After the fifteen days it is archived for future access - protected by a password or available to the public, you decide.
Stranger than Fiction Magazine is your premier source for tales of the bizarre and extraordinary. Published quarterly. Established 2004.
Summer 2004 issue (here)
