Nora Beckett Planning Co.

How I began

Twelve years running conference logistics for a hospital system, and then a friend in Seattle called about burying her mother in a Forest Park cemetery, three weeks after a hip replacement had made flying impossible. That was 2021, and word traveled through exactly the network you would expect.

Why families choose me

Most of the families I work with are three time zones away. Somebody's mother lived here for fifty years, her children moved away, and now they are trying to arrange a service in a city they left in 1998 — from a hotel room, between flights, with a funeral director they have never met. So I work the way that fits: video calls at whatever hour suits you, a written timeline everyone can see, and me physically present in the room here doing the things that need a body — walking the venue, receiving the flowers, meeting the printer, standing at the door on the day with the list. I do not plan the whole memorial for most families. I do the last mile, which is the part that cannot be done remotely and the part that goes wrong.

Ownership