A memorial or celebration of life usually happens in the weeks after the immediate funeral, sometimes instead of one, and it has more moving parts than most families expect going in: a venue, a caterer, audio-visual for any tributes or slideshows, and a date that has to work for everyone who matters.
What's included in venue coordination
- Sourcing the memorial venue itself
- Coordinating the celebrant or officiant for the event
- Coordinating catering
- Coordinating audio-visual needs — photo slideshows, video tributes, sound for speakers
- Aligning all of the above around a single date
- Coordinating the format of the event and collecting media (photos, video, memories) from family and friends
Common mistakes families make handling this alone
- Booking the venue before confirming caterer and AV availability. A great space on the wrong date, once the caterer or AV company can't match it, means starting over.
- Underestimating how long venue booking takes. Popular spaces get reserved weeks out, which can be a mismatch with a family that's ready to hold the event sooner.
- Not collecting photos and media early. Slideshows and tributes take longer to assemble than expected, and asking extended family for photos at the last minute rarely goes smoothly.
- Forgetting the practical logistics. Parking, accessibility, and capacity limits are easy to overlook when the focus is understandably on everything else.
How the process works
- Scope the event. Format, rough date range, and expected number of attendees get established with the family.
- Source and lock the venue. A venue is sourced and the caterer and AV are coordinated around the same date before anything is booked.
- Coordinate the details. Media collection, participation, and the run of the event get organized in the lead-up.
- Show up. The day itself is handled so it can be about the people who came, not the logistics behind them.
Pricing and how billing works
This runs through the marketplace model. Otherside keeps a card on file and bills it for vendor work; the vendor is paid their share, and Otherside keeps a coordination fee for sourcing, vetting, scheduling, and overseeing the work. Every charge is itemized and visible before it's made, with a 24-hour window to review and decline it — nothing gets billed without you seeing it first.
Vendor vetting and trust
End-of-life coordination means letting someone into a family's home and finances at the worst possible time to be careless about who that is. Every vendor goes through the same onboarding before they're allowed to work with a family: a background check through a third-party screening platform (typically clears in two to five business days), a certificate of insurance naming Otherside Life as an additional insured, a government-issued ID, and a signed vendor agreement. Annual re-verification keeps that current. None of this guarantees a particular outcome on a particular job — no background check does — but nobody gets listed without going through it first.
What a coordinator does, and doesn't do
A coordinator sources the vendor, briefs them on what the family needs, tracks the job to completion, and handles the billing and paperwork around it. They don't do the physical or licensed work themselves, and they don't tell you which option to pick, interpret documents or law, or step into a family dispute over how something should be handled. The people actually doing the work — the florist, the attorney, the crew — are independent professionals working under their own license, not Otherside employees.
For a starting list of real, currently-operating venues in the LA area, see Memorial & Celebration of Life Venues in the Los Angeles Area.
Getting started
See the Venue coordination page for pricing tier context and to start a case, or talk to an account coordinator directly about your specific situation.