Your Will and Funeral Wishes: How to Make It Easier for Your Loved Ones
Most of us have an idea of what we’d like our funeral to look like. Maybe it’s a favourite song, a special place for your ashes, or a relaxed celebration filled with a few laughs. While your Will covers who gets what, it doesn’t always capture those personal touches that mean the most.
With Footprint’s online Will platform, you can record your key funeral wishes right within your Will, things like whether you’d prefer cremation or burial. For the finer details, we encourage you to create a letter of intent and store it alongside your Will in Footprint’s secure digital vault (included in our Will Package and Will It Package). This keeps everything together and easy for your loved ones to find when they need it.
A letter of intent is where you can include all those personal details that might not fit into your legal Will, such as:
Reasons behind certain decisions
Your preferred tone or setting for your funeral
How you’d like your social media or digital assets handled
Messages, photos or even videos for loved ones
While a Letter of Intent isn’t legally binding, signing and dating it helps show these are your wishes and provides meaningful guidance when the time comes.
Writing down your wishes is one thing, but the most important step is letting people know they exist. Tell your family and your executor where your Will is stored and what’s included. Having that conversation now avoids confusion later and gives everyone peace of mind that they’re carrying out your wishes the way you wanted.
When your wishes are clear and easy to find, it lifts a huge weight from your family’s shoulders. They don’t have to second-guess what you would have wanted. Your executor can carry out your plans with confidence, knowing they have everything documented.
At Footprint, we make it easy to keep your Will and funeral wishes safe, secure and accessible with our digital vault. Whether you want a quiet service, a big celebration, or something uniquely you, what matters most is that your wishes are known and respected.
Take a few minutes to record your wishes, talk to your loved ones, and store everything safely in one place.
Start your Will or explore Footprint’s digital Will packages at https://www.myfootprint.co.nz/
