Being a Pakeha NZer, my experience of funerals has mostly been a reasonably sanitised, funeral parlour one - I don't want that. I want a more Maori/Celtic/indigenous-of-the-earth send-off. Just as I feel part of the haka, and of our PI and Indian people particularly (who have been part of the 'us' longer than the newer african and asian and middle eastern - but kia ora to you too) (Welcome Home), I want to be part of my own funeral! "Don't leave me" in a cruddy, velvet-curtained "parlour" (whatever that is)! Don't put me in a long black car with over-formal flowers and people I don't know ... please! Keep me at one of my homes for a few days - stroke my cheek - talk to me. Have eating, sleeping, talking, kids playing all around. Hire a bus and drive me, with everyone on board, to the church or cemetery ... as others have said, please please have people who know me, be the ones who talk about me. The music, the words etc can be what helps the people organising it - but make sure there is good wine and excellent single malt on hand.