Funeral Photo Slideshows: How Long, How Many Photos, and What to Send
The slideshow usually falls to whoever in the family is good with computers. They get the job on the Tuesday, sit up with a laptop on the Wednesday night, and find out on the Thursday that the song cuts off mid-chorus.
A funeral photo slideshow is a short video of photographs, and sometimes video clips, set to music and played during the service. Most run five to eight minutes, set to one or two songs, with somewhere between 60 and 90 photographs across the person's life.
When I was designing the slideshow for my Pop, it was one of the most beautiful and hardest things I’ve ever had to do. It was wonderful being able to sit with his photographs and remember the days I spent with him learning how to drive. But in the same breath it was incredibly painful, because my heart knew there were no new memories to be made.
If you're sitting with those photographs now, I don't want the practical questions to be the hard part too. So here's what I've learned about how long it should run, how many photos you need, choosing the music, and what to send if you'd rather hand it over.
How long should a funeral photo slideshow be?
Five to eight minutes is the right length for most services. That's long enough to move through a whole life, and short enough that nobody in the room starts to drift.
In practice, the music decides the length. Most songs run three to four minutes, so one song gives you a short tribute and two gives you a full one. Three songs is usually too many unless the slideshow is the centrepiece of a celebration of life rather than one part of a traditional service.
Ask your funeral director or celebrant where the slideshow sits in the running order before you start. A slideshow that plays while people arrive can run longer than one placed between the eulogy and the committal.
How many photos do you need for a funeral slideshow?
Plan on roughly one photo every five seconds, which works out to about 60 photos for five minutes and 90 for eight. Fewer than that and each image sits on screen long enough to feel slow. More and they flash past before anyone can find the face they're looking for.
If you're short on photographs, don't pad it out. Let each one stay a little longer, or choose a single song and keep it short. Twenty good photos on a three-minute song will mean more to the room than sixty with duplicates.
Aim for a spread across their whole life rather than a cluster from the last few years. Childhood, the wedding, the first house, the grandkids, the ordinary Tuesday at the kitchen bench — how to choose photos that actually look like them.
How do you choose the music?
Choose the song they would have chosen, not the song that sounds most like it belongs at a funeral. The music is what people remember the slideshow by, and the room will know within two bars whether it was theirs.
Listen to the whole song before you commit, including the lyrics. A song that feels right in the chorus can have a second verse that lands very differently in a chapel.
If you're using two songs, a common shape is something gentle for their early life and something that sounds more like them for the later years, then ending on a single photograph held as the music fades.
Check with your funeral director how the file will be played and whether there's anything you need to know about the music before you finalise it.
What order should the photos go in?
The end is the part to think about. The last image on screen is the one people carry out of the room, so choose it on purpose. A photo that looks directly at the camera, or one that captures them doing the thing they were always doing, usually works better than the most recent picture.
You can also finish on a video. For my Pop, we ended on a clip of him dancing and singing, and it gave the whole room a giggle and a tear at the same time.
What do you need to send, and by when?
If someone is making the slideshow for you, send the photos, the song choices, and the service date as early as you can. Everything else can follow.
The full list:
Their full name, and dates of birth and death
The service date, time, and funeral home
The photos and any video clips, in any order
The song or songs, and any photo you want to end on
Anything that must be included, like a wedding photo or a particular pet
Your funeral director will need the finished file before the service, so ask them for their cut-off time and work back from there. When I make a tribute, the first version is usually back within 24–48 hours of having everything, which leaves time for changes before that deadline and making sure the file works with their system.
Should the slideshow match the order of service booklet?
It doesn't have to, but it's noticeably better when it does. When the booklet in people's hands and the images on the screen share the same photographs, colours, and cover image, the service feels like one farewell instead of several separate pieces.
This usually doesn't happen because two different people make them, separately, in the same week. Some funeral directors include a basic slideshow in their packages — Bare Cremation, funeral service packages, while the booklet comes from somewhere else entirely.
I design the booklet and the tribute together for exactly that reason. Order of service booklets start from $295 with 50 printed copies, and photo tributes start from $250, with the finished file sent to your funeral home in whatever format they need.
FAQs: Funeral Photo Slideshows
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A: Often a family member, sometimes the funeral director, and sometimes a designer. Whoever makes it needs the photos, the music, and the funeral director's deadline for the final file. If nobody in the family has the time that week, handing it over is a perfectly reasonable choice.
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A: Yes. Short clips of a voice, a laugh, or someone dancing at a wedding can be the most moving moments in the whole tribute. Keep each clip under 20 seconds, and check the sound levels match the music so nothing comes in too loud.
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A: It varies. Most accept a standard video file like mp4 or m4a, but some play from a USB stick and others from a streaming link. Ask your funeral director before the file is finished, so it plays the first time without anyone fiddling with a laptop.
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A: Use fewer, and let each one stay on screen longer. A single song with 20 well-chosen photographs is a complete tribute. You can also include scanned letters, handwriting, or objects that were theirs to fill the gaps.
You don't have to do this part alone
That slideshow for my grandad is the reason The Farewell Studio exists. I didn't want anyone else to have to design through the tears and the pain.
Send me the photos and the song, and I'll set them to the music, match them to the booklet, and send the finished file to your funeral home ready to play.
