Chapter House Funerals

I had the absolute pleasure of working with Madison to arrange my father’s funeral. Madison was an absolute gentleman, who gave my grieving family the space and time to understand the process, explain our wishes for how a memorial should run and supported us in making a decision that felt right for us. His communication and sensitivity were impeccable. God put Madison Wilson-Thorpe on this planet to be a funeral arranger. I would recommend his services to anyone. Le Pine are lucky to have him in staff.

The last thing a grieving family needs is to leave a consultation with more questions than when they entered. The ‘consultant’ we dealt with had little knowledge of basic prices, policies and procedures (eg. Urn prices, which Urns were in stock, how long it would take to get the ashes back, how the viewing could take place without a coffin etc. ) She left the meeting more than four times to check with colleagues & outsource multiple calls. Some questions we put forward weren’t answered until well after we returned home. Even then, we were told our requests couldn’t be met locally and we would have to go to the Lilydale cemetery. (Distance isn’t the issue, lack of updated knowledge of Fawkner cemetery & crematorium regulations is, this is their field?!) We informed the company beforehand of how the deceased & family wished to carry out the farewell. They had ample opportunity to research and meet our requests! In our collective opinion, we feel that Le Pine’s as one of the biggest funeral companies in Australia, the initial service we received was below par! We wanted our loved one to be cremated with a burial shroud (as he wished) and they had no idea how to handle this request. Shrouds were used in burial ceremonies long before coffins. Yet they were running in circles to see if they could work with this request. No one had answers on hand despite this being their ‘industry’. We were reassured by Le Pine that our loved one would be ‘held’ locally but soon found out t