Mark Shaw Funeral Services

My Dad died unexpectedly on 21 October 2019. We had no recent experience of organising a funeral and of course turned to Google to find out about local funeral directors which is why I want to leave a review on google because there werent many and we would have found it useful to have had more to read. I first called the Mark Shaw office on George Street and spoke to Anne-Marie who was incredibly helpful and shared lots of useful, practical information about registering the death, options for burial/cremation and she answered lots of questions we had. We arranged to visit the George Street office and met Neil who helped us arrange the funeral. Neil was terrific. He took the time to talk us through everything for us to decide the kind of funeral we wanted. He organised everything - the coffin, the Civil Celebrant, booked the cremation, death notice in the newspaper, the cars, order of service, flowers; he advised us on the number of music tracks to choose and number of photos for a slideshow; he suggested possible venues for the funeral tea; and arranged the charity collection at the service. The flowers were arranged by Azalea on George Street - they were also great. Neil was there on the day to make sure everything went to plan. We never felt like we were taking up too much of their time. We never felt under any pressure to buy anything. The estimate was given to us and updated as we changed our minds or added to the plans. We were able to visit my Dad in one of the rooms in the George Street branch as often as we wanted the day before the funeral. We were the only funeral in those few days so no other families were there. I think the branch has three rooms available. After the cremation Anne-Marie went above and beyond helping us to get the casket we wanted. Before deciding on Mark Shaw I visited one of the bigger national firms of funeral directors and they were also really helpful in terms of offering lots of practical information but one of the things that stood out to me was that the office at Mark Shaw was warm. The room where we met with Neil was warm, nicely decorated with deep carpets and comfortable sofas. This all makes a difference at a time when its hard to feel anything other than cold. The estimated costs were similar from both companies. We would recommend Mark Shaw Funeral Services to anyone. All of the staff were great.
Jan 12th, 2020

Exceptional,hassle free service and support in a very difficult time for our family.
Oct 8th, 2019

Just wanted to thank you for arranging our son's funeral in October the service was amazing Anne Marie was very compassionate and helpful and on the day Neil was there guiding us through have used Mark Shaw before and would definitely use again
Aug 3rd, 2019

I cant recommend Mark Shaws highly enough. My uncles passing left me solely responsible for the administration around the death and arranging his funeral. I had no experience what so ever and Neil there talked me through everything in a straightforward way. The other funeral directors were all business and packages and hidden costs - not here. I really felt like I could rely on them. If someone you love has died and you dont know what to do, contact Mark Shaws now. Dont even bother going to any other funeral director.
Feb 5th, 2019

Caring, considerate, helpful ...added just the right note to our brother's funeral. Highly recommend them. Michelle was our contact.
Jun 13th, 2017