Bringing Your Story to Life
The Rosemary Project is a video and multimedia service which brings together concepts such as memoirs, interviews, personalisation, leading editing, and Wills/Memorandum of Wishes, all which leave behind a story.
Your story. That story is either presented alongside your traditional Will, or simply shared with family and friends, allowing you to frankly speak to your loved ones and give them a message that they will cherish forever. This service adds colour, meaning, and your loved ones have something to treasure. They get to hear you speak to them rather than reducing your life to a short, dull legal document.
How it works
Most of our clients choose to be interviewed, creating a personalised, digital story to live on, record, and explain their wishes in a way that allows their final words to be heard and honoured.
If you wish to record your wishes for your Will, we can partner with your existing lawyer if you have already drafted a Will, or one of our experts can draft your new Will.
If you wish to record your life story in the form of a memoir, then our team will guide you through the storytelling process before sitting down for a video or audio, podcast-style, interview.
Capture your story
We will guide you through your estate planning or storytelling process so we can understand your wishes and help you choose what messages you leave behind. Generally, this starts with a recorded interview (either video or podcast microphones) with you to further understand your life story. This interview process takes place in the comfort of your own office or home.
Build Your Legacy
We produce a recording with supporting estate documents that will be left to accompany your Will and/or trust documents. This may include working with your lawyer, or you may choose to work with a lawyer from our network. Your wishes are created into an electronic portfolio to be securely stored alongside your Will and other important documents.
If simply recording your memoir, we sit through a similar interview and we work closely with you to create a storyline customised to you.
Leave a Lasting Impact
When you pass away, your loved ones will receive a file that allows them to truly remember you and understand your wishes.
With memoirs, clients are most welcome to share their recording with their loved ones sooner if they wish to do so.
Key Information
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We offer fixed pricing depending on what service you need. We will talk through with you what estate planning or memoir planning is recommended and how best to document your wishes and life. Please note that if a lawyer is needed for the drafting of a Will, then that cost will be additional.
Please enquire for a breakdown of costs – we would love to hear from you!
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Our team has a range of topics and thoughtful questions to guide you in telling your story. We have prepared questions for clients from all kinds of backgrounds.
Please get in touch with us so we can hear more about where you’ve come from, what you’ve been through, and what you have learnt along the way. Everyone deserves to have their story kept as a legacy!
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Wills create any number of problems. Often those hearing them are left with many questions. They may query your mindset and reasons for decision making. In some cases, they may bring a claim saying that you have failed “your moral duty” and a Court can criticise your decision making. To reduce this risk, the Rosemary Project allows you to speak directly to those issues in a way that a pure written Will can never allow for. It also doubles to tell your life story and leave a lasting memory. Sometimes the material can also be played at your funeral.
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Yes. You still have a written Will as part of the Rosemary Project. Our service tends to provide you with supporting content to be considered alongside your written Will. The Will refers to The Project and allows for evidence and context to support what the Will contains.
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The Courts often impose obligations on people making a Will to provide for certain people, including their partners, children or grandchildren. The Courts retain powers to modify Wills, including if that has been breached or whether a person may have been influenced or made promises during their lifetime. One advantage of the Rosemary Project is it allows you to provide content and context justifying your decision and to speak directly to your loved ones, explaining your rationale. Within our tools are ways to consider concepts such as “disentitling conduct” to ensure people truly understand your decision making, and for them to respect the same. While no one can completely reduce the likelihood of a challenge, what we have found is when grieving loved ones understand decision making, then that can take away some of the lack of understanding and hurt that underpins disputes.
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Traditional Wills struggle to deal with chattels and personal items as they rely on being written out, often only one or two items are listed. A major focus of the Rosemary Project is for you to explain what you want to happen with some of the smaller yet sentimental aspects of your life. Our process allows you to relive how items have come into your life and what you want to do with them.
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Once you’ve enquired or contacted us, our lovely team will give you a call to gauge what level of estate planning you require. We can arrange a coffee for this conversation, or you can fill our the Tell My Story questionnaire form. This helps our team put together the questions for your video or podcast recorded interview. We come to you for the interview! Whether you’d prefer to do this in your office, or the comfort of your own living room or dining room over a cup of tea, we will accommodate whatever is most comfortable for you.
