Quincy, MA -- (SBWIRE) -- 04/09/2014 -- Lydon Chapel, a large, 18th-century, white wooden building that has been a birthing house, a funeral parlor, and now is a chapel for both funerals and weddings.
The drive-through ceremony was something Lydon thought up herself when she purchased the home from her father five years ago. It was out with the old funeral parlor sign, and in with the weddings, which would be conducted upstairs in a sunlit space a door away from the embalming room.
Lydon Chapel will help conduct a wedding just about anywhere - on boats, in other communities, in the front yard of her home, or next to the chapel’s bubbling waterfall. And for those who opt for a drive-though wedding, happy couples of all backgrounds go to the parking lot next to busy Hancock Street, say their vows and kiss, and in seven minutes are on their way to a new life.
“I was hoping [it would evolve into this]. Everyone was telling me I was nuts and crazy, but I didn’t care,’’ Lydon said.The wedding business has almost equaled the funeral business for Lydon, as more people find out what’s going on in the inconspicuous Wollaston building. Now there are weddings, both drive-through and traditional, multiple times a week.
The weddings and funerals happen in the same building even within the same day - dearly departed out one door, dearly beloved in the other, Lydon moving back and forth between the two.It was a concept that piqued the interest of Powderhouse Productions, a Somerville agency known for its documentary and reality-TV work.“It had both - the juxtaposition of these two emotional worlds,’’ said Mary Mullaney, Lydon’s producer. “It’s like a ‘bridezilla’ aspect. “People are so emotional for both weddings and funerals . . . and this is one woman who took it upon herself to tackle them both.’’
Powderhouse approached the chapel for a show and eventually signed up Lydon and the employees last September. By November, dozens of crew members had descended upon Lydon Chapel to be a part of the everyday controlled chaos. Although on TV, day-to-day life becomes a bit exaggerated, the cast of characters at the chapel left little to be desired. Like Lydon’s daughter, Roberta, the reluctant eventual successor to the Lydon business, or Quincy native Billy Reilly, the theatrical, expressive interior designer who makes it known when he enters a room.
As for the plot, “you couldn’t make this stuff up,’’ Lydon likes to say. There was the time the hearse got towed because it was illegally parked, Lydon frantically making sure there was no body in the back, or the New Year’s Eve when a woman got married with curlers still in her hair - she had someplace to go, Lydon said. At the center of it all is Lydon herself, perhaps the main reason the chapel has seen such success.
About Lydon Chapel for Funerals
Funeral Home Quincy MA: Lydon Chapel for Funerals (http://www.lydonchapelforfunerals.com) is the most experienced and respectful professional cremation service in Quincy, MA. For more than 60 years, the Lydon Family has been providing caring, compassionate assistance to families across the South Shore Massachusetts
Contact:
Lydon Chapel for Funerals
644 Hancock Street
Quincy, Massachusetts 02170
Tel: 617-472-7423