09/01/2026
What Would Dolly Do? Estate Planning Edition 💗
Anyone who knows me knows how much I love Dolly Parton.
I’ve loved her since I was a little girl. Her music, her faith, her humor, her enormous heart, her ability to laugh at herself and, of course, enough hair, heels and rhinestones to make absolutely no apologies for taking up a little extra space in this world. 💗
And yes, somewhat ironically for a redhead, Jolene has been my go-to karaoke song forever.
But there’s another side of Dolly I’ve always admired just as much:
She took care of business.
She spent a lifetime juggling a career, businesses, family, philanthropy and about a million other things while being remarkably intentional about the people and things that mattered to her.
And THAT actually has quite a lot to do with estate planning.
A good estate plan isn’t just about deciding who gets your stuff.
It’s about deciding what matters to you.
💗 Taking care of the people you love.
💗 Making specific gifts of the things that carry special meaning.
💗 Deciding where the money you worked a lifetime to earn will ultimately go.
💗 Remembering a church, charity, school, organization or cause that mattered to you.
💗 Making things easier for your family instead of leaving them to sort everything out during one of the hardest times of their lives.
💗 And making sure the people you actually intend to inherit are the people who do.
Dolly apparently even thought through the details of her own funeral in advance.
After a lifetime of rhinestones and glamour, she said she wanted something remarkably simple: a plain cotton dress, laid to rest on a soft bed of cotton — but still wearing her signature high heels. Because, well… Dolly. 💗
I absolutely love that.
Not because any of us particularly enjoys thinking about our own funeral, but because there is something so wonderfully her about it.
She made her wishes known.
Even at the end, she knew what mattered to her, what felt like her, and how she wanted things handled. And by telling people in advance, she took those decisions off the shoulders of the people who loved her.
That is estate planning too.
And while Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene may take your man…
she does NOT automatically need to end up with your assets too. 😂
That’s what beneficiary designations and a good estate plan are for.
You don’t need Dolly’s empire to have a legacy worth planning for.
You just need people you love, things you’ve worked for, and perhaps something in this world that you’d like to leave a little better than you found it.
Your life. Your values. Your legacy.
Make the decisions yourself — and let the people you love spend their time remembering you instead of trying to figure out what you would have wanted.
If estate planning is one of those things you’ve been juggling and continually putting off, I’d be happy to help you finally check it off the list.
FREE ESTATE PLANNING CONSULTATIONS
Nina L. Ferraro, Esq.
Nina L. Ferraro, P.A. 💗
772-324-2006
