If you find yourself tasked with organizing a funeral for a loved one who has died unexpectedly or without leaving instructions, take a level-headed friend with you to the funeral home as a steadying influence.
Depending on the type of funeral chosen, a funeral home may offer various services. A good funeral director will ease your burden by complying with your wishes and filling in the blanks, ensuring that all the necessary steps are organized. Religious, cultural, and family traditions are encompassed.
In addition, a good funeral director can help you with the details, such as explaining state regulations and arranging to obtain the required certified copies of the death certificate and the certificate of cremation or burial. The funeral director can also show you how to apply for Social Security and Veterans’ death benefits.
Most funeral homes have 24-hour phone numbers so that consumers can call at any time to arrange for the transportation of a body and subsequent funeral preparation. A reputable funeral director should respect your financial boundaries and help you plan arrangements that fit your budget.
How do I Plan a Funeral?
When Someone Dies
It’s important to know what to do when a loved one dies. Although beset by shock and grief, you may be called upon to handle the necessary practicalities.
Putting together a funeral entails planning the funeral ceremony and the disposition of the deceased’s body, accommodating guests, and arranging for a subsequent gathering that may even have an element of celebration as people give thanks for the deceased’s life and share happy memories. Without instructions from the deceased or a pre-planned funeral, you’ll need to make a series of decisions quickly. List the necessary tasks and delegate responsibility if several family members and friends assist you.
You are not legally required to use a funeral home to organize a funeral. Still, you may find the services of professionals well-versed in the regulations and practicalities of such an event very helpful.
Although it may feel mercenary, you’ll need to ascertain whether the cost of the funeral is to be covered by the deceased’s estate. This issue is important because if you make all the arrangements with a funeral home and sign all the papers, you will be the one that gets billed. Be careful.
Getting Organized
- You’ll need to begin by having the death pronounced by a doctor or coroner. According to most state regulations, a body must be buried or cremated within a specific time frame. A funeral director will be able to help you answer that question too.
- Unless you’re prepared to organize a home funeral, you’ll need to contact a funeral home and arrange to have the body picked up and transported there.
- If you want the deceased dressed in specific clothing, you can either do so yourself before the body is picked up or request that the funeral home do it for you. Contact friends and relatives. Notify the deceased’s employer and the insurance company.
- Go to the funeral home and meet with the funeral director to make plans in accordance with the deceased’s wishes.
- Some choices will influence others. Suppose the deceased is to be cremated before the funeral, for instance. In that case, you may opt for a simple container to transport the body to the crematorium, but make sure you choose an attractive urn if the cremated remains are to be present at the service.
- If there is to be an open casket for viewings, then embalming becomes a consideration, as does the type of casket.
- A cemetery interment means choosing between a ground burial and entombment in a mausoleum, whereas a scattering of ashes raises the question of location and accompanying ceremony.
- If you want a funeral or memorial service held at a church or other place of worship, you’ll need to make such arrangements with the appropriate officials, and you’ll need to discuss the nature of the service.
- As you envision the ceremony, you can think of issues such as flowers, music, speakers, scripture or other readings, books for guests to sign, and having programs printed that list the order of the service. If there’s to be a casket present at the funeral service, then you’ll need pallbearers; six is the customary number. You might want to ask close friends of the deceased to act as ushers for arriving guests.
- Depending on your chosen service, you may need to organize a hearse and other vehicles to transport the deceased and family members to a cemetery.
- The deceased’s personal and spiritual preferences will guide you as you organize the memorialization.
- Once you have the necessary details and dates, you can contact the newspaper to place a notice. You may specify a charity for donations instead of flowers or some other expression that would have pleased the deceased.
- Once the funeral service is organized, you can decide on a subsequent guest gathering. You may want to have the event catered, which relieves bereaved family and friends of the obligation to pitch in.
- A funeral doesn’t have to occur in a church or at the funeral home; instead, it can be held at a location that fits the character and honors the deceased’s life.
- Finally, try not to take on the entire responsibility of organizing a loved one’s funeral yourself. Others will likely want to help. It’s a way for others to share the experience and feel connected to the one who has died.
Getting Informed On Common Funeral Vocabulary
Other than the challenging emotional state a person is in when planning a funeral for a loved one, the person inevitably encounters a barrage of unfamiliar terms and vocabulary and is then asked by the funeral director to make “confident choices” concerning the final disposition of their loved one.
Key Terms To Know
Before you make those “confident choices,” the funeral director you will need to make, it will be helpful first to get familiar with the basic terms used in the funeral industry by reviewing the following common funeral terms and types of services.
- Casket
- Crypt
- Alternative Container
- Columbarium
- Mausoleum
- Cremation
- Entombment
- Interment
- Memorial Service
- Grave
- Cemetery Services
Consumer Protections In Purchasing Funeral Services And Products
The Federal Trade Commission encourages consumers to compare prices among nonaffiliated funeral homes. Funeral homes are prohibited from concealing or misrepresenting their prices for specific products and services.
The Funeral Rule Provides The Following Consumer Protections:
- The consumer can buy only those funeral arrangements the consumer wants.
- The consumer, if they choose, can obtain pricing information by telephone.
- The consumer must receive an itemized price list when visiting a funeral home.
- Including a written casket price list before seeing the actual caskets.
- The consumer must receive a written itemized statement after deciding what they want but before they pay.
- The consumer must be informed that they may use an alternative remains container instead of a casket-coffin for cremation.
- The consumer may provide the funeral home with a casket or urn that they buy elsewhere.
- The consumer may make funeral arrangements without embalming.
Funeral Homes and Directors
If you need assistance selecting a funeral home or have other questions about burial or cremation options, consider consulting wither a funeral planner.
