Recently my family needed to plan a funeral service for my mother-in-law. It was probably the hardest thing I’ve ever experienced.
What made it worse was that we had absolutely no idea what we were doing or where to start. Funeral planning usually needs to be achieved in a very short moment. Worse yet, it needs to be done while your grief is the freshest. It’s like arranging a wedding in a week rather than several months. If it weren’t such a somber event it would almost be funny.
I will do my best to offer the basic information you need to think about whenever you start to plan a funeral. Each funeral is different but they frequently contain similar elements. Use this information as a guideline when you’re faced with making funeral arrangements and you need to succeed at putting together a wonderful service on short notice.
How to Plan a Funeral
- Pick an excellent funeral home with a knowledgeable manager. They’ll provide you with a lot of assistance and direction.
- Decide Which Type of service you want. Will it be in the funeral home? Can it be a graveside service? Can it be a memorial service in your church?
- Get some help picking a casket from a person you trust. If you do not intend on having a public screening of your system then you may save a whole lot of money by selecting a more affordable casket.
- Decide what Pastor will execute the service.
- Decide on some favorite tunes to be played during the ceremony. They may be recorded or live music.
- The Bulletin used at the ceremony is a memorable keepsake for the ones that attend. Spend more time writing about their life to the bulletin.
- Make sure the ones that attend the funeral understand about the guest book. It’s very simple for people to visit the funeral service without signing the guest book because they didn’t know it existed or where it was situated.
- Ask someone to take charge of shooting an image of every flower arrangement that arrives. You do not want to forget who sent what arrangement.
- You might want to predetermine which family members will sit where.
- Ask a friend to collect all personal items after the ceremony if you’re moving from one place to another.
- Write a Wonderful obituary for the paper that describes the lifespan of your loved one. The secret is to be short since this is pretty costly.
- Give the Pastor with favorite Scriptures, poems, anecdotal stories, etc. to help them explain the deceased.
- You might want a reception with a meal following the ceremony. Many churches offer this free of cost or for a donation.
- If you’ll have pallbearers pick their order beforehand.
- In case you’ve got live music make sure that the artist knows precisely how you would like the songs performed.
- Choose present money for your Pastor, musicians, food prep group, etc. beforehand so things do not become awkward.
- Ensure you’ve got loads of Kleenex available where your relatives and closest friends will be sitting.
- Pull together at least 100 images to be used for a memory DVD and for screens. You will discover that even 100 pictures won’t be sufficient as soon as you get started.
There are so many details to attend to when you plan a funeral ceremony. These are a Few of the major things which are bound to surface. Believe it or not, you’ll make it through this extremely emotional and painful experience. Take 1 step at a time and Get as much aid as possible. God bless you, my friend.