Funeral Service

A Guide to Planning the Best Funeral Service for Your Family

Anyone planning a funeral service will usually quickly learn that there are a potentially overwhelming number of options available for the event. And deciding among all of these alternatives for a funeral service can be tricky business, especially if you have recently suffered a loss and feel somewhat disoriented as a result. But each kind of service has its own intrinsic beauty, and this quick guide may help take some of the anxiety out of choosing the one that suits your needs best.

To start our guide, we will reduce much of your potential funeral planning anxiety by simply pointing out that there are, truly, just three main options to choose from when it comes to a funeral service. These are a church, (or other religious establishment) funeral home or home funeral service. There is no right or wrong answer when it comes to deciding which of these options to choose for the funeral service you are planning. It is all in which approach you decide to take.

If you have a funeral service at a church, it will no doubt appeal to the traditional side of you. There is such tremendous beauty in the organ, and the choir, as they play their comforting hymns and the funeral readings that assure family members that their loved one has gone to a better place. In your religious funeral service, you share a connection with others who have done similarly for thousands of years. Also, if you are a regular church, synagogue, or mosque attendee, having your funeral service there can give you all the more sense of coping with your loss in the comfort of home, which for many is infinitely preferable to grieving in an unfamiliar location.

For the only moderately traditional, a funeral home service might be agreeable to their tastes. Although funeral homes are much younger than most religions, largely a product of the 19th century, a funeral home funeral service allows one to connect with tradition, even having many of the same religious elements as one might at a church, synagogue, or mosque, while also being a bit more contemporary. Not only that, having a funeral service at a funeral home means that one can get everything done at the same place, such as the casket, burial arrangements, and even grief counseling, which some funeral homes are willing to allow for months after the funeral service. One choosing a funeral home for their funeral service might say, "Why waste my time sprawling the funeral out between having the visitation at the funeral home, the funeral service at the church and the burial at the cemetery, when I can have the entire funeral service at the cemetery, which is (usually) within a close distance to the cemetery." Just a word of advice though if you decide to have your funeral service at a funeral home. You should make sure that your funeral home is a member of a reputable organization, such as the International Conference of Funeral Examining Boards, the Funeral Service Foundation, or the Academy of Professional Funeral Service Practice, just to make sure that they know what they are doing.

Although one can have some of the traditional elements of a funeral service, in the rapidly emerging home funeral service, and there are those who do, it is for the the almost completely non-traditional. This type of funeral service will allow you to chart a new path. If you will be the officiator of the proceedings, you do need to get a special certification from the government by passing a test, but for you it may be well worth it. For most, there is no officiate. Cremation and a home funeral service go together like a hand and a glove, and most home funeral services merely entail the friends and family of the departed spreading his or her ashes somewhere, such as the backyard, or going to a seashore, park, or rolling countryside. A home funeral service is very much for the environmentally minded, and allows the deceased to give back to nature through his or her ashes. Another aspect of this type of funeral service that is appealing for many is in the fact that it will allow the bereaved to spend more time alone with their loved one's body, giving them more of a chance to say their final goodbyes before the end.