Guide To Making Funeral Arrangements

The death of a loved one is a difficult time and making funeral arrangements adds unnecessary stress to an already difficult situation. By preparing in advance you will eliminate the time required to plan the funeral and have more time to spend with friends and family. Unfortunately, life is often unexpected and preparing in advance for a funeral is not always an option. The guide below will walk you through the steps required to arrange a funeral to commemorate your loved one’s life.

1. First Call

When a loved one passes away, the first thing you need to do when making funeral arrangements is to have his or her body transported to a funeral home. Transferring the body to the funeral home is called a “first call”. Your loved one may be located where they passed away, or may have been transported to the city morgue. In certain cases a second or third transportation may be required to transport the body to a funeral home in another city or county. The funeral home will take care of the preparation after they get the body.

2. Funeral Services

Next, you will need to decide where the funeral will take place. It is recommended to make this decision prior to the “first call” so that the body is transferred to the correct funeral home. However, if you decide to use a different funeral home, transportation of the body to the new funeral home can be arranged. The funeral home you select will be based upon a number of factors, including the location, the funeral home’s appearance, the staff, the venue size, the price, and more. Don’t forget to consider your budget for the funeral service before you make a decision.

3. Funeral Products

After you have selected the funeral home, the next step for making funeral arrangements is to select the funeral products. The funeral products selected will be based on your budget and the type of funeral service you are having. Some families will have a simple funeral service, where others will have a visitation, procession to a cemetery, burial service, and more. The typical funeral products a family will select are a casket or urn, funeral flowers, funeral stationery, memorial keepsakes, video tribute, webcasting service, memorial website, and so on. If the body will be buried, a burial vault and gravestone will also be required.

4. Cemetery Arrangements

The next thing you need to take care of when making funeral arrangements is the cemetery services. This step is only required if you plan to bury the body, or place the urn in a columbarium. Making the cemetery arrangements is a very important step because this is your loved one’s final resting place. A burial plot may be one of the single largest expenses of a funeral. Burial plots range from $1,000 to over $20,000 depending on the cemetery and location. After you select the burial plot you will need to arrange transportation of the body and burial at the cemetery.

5. Estate Management

The last step after you are finished making funeral arrangements is to put the deceased person’s affairs in order. This involves sending notifications of death to people, including the person’s employer, organizations they were a member of, government agencies, utility companies, and so on. Next, you will want to file death benefit claims with insurance companies and other agencies. Finally, you will want to work with an attorney and the executor of the estate to divide the person’s assets as stated in their will. This will involve paying off outstanding debts and changing title of the deceased’s assets.

As you can see, there are a number of steps required for making funeral arrangements.  That is why it’s important to plan ahead of time, if possible. If you feel like a loved one’s death is imminent, you might want to begin making funeral arrangements as soon as possible. However, even if you are unable to plan in advance, a funeral director at your local funeral home should be able to assist you with all of the funeral arrangements.

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Wake vs Funeral: What to Choose?

The question of holding a wake vs funeral might appear to be trivial for some; however, other people struggle with this decision. While both ceremonies are held to honor and commemorate the dead, there are certain advantages to both options that make choosing a difficult task. However, what is most essential about these practices are that they are both being used as a way to show respect for the recently departed. They are also a chance for friends and loved ones to say their final goodbyes to the one who was recently deceased.

A wake is traditionally done a few days, or just a few hours, after the death of a person. The body is laid to rest in a casket and then the casket is placed at a chapel or a funeral home. Often the wake is held at the home of the departed without the casket present. Wakes are a gathering where people share stories and fond memories about the person who has died. It is usually held in a room where some seats are laid out for the guests, and stands of flowers that have been bought as a sign of condolence are placed all over the room and near the casket. A wake can last for days or whatever duration the family of the party desires. A wake that is longer than a day will typically take place at a family member’s house instead of a funeral home.

When comparing a wake vs funeral, the funeral is a more controlled and often more reserved ceremony. The burial of the body may be part of the funeral ceremony, which includes a service and sometimes a procession to the burial place. During the funeral family members and friends deliver eulogies to the deceased. Speeches can include poems, hymns and quotes to commemorate the dearly departed, making the funeral service very emotional. Speeches can be given during a wake, but it is typically done in a less formal manner. Normally, there is also a dress code for a funeral service and a wake usually does not require guest to wear formal attire. Although the customs of a wake and funeral varies between cultures or countries, mourners often wear black to a funeral service.

At a wake family members often bring food for people to eat. Friends and family share stories, sing songs, tell jokes and do whatever they can to celebrate the life of the deceased and not focus on the sadness of their passing. Different cultures have different beliefs about the wake. Some cultures believe that they should remain up all night with the deceased prior to the funeral the next day.

A wake and a funeral may sometimes be combined, with an officiant conducting the service in the morning after the wake. However, nowadays many people choose either one of these ceremonies for various reasons. Some say that a wake is easier to organize and to manage. Especially if the person has been cremated, instead of having a formal funeral the family will choose to have a wake (or informal gathering) instead of a funeral service. Choosing a wake vs funeral is done because it helps the family to save money if they choose not to have a funeral or burial service.

Many families prefer to have a funeral service because it is a more solemn occasion and is thus a better and more respectful way to honor the dead. A traditional funeral that includes prayers, hymns, eulogies and other methods to pay respect are very important to many people. For these reasons, this is why many people can’t decide between a wake vs funeral and choose to have both ceremonies. There is no right or wrong decision; it depends on the family on how they want to give their final farewell to their loved one.

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When the state protects the industry from the consumer

Wednesday, 16 October 2013 13:23

—Gere Fulton, president, FCA of South Carolina

Last spring The State newspaper published an op-ed column that I wrote about the persecution of a local tradesman who was being threatened by two state government entities for building and selling wooden caskets. (Circling the Hearses, May 2, 2013) Mike White, a farrier by trade, had been issued Cease and Desist orders by both the Board of Funeral Service (BFS) and the Department of Consumer Affairs (DCA), and was being threatened with a fine of up to $10,000 by the latter if he didn't stop selling his $300 simple wooden caskets to families who wanted to bury their dead on farmland in Swansea. In a step that some might regard as extortion, the DCA informed him that he could avoid going to trial by immediate payment of $750. In essence it was "Pay now and this will go away...or you could hire a lawyer and take your chances at trial."

After that column was published, and letters were sent to the administrator at DCA, they decided to drop the complaint and acknowledged, in a tersely-written letter, that White hadn't broken any laws. They stopped short of apologizing for any "inconvenience" or anxiety they might have caused by their baseless accusation.

The complaint about Mr. White's caskets had been filed by an area funeral director who was doubtlessly motivated by a fear that cheap caskets were a threat to one of the biggest profit-makers in his business. Unfortunately, neither he nor the DCA seemed to understand that what Mr. White had been doing wasn't a violation of the regulations on the "pre-need" sale of funerals, something that DCA would grudgingly admit several months later. Mr. White never obtained a license for a "retail casket sales outlet," the control of which lies in the hands of the funeral director-controlled BFS, because they would have required him to "have on display at all times six adult caskets" and maintain "clean and accessible public restrooms." The BFS has been fighting to keep the residents of the Midlands from purchasing inexpensive caskets since the first retail casket store was proposed in Columbia in 2000. At that time they wanted to impose a $100,000 bond on the retailer.

Mike White no longer sells $300 caskets to the public. Instead, he sells his caskets to Memorial Design, a monument store in Lexington, to which his friend Michael Bishop, the developer of South Carolina's second green cemetery (Dust to Dust), refers families in search of a simple, yet dignified, burial to purchase them. And now the BFS has decided to turn their trocars on Michael Bishop. Although they have no evidence that he has been selling caskets—he hasn't and they allege none in their Cease and Desist order—they demand that he stop doing so.

The BFS is composed of 11 members. Nine of the eleven are licensed funeral directors, the other two are "general public" members appointed by the Governor. Isn't it time that our state employees and their funeral director bosses begin serving the people of South Carolina and not serving them with C & D orders?

Earlier this year Governor Haley created a Regulatory Review Task Force and directed all of the state agencies to review their regulations and identify those that might be eliminated to create a more business-friendly environment in the state. When the Task Force held a public hearing in Columbia, on July 12, the Funeral Consumers Alliance was there to urge them to remove the sale of caskets from the control of the BFS. The funeral industry has, until recently, had a monopoly on the sale of caskets and, because of that, purchasers are subjected to a "mark-up" that may be as high as 400-600 percent! The National Funeral Directors Association recently reported that the median cost of a casket was $2,395.

In South Carolina, as in most states, there are no regulations on the manufacture of caskets and caskets are not even required for burial. You may build your own casket, purchase one on the Internet, and they are even available at Walmart and Costco—but that won't last much longer if the BFS is successful. They have been busy working to persuade those nationwide retailers from delivering a casket to anyone with a South Carolina mailing address. One is compelled to wonder whether this state agency, funded by the taxpayers, is working for us or if its sole purpose is the economic security of the funeral industry.

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Dr. Fulton is the president of the Board of Directors of the Funeral Consumers Alliance of South Carolina (www.scfunerals.org). He can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

 

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Eulogy Help at Your Fingertips

To help you write – and deliver – a great eulogy, here is an outline of the six steps which have been shown again and again to work well. These eulogy help steps were developed during my years of writing, delivering and advising on over 100 eulogies in my role as a professional Funeral Presider (fulfilling the role traditionally taken by the priest).

Step 1 – A Moment for Yourself

At a time of sadness and loss, things often seem harder than they would at other times. And as well as the emotional side, there are also many practical things to deal with. And yet, writing a eulogy is far simpler than many people at first think.

To make this easier, before you start writing, it will help you to remember something important. Which is that when you deliver the eulogy you will have an extremely sympathetic audience, a group of people who want you to do really well and are 100% behind you. They will appreciate that by giving this speech you are helping them to remember the person who’s gone, and many of them will thank you afterwards, that’s for sure.

Another really useful thing to do is to set aside some time for yourself, without distractions, and spend a while connecting with your memories of that special person.

Step 2 – What Kind of Eulogy?

There are two kinds of eulogy – the short biography, and the personal view. You simply need to choose one kind.

In a nutshell, the short biography is where you talk about someone’s life as a whole. One benefit of this approach is that it acknowledges the many different aspects of someone’s life, and it can also be very personal, especially when you include true stories and memories. There is only room for one such eulogy at a funeral.

The personal view is more a series of snapshots of the person’s character. It can be purely your own experiences, or can include other people’s memories too. This can be very immediate and personal, especially if you decide to write it as if you are talking to the person who has gone. There could be a one or more such eulogies at a funeral.

Step 3 – Collect Your Building Blocks

What if you could imagine floating up in a balloon, and looking down on someone’s life as a series of photographs and video clips laid out below you? Your next step is simply to collect those photos and clips, those ‘building blocks’ of your eulogy speech. You can do this purely from your own memory, or by talking to others as well.

Step 4 – Bring Them Together

Every eulogy has an opening, a middle and a closing.

For the opening you can thank people for coming, perhaps say how the person who has died would have felt about them all being there, etc. For the closing, say how much the person will be missed, if appropriate thank people who were involved in looking after them, and maybe invite people back to any gathering that is happening. For the middle, you simply put your building blocks in sequence, usually in the order they happened in real life, and link them together.

Step 5 – Rehearse and Refine

This is a very helpful step. You can read the eulogy through in your mind, or say it out loud. As you do so you will hear where you want to make improvements.

And once you have made changes and refined the eulogy a couple of times, it’s absolutely crucial that you rehearse the delivery of the eulogy. This will make a huge difference to you, because a great speech, poorly delivered, is NOT a great speech.

The very best, most effective way of rehearsing is called ‘mental rehearsal’, which involves running through the speech in your mind’s eye, as if it were the real thing, happening now, and having it go very well. This is the approach used by athletes when they run a race, or play a game inside their minds before the actual event.

Step 6 – Delivering the Eulogy

This is actually the shortest of the six steps, because it will only last a few minutes. And when you have followed the other five steps, this one is relatively straightforward. Helpful tips include having tissues with you, taking a small bottle of water up with you, and taking two copies of the eulogy just in case.

And afterwards, please enjoy knowing that you have honoured the departed, and made a difference to everyone who heard your speech – you have helped their healing process, and your own too.

You can get more  information and writing eulogy help on each of these steps, plus example eulogies, poems, quotations and public speaking tips, in my short, to-the-point guide How to Write and Deliver a Great Eulogy in 6 Simple Steps. It comes with a 100% money-back satisfaction guarantee. Click here to learn more about the Eulogy Writing Guide.

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Environmentally Friendly Funerals Have Many Advantages

Having green, environmentally friendly funerals may sound strange to some, but to others, this new idea is just what they’ve been looking for. After all, the passing of a loved one is a deeply spiritual occruence and why shouldn’t the corresponding processions and rituals be carried out in an environmentally conscious way that would sit well with Mother Nature?

Planning a funeral is one of the most stressful things we will ever do, however knowing that you can be helping the environment, and that the burial is much more natural, can help alleviate some of that stress. For many people, this can make the task of planning their funeral an easier and more rewarding experience, as they know that their decision to have an environmentally friendly funeral will help the planet, in part contributing to a positive legacy that their loved one can now leave behind.

1. Help Friends and Family

When someone you love passes away, it can be absolutely devastating and when you visit them in a regular cemetery, it can feel impersonal and unnatural. However, one of the best benefits of environmentally friendly funerals, is that your loved one will be laid to rest in a beautifully natural setting, surrounded by trees and plants. So when you visit their grave, you can feel much closer to them and much closer to nature, a feeling that helps many families come to terms with the death of their loved one. When making arrangements for your own funeral, knowing that people can visit you in a beautiful and tranquil location, in harmony with nature, can lighten the load of constant worry that comes with making this end of life arrangement.

2. Less chemicals

When people are buried the traditional way, they are embalmed before they are buried. The fluid used in embalming is made of ethanol, water, and 5-30% formaldehyde, which is a suspected carcinogen. After the burial, as the body decomposes, these chemicals leak out into the surrounding areas, and in the US, over 827,000 gallons of embalming fluid are used each year. However, with environmentally friendly funerals, bodies are buried naturally, with no chemicals to delay decomposition, making them a much more natural alternative that’s healthier for the environment.

3. Conservation

The cemetery itself is often a barren area of land with minimal trees and plants. However, with environmentally friendly funerals, the aim is to also protect the land. Only small and locally soured stones are used as headstones and everything is done so there is no impact to the surrounding area. Knowing that in your passing, you are protecting the environment and helping to make the world a better place for your decedents can be a wonderful feeling.

4. No Air Pollution

Many people choose to be cremated rather than buried, often because it is cheaper. However, while it may be cheaper, and while people may think it’s environmentally friendly, it’s certainly not green.  In fact, this process releases many toxic chemicals into the atmosphere, as well as burning fossil fuels that release around 10.5 million kilograms of carbon dioxide into the air each year.

In addition to carbon dioxide, cremations also release:

Hydrogen chlorideFormaldehydeCarbon monoxideDioxinsMercuryOrganochlorides

The benefit of having a eco-friendly green funeral is that none of these chemicals are released, so there is no detrimental impact to the surrounding areas.

5. Biodegradable

It’s not just the embalming process that can damage the environment. The coffins themselves can also become an issue as they can be made from materials that are expensive and can take decades to decompose. Each year in the US, over 30 million board feet of tropical, rare, or expensive hardwood is used to make coffins, plus they are often decorated with what adds up to almost 3000 tons of copper and brass. The idea behind a environmentally friendly funeral, is that nothing that isn’t completely biodegradable can be used. Instead, methods that date back thousands of years are used, such as wrapping the person in a shroud of natural material or placing them in a coffin made of cardboard, paper or bamboo.

The joy of environmentally friendly funerals is knowing that you’ve made your mark in life in the hearts of your friends and family and not on the earth; a comforting thought during the stressful time of planning your end of life arrangements.

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The Cremation Process Explained

The cremation process has been around for thousands of years, but more individuals today choose to be cremated instead of buried once they die. What most of us think of as a traditional funeral and burial is in fact no more of a traditional practice than a cremation. Cremation is very popular in other parts of the world and is becoming increasingly popular in North America.

There are three steps that the deceased person has to go through during the cremation process. The first step is the preparation of the body, the second is the actual cremation and the final step is the processing of ashes.

1) Preparation of the Body

During the first step of the cremation process the funeral director will ask for an authorization document from the immediate family of the deceased person. Both the funeral home and a representative of the family sign this document. After the document is received, the funeral director removes items that may result in explosion or items that the family wants to keep such as jewelry. It is not essential to embalm the body before the cremation process, but if the body will be available for viewing during the memorial service, it must undergo embalming. After the body has been prepared it is placed in a wood casket. An identification tag is placed on the casket and body for proper identification of the cremated ashes.

2) Cremation

For the actual cremation process, the casket with the body of the deceased person is placed in a cremation chamber, which is also called a retort. The chamber is equipped with walls and a ceiling that are resistant to fire while the floor is crafted with a masonry compound that can survive high temperatures. After placing the body inside, the door is closed either by hand or an automated switch. The operator starts the machine, fuelled with either natural gas or propane, and allows it to warm up to a temperature ranging from 1800 to 2100 degrees Fahrenheit. The cremation process normally lasts for 1 ½ to two hours.

3) Processing the Ashes

After the cremation process, the bone fragments of the burned body of the deceased are allowed to cool down for at least 30 minutes. These fragments are then removed from the chamber and are put in a table wherein debris including screws and titanium joints are eradicated by using either the hand or a magnet. Then the bone fragments are situated in a cylindrical container that grinds the fragments into fine powder. The fine powder, also known as the ashes are deposited in a plastic bag.

The funeral home will take the plastic bag with the ashes and place them inside a cremation urn and give that to the family. What many families do not realize is that they can request the ashes in the plastic bag and purchase an urn at a later date. This gives the family more time to decide what urn they would like to purchase for the deceased person.

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Alternative Funeral Ceremonies and Burials

The passing of a loved one is never easy.  When we lose someone we care about we set about memorializing them through a service.  A church, people gathered dressed all in black, an open casket, and somber music are all typical images that come to mind when we think of a traditional funeral.  It’s a typical scene, but it is also an idea that isn’t shared by everyone.

While some see the end of life as a solemn meant to mourn a passing, others believe that it should be seen as a celebration.  Not to celebrate the end of a life, but to celebrate all that was accomplished while the person was around on this earth, and to honor them as they had lived.

Sometimes an alternative style funeral celebration may be seen as controversial or even offensive.  Often, something that goes against established traditions raises eyebrows.  At their core though, these alternative types of services have the one most important thing in common with a traditional celebration, which is to honor the passing of a cherished person.

Living Funeral

The living funeral was an idea that received popularity from the novel Tuesdays with Morrie.  The simple concept is that a person, usually one who is terminally ill or otherwise knows they have very little time left, hosts a celebration where friends and family gather to say their final farewells.

These are often held in an environment of the host’s choosing.  They also tend to be a warmer, familiar, and more relaxed occasion as people share stories, laugh, and cry, having an opportunity to say their final farewells when the person is still around to hear them.

The Motorcycle Funeral

For anybody that has been a long time rider of the two-wheeled motorized method of travel, a motorcycle becomes an integral part of their lives.  A motorcycle funeral may involve a memorial ride with surviving family, friends, and members of the deceased’s motorcycle club honoring the fallen with one last ride.

In the case of one motorcycle enthusiast, his viewing involved his body riding his motorcycle one last time.  It’s certainly strange to see, but for his closest friends and family, they wanted to see him one last time, not as he died, but as he lived.

A Green Service

The impact of losing a loved one is a tremendous event and it is certainly no less of an impact on our environment.  An article that appeared in 2008 in Scientific American referenced a study in National Geographic that highlighted the environmental impact that funerals are having.  Millions of feet of wooden boards, thousands of tons of steel, hundreds of thousands of gallons of embalming fluid, these are all being kept underground.

An eco-conscious person is not interested in leaving a lasting impression.  For them, the ideal service is a modest and reserved one.  Only the closest people would attend, working diligently to reduce the carbon footprint of the event.  A green burial often involves avoiding cremation and using a casket made of biodegradable material.  The belief here lies in the idea of returning everything to the earth from which we originally came.

Contemporary society has no shortage of ways to see the passing of our loved ones.  Some may seem strange and maybe even offensive to certain sensibilities at times.  Remember though, that for the loved ones who still remain, their choice of service reflect how they feel is best to honor and respect those that are no longer with us.

By Dennis Aimes

Dennis Aimes is a husband, father and part-time super hero. When he isn’t busy saving his wife from spiders he works as a writer and insurance advisor specializing in funeral plan insurance from GIO

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