If a loved one has passed away and left a unique funeral request, you might be wondering exactly how to go about making sure you are preparing in the right way. This is very understandable, especially if you are only familiar with traditional funeral services. According to industry experts, these are some of the best ways to make sure the whole family is properly prepared.
Use Pre-Services
This refers to paying for services in advance before the loved one has passed. Some people pay years in advance because funeral homes generally offer savings if you are willing to lock in the purchase early. This also actually gives you the ability to plan ahead and make sure that the funeral request is actually possible in the first place. Even services at a funeral home can be customized and made to have a non-traditional feel; you can have people share memories, play songs meaningful to the person, or ask people to wear certain colors or apparel.
Make Sure You Understand the Decision
A specially designed funeral will generally require more expensive and in-depth planning than a traditional one. For instance, if the loved one wants the funeral to take place in a park or at the beach, then you may need to get special permits since it is in a public place. If you have just found out about the special requests, then it will most likely take longer than a typical funeral. You should also know that once the plans are set into motion, it can be quite difficult to change your mind and go back to a traditional ceremony. These are all factors that need to be considered before making everything official.
Investigate Legality
Of course, there may be requests that simply cannot be done because it would not be legal to do so. It is wise to never assume that something is legal or illegal due to its nature, so make sure to check with the funeral director at the beginning stages of planning. Believe it or not, some areas of the country even allow people to be buried in their favorite park or at home, so if this is something that has been requested, it would be a smart idea to check into if it can be done or not.
Keep Personal Opinions Out of It
It is very important to remind the rest of the family that no matter how abstract the funeral arrangements seem to them, this is about the final requests of a beloved family member, so doing right by them is what all of this planning should be about. With the Internet, people are discovering and being inspired by all sorts of ideas that simply didn’t exist years ago.
It is very important to work directly with a funeral home and director for the planning of final arrangements. In fact, in some places, this might even be the law, especially if specialized burial locations are on the list of requests. An experienced funeral director will have many local connections that can ease the fulfillment of your loved one’s final arrangements. They might also be able to get you better pricing for certain services than if you were to try and get them on your own.
