Two tips for those planning a funeral for the first time

If you will soon be planning a funeral for the first time, here are some tips that you might find helpful.

Order the headstone from the funeral home at the start of the planning process.

During your first visit to the funeral home, you should select and pay for the headstone that you want to have installed on your loved one's grave. The reason for this is as follows; even very simple headstones can take a few weeks to create and install. If you order one with a lengthy inscription or a particularly complex and ornate engraving or sculpture, it could take more than a month for this item to be made.

As such, if you postpone the selection of this item, it may not be ready in time for the burial process and in fact, the grave may be left with no headstone for a few weeks after your loved one's funeral. Given this, if you want to ensure that the headstone is present at the time of the burial, it is important to make this decision quickly, when you go for your first appointment at the funeral home.

Ask the funeral home staff to advise you regarding specific cultural funeral customs.

The way in which people choose to honour and say goodbye to their deceased loved ones can vary greatly, depending on what type of cultural background they come from. If the deceased person whose funeral you are planning came from a different cultural background to you and you are not very familiar with the funeral customs traditionally performed by those from this culture, then it is best to ask the funeral home staff for advice.

If the funeral home has been in operation for more than a few years, it is very likely that its employees will have experience with arranging a wide variety of funerals. As such, these professionals should be able to offer specific advice on which rituals or traditions are typically observed by those who come from the same cultural background as the deceased.

Allowing the staff members to help you will not only take the guesswork out of this process but will also ensure that the funeral you arrange for your loved one is respectful of their culture and honours the beliefs that they held. It will also ensure that you do not become so focused on this (potentially very complex) aspect of the arrangements that you overlook or do a poor job of taking care of other elements of the planning process.