Your life is unique, and your end-of-life celebration should reflect who you are. Let’s look at how you can preplan a funeral for yourself or a loved one who would like your help thinking through this emotionally challenging task. If you’re ready to make a plan now, visit our Online Funeral Planner to make these difficult decisions now so that your family won’t have to make them later.
Your Style
You can choose to get as detailed as you like planning for your life’s celebration. For example, you can select the flowers, the venue, the type of casket or urn, and more. You can even write your own obituary.
Most funeral homes will work extensively to help you plan ahead and ensure every detail is in place. Some ideas to plan for ahead of time include:
Types of Flowers, Music, and Venues
- Yellow roses and white tablecloths at an intimate dinner in the town where you grew up?
- Geraniums interspersed with evergreen sprigs in the local funeral home chapel?
- Classical music performed by a chamber band in a backyard garden?
- John Denver playing softly in the background at a reception in the VFW hall?
Pictures & Mementos
- Which images of you would you like displayed? Pictures of you as a young person?
- Your family? Spouse? Children? Which friends?
- Pictures or mementos of your hobbies, favorite movies, or what you loved to do interspersed together on tables?
Type of Handouts & Remembrance Tokens
- An organized and glossy spread handout with a lengthy write-up about your life and career?
- A printed bulletin focusing on your loved ones, your beliefs, and thoughts?
- A simple sheet of paper with your obituary printed on it?
- Silicone wristbands with your name and dates?
- An engraved teacup or embroidered handkerchief?
Flowers & Donations
- Encourage guests to give flowers?
- Make no mention of preferences?
- Gifts to a favorite charity or religious organization in lieu of flowers?
Memorial Service or Funeral Service?
A memorial service often happens several weeks after a person passes away, while a funeral is typically within a week. At a funeral, often the body is present and there is a graveside service afterward. With a memorial service, there is often an urn or an ash scattering ceremony. There are different ways of planning depending on your preferences and what works well for your family.
You can make plans now, knowing that your funeral home will keep them safe for when the day comes.
Your Spiritual Beliefs
Our spiritual beliefs guide our morals, our life desires, and our upbringing as a child. Our culture intertwines with our religious beliefs to create a large part of our identity. Some religious beliefs even determine what type of interment you choose: cremation or burial.
If your spiritual beliefs are important to you, go ahead and incorporate them into your funeral plans now. Represent your spirituality at your remembrance. Some ideas include:
- Catholic funeral in a mass service with a priest and communion
- A simple gathering of friends and family with testimonies by your loved ones without any spiritual context
- Your protestant Christian minister brings an inspiring message
- Buddhist meditation and chants
- Religious observance of Mother Earth with a green burial
- Hindu funeral with white clothing, candles, and a cremation ceremony
- Jewish ceremony with a Rabbi attending and presiding over the service
Your Choice of Burial
In our time, you have choices about the handling of your body after you die. Even the choice of embalmment is up to you. In a green burial, bodies are often not embalmed. However, sometimes there are safer organic compounds that you can choose for embalmment with green burial.
Your many different options include:
- A green burial at a green cemetery with a biodegradable casket and no embalmment of the body
- Cremation with a scattering of ashes or interment of ashes in urn or mausoleum
- Traditional burial with a casket and underground vault
- Traditional burial in a mausoleum or similar structure
You can also choose to give organs or tissues if possible when you pass away. You can benefit others and give life to those who may not survive with this kind of gift. In addition, you can give your body to science for study and work out with a University what they will do with your body post-study.
Get Started
Making plans for end-of-life is a beautiful gift to your loved ones. Planning gives your family room to breathe, celebrate your life, and begin the healing process. They don’t have to wonder or question what you would have wanted for your end-of-life celebration. Instead, your loved ones can genuinely take the time to remember you and your relationship with them. They can ponder the meaning of your life and their own and be amazed at the gift of life we share.
We Can Help
If you want to get started planning, check out Renaissance Funeral Home. We have a beautiful full-service funeral home that includes an on-site cremation tribute center. You can create your Online Funeral Plan and find caskets, flowers, types of services, and more. Your online plan covers your most important considerations, and we contact you for further details. The best part about making a plan is that you can make changes to your plan at any time.
We are a resource for you and your family as you plan for the future together. Contact us with any questions or guidance. We know it is difficult to think about planning for end-of-life, and we want to help.
