Say Good Bye With Confidence: Funerals and Funeral Homes

Cremation services at a funeral home are just as important as traditional funerals. Make the event more memorable with the following ideas that are easy to incorporate. 

Build a memory wall with photos. 

Ask the funeral home if you can arrange a cork-board on one of the walls at the event where you and the funeral service guests can pin photos. This memory "wall" can be a nice gathering place for visitors where they can stop in, share their memories, and grieve together. Simply let guests know in advance to bring along their personal photos. After the service, guests can retrieve their photos from the board or leave them for the closest relative to keep. 

Allow loved ones to take part of the ashes with them. 

If you are not going to be spreading or burying the ashes and you don't mind sharing the cremains with others, it is a nice gesture to allow each loved one to take a small bit of the cremains with them when they leave the service. In the modern-day, many people use small bits of cremains to make jewelry or to encapsulate in a small piece of cremation jewelry. You can supply small, inexpensive capsules and the funeral home can help you prepare them. 

Encourage guests to share their memories. 

Allow the guests at the funeral to get up and share their memories with the crowd or to drop little notes about favorite memories in a memory jar situated at the funeral home so someone else can share them. Having everyone share what they remember about the departed loved one helps to bring the guests together during a time when a sense of family is really important. You could post a sign by the jar that requests memories of: 

• How the departed showed their care or compassion 
• A funny memory about the loved one
• A special thing the departed person said  

Invite guests to ash-casting ceremonies. 

If your loved one preferred to have their ashes spread in a certain place, invite the people at the service to attend the ash-casting at the predetermined location. For example, if your loved one wanted their ashes spread out on their private property, you could let the guests know at the funeral that they are invited to attend that ceremony. Many people do ash-casting ceremonies in lieu of the traditional graveside service; therefore, the ash-casting may take place immediately after the funeral. Have other questions about cremation services? You might try visiting sites like American Cremation Society (Ridgemoor Chapels) to get an idea of what the cremation process.