Pre Planning Your Funeral: How to Choose a Funeral Home

Preplanning your funeral might not be how you’d like to spend a few hours of your limited time on earth. Unless pressed for time, most people put off deciding on their funeral arrangements and communicating them to their family and friends. While planning a funeral—either yours or for someone you love—can take a lot of effort, every minute you spend deciding how you’d like to pay farewell to this world reduces the grief and stress your loved ones will be going through in the future. Having a plan in place can ease the heavy burden of death and help your family and friends follow your preferences.

Preplanning a funeral in advance has multiple advantages. First and foremost, your loved ones will know if you’d like to be buried or cremated, which will prevent any possible disagreement among your family members. You can choose to make financial arrangements to save for your funeral. The funeral costs are often covered by the immediate family that might not have the required budget to follow your wishes. In addition, you can set up a meaningful and personalized ceremony to help your family grieve and celebrate your legacy. This is one of the few ways you can help your loved ones get a sense of closure and heal.

One of the biggest tasks when preplanning funeral arrangements is selecting a funeral home. There are a few tips to keep in mind when looking for the right place.

KNOW WHAT TYPE OF SERVICE YOU WANT

Before you start research funeral homes in Edmonton, ask yourself what type of service you want. Would you like to be buried, cremated, or donated to science? Are there any religious or cultural needs that you would like a funeral home to accommodate? Is there anything, in particular, you might require? A good way to start is by describing the ceremony you’d like to receive.

GET IN TOUCH WITH SEVERAL FUNERAL HOMES IN EDMONTON

Once you know what you’re looking for, pick up the phone or search funeral services in Edmonton to get a better idea of the pricing and options. A lot of people overpay for funeral services because they use a funeral home someone else did before or they simply pick the closest one without expanding their search. This is where pre-planning comes into play.

When you talk to funeral homes, ask for their price list right from the get-go before you hear the funeral service options. Typically cremation is least expensive, followed by a donation of the body to science, immediate burial, and burial being the most expensive.

DECIDE WHAT YOUR CEREMONY WILL LOOK LIKE

For most people, death is a deeply painful trauma that leaves permanent scars. Despite the feelings of loss and grief, your family might want to celebrate your life, honour your legacy, and look back to some of their favourite memories of you. When it comes to a funeral service, your options may vary from setting up an event at a funeral home, community hall, church, a retirement facility, or even a public area. Most funeral homes in Edmonton offer a celebration of life services held on-site.

Celebration of life is where you create a space for your family, friends, and loved ones to honour your life and send you off with a ceremony that speaks to you. Held along with a traditional funeral service or as a stand-alone event, the celebration of life, unlike the funeral itself, is less sombre inviting the family of the deceased to cope with their emotions. When planning a celebration of life, you can specify what features would make it personal and meaningful to you and your community. You can ask for professional assistance to help navigate the event.

The ceremonial process might include appointing a celebrant to orchestrate the event, speeches from family and friends, group activities, food and drinks, music, readings, as well as any possible details of life that celebrate the deceased.

While preplanning your funeral might be sitting at the back burner, take the time to decide how you’d like to be celebrated. Not only will it ease the pain for your family and friends and help them heal, but it will also honour a life full of experiences and milestones. A funeral service is more than grieving a death, but also celebrating what made a person’s life unique and memorable.

My family and preaching religion is my passion and the reasons to live. I like to discuss and write about all society laws, family values, family care and spiritual values.