The 4 Biggest Mistakes People Make When Planning A Funeral

Planning a funeral can be a stressful experience — one often compounded by the grief that comes with losing a loved one.

So when you couple that grief with the fact that most people know very little about planning funerals, it’s no surprise that mistakes are made during this difficult process.

Since starting Funeralocity — and by extension helping families compare all funeral homes and cremation providers in their area — I’ve learned that while mistakes can be easily made, they are also easily avoidable.

Here are a few of the most common funeral planning mistakes — and how to avoid them.

1. Feeling rushed and panicking about funeral timing

The most common planning mistake I’ve seen families and friends make is succumbing to the panic of feeling rushed.

People can feel rushed when planning a funeral for any number of reasons. Perhaps you feel that the funeral director is pressing you to make quick decisions, or you have family flying in from across the country. Maybe you simply feel that moving quickly is important for honoring the loved one you’ve lost.

Feeling stressed by these pressures is understandable, but the truth is planning a funeral requires time and careful consideration.

If you’re the one in charge, before making final, potentially controversial decisions, you’ll likely need to get some familial consensus. You need to explore all of the options and ensure you’re considering the wishes of the deceased. These things take time. Even an extra day in planning can make all the difference.

So, if you feel yourself starting to panic about timing, remember this: there is no deadline except the one you set.

2. Not exploring all your options — cost, services, and funeral arrangements

Not all funeral homes or services are created equal. Despite this, many folks, when planning their first funeral, don’t explore all of the options at their disposal. As a result, they end up settling either for a perfunctory experience or for one that compromises in some way.

This is a mistake people often make because they feel rushed, but there’s another complicating factor: many people don’t know how to assess all the funeral planning options at their disposal. Driving all around the city looking at the dozens of funeral homes is both daunting and impractical. At the same time, people resist going from website to website trying to compare their alternatives.

That’s why my team and I built Funeralocity, the first-third party comparison website of funeral homes and cremation providers in your area — featuring information on services, prices, photos and more — so you can decide for yourself which home or service will provide your family the experience you want and that the deceased deserves.

But whether you use services like Funeralocity or not, this truth remains: take your time in finding the service options that prove most comfortable for you and your family. Otherwise, you risk sacrificing something you’ll later regret.

3. Not setting a budget

Another mistake first-time funeral planners make is forgetting to set a budget. Funerals can be very expensive.

Of course, there are a number of possible factors to consider. Your family might not want to spend a lot of money on the funeral. The deceased might have wished for something inexpensive, or they might have set aside money before they passed away to make the planning process easier for those they left behind — something we call pre-need planning.

For these reasons, this stage of the process is going to look different for everyone. But whatever your unique situation, it’s important that you know both how much you have to spend as well as what kind of experience you want to create. Pricing options differ from service to service, and knowing your budget will prove critical in determining which homes you can reliably partner with, what sort of memorial service you can provide for, and whether or not you might be able to purchase things like an extra car or viewing hour.

4. Forgetting that the funeral isn’t just for the deceased — it’s for the living, too

More than anything else, funerals serve as opportunities for those left behind to congregate, remember, pay respects, find closure, and move on.

In this way, funerals serve much more to comfort the living than they do the dead.

This is important to remember when planning a funeral because it lends a certain perspective: the expense of planning — as well as the time and effort it takes to do it right — can ultimately prove worthwhile if the experience provides a proper memorial to the deceased and comfort to the grieving.