To hate that funerals take place weeks after the death?

For info, you can actually book the funeral before you have a death certificate, but you must have the certificate before the funeral can take place.

That depends on where you are. Where DH's Granny lives the funeral directors won't commit to a date until you have a death certificate because the registrars are notorious for taking an age to give an appointment (and often for re-arranging the date once you've made it)

We had to wait 6 weeks after my nephews :(

My ex-H had an unattended cremation in 2019. He had originally wanted to donate his body to medical science, but his weight was too low by the time he died, so they wouldn't take him. He was terminally ill, so I was able to check on that for him beforehand. About a week after the cremation, we had a drink for him locally and invited his friends and family. No food as he said it would make it seem too much like a wake and he definitely didn't want that! It went really well and so much less stress than having to attend a funeral. As a result, I went ahead and booked an unattended cremation for myself, so that my adult DC don't have to attend a funeral for me. I had to go to so many funerals growing up that I definitely didn't want that for my DC, and they didn't want it either!

For info, you can actually book the funeral before you have a death certificate, but you must have the certificate before the funeral can take place.

I’m sorry to hear that. I managed to book a funeral for 10 days after a relative died. Maybe I was just lucky, as she had no prior plan, but I phoned our local family-owned undertakers. They recommended the florist next door. It was March, which is pretty quiet for weddings, so the vicar was free. The main details were all organised the day after she died, which is how it should be.

My family is Jewish and funerals happen super fast, as a sign of respect. Personally, while non religious, I still prefer this as it seems better to say Goodbye and help with the grieving process.

Huh?

It's usually either the crematorium or cemetery grave diggers that cause the delays in many places, especially the crems - there simply aren't enough slots

I also don't understand why it takes so long for the funeral to take place. Earlier this year it took 5 weeks and I don't understand why. Under hospice care, death certificate took a week but funeral date was arranged within 2 days. I think that the delay could be with the funeral directors.

I've not a clue ?

It does not help that some registry offices still operate in covid times. Before, you turned up with the paperwork between the opening hours then either got the DC there or picked it up the following day.

I'm so very sorry for your loss @TealSwan

As someone with Indian friends and married to an Irish partner I sit in the middle ground here. Absolutely 8 weeks is ridiculous, but then I struggle to understand how those that have the funeral 24 or 48 hours after a death (or even really that week) manage. Especially when nowadays people live far away, often in other countries, and have pressures of work and family, etc. When families lived together or at least close and a village might be your ‘wider’ community, doing it that close was fine, but nowadays it feels like an enormous pressure. And that’s not considering how you cope emotionally- getting over the shock, having to deal with the arrangements, with lots of people descending on you and doing things like writing eulogies and choosing music etc etc.
Two to three weeks sounds perfect. Less or more is hard.

I’m afraid I’ve never found it therapeutic, just long, drawn out agony until it’s finally over. After my mother in laws funeral I said to my husband why on earth do we put ourselves through this, it’s just horrible. I’m tempted towards direct cremation although I’m unsure how other family members would feel about that.
For myself I’m really not bothered what happens, I won’t be there! Well, I will but you know what I mean !

Sorry, but you're still not explaining it. You've said you can arrange a funeral within say, three days if a person is e.g Jewish. Why can't a Catholic, or Church of England or someone of no faith get the same service? What is so different that means someone of a different religion or none has to wait a month? What is the delay in that system?

Round here if you are Catholic your funeral can be done very quickly. Once you get the death certificate, which takes the same time for any faith here, the time until funeral depends entirely on availability of the next bits.

Crematorium - 4/6 weeks because there's just not enough available slots.

Humanist or registrar service with burial - usually 2/3 weeks depending on gravediggers (longer if you want a registrar celebrant on a Friday in wedding season).

CofE- usually within 2 weeks of being buried in the churchyard. Longer if being buried in the cock cemetery.

Catholic - 2/3 days because they have gravediggers on standby and the priest will fit in a funeral asap.

@Dancingintherainxxx

multiple factors, can take 2-3 days to get the medical certificate, then you need to register the death which may mean travelling to do so only then can you book the funeral and cremations get Booked up. However if you are willing to have it at 9am or 5pm especially midweek you can get a slot much quicker than Friday lunchtime because everyone wants that.

YANBU, it should be no more than a week provided there aren't suspicious circumstances that mean the body needs to be held longer. I'd also introduce a version of the old Roman law that funerals have to take place at night.

It's so terrible how long it takes in the UK! Why is that ?

In Ireland it's max a week !

My mum passed away with cancer on may 7th it's not her funeral until June 17th.😭😭

When my dad died in 2022, we knew exactly what we wanted, where and who was taking the service. He died early on a Tuesday and we buried him 2 weeks later on the Thursday.
We met the funeral director the day after he died ; DSM already had the interim death certificate and the FD took it to forward to the council. Registration was over the phone but they don't do appointments; instead they just give you a call so we had to allow time for that to happen. The FD guided us as to what week we needed to go for in terms of registration, getting the grave dug, etc. We ended up with the Thursday due to a grandchild with an exam, the minister's availability and the availability of the village hall which we wanted to the funeral tea. There was no one factor on its own which led to the time gap between my dad's death and his funeral.

I left the funeral industry 6 years ago and since then, at least 5 new crematoria have opened in Scotland plus one existing one has added a third service room. I can think of several more crematoria which opened in the years I worked in the industry.

It's more than undertakers.

It's crematorium/church slots.

It's availability of vicars/celebrants.

Availability of a suitable venue for the after drinks/snacks.

Delays in the post mortem

Delays issuing death certificate

Delays registering the death

Delays getting the burial/cremation approval form.

Even delays with grave diggers.

Ever increasing population, but no new crematoriums being built, no additional resources re all the formalities, etc.

Are there fewer undertakers or something?
When my parents went, a few year ago now admittedly, it was one week and I felt that was long.
My friends Dad died recently and it was 3 weeks which I though was hellish, just prolonging everything before you can start to think about healing. From this thread it seems they were lucky. They had a lair in the cemetery, apparently it would have been much longer for a cremation.

@squishee - I suspect that, if a post mortem is needed, there will be a dispensation for the funeral to take place later. A lot of deaths won't require a post mortem.

It's 3-4 days here the in the US, too. I think it would be so hard when you were at the point of it being a month or 6 weeks later and you'd already kind of started to live with it, and gotten used to the person being gone, and then you get thrown back into it by having the funeral then.

I've often wondered how this is even possible. Can someone explain?