To ask the worst funeral behaviour you've seen?

[Fishface77]

I went to a funeral today.
open coffin at home.
People were filing past the coffin to pay their respects when someone decided they wanted to get to the crem in a hurry.
Cue pushing and shoving and the coffin almost fell of the stand. Saved by the mans wife!
Also random women wailing. Seriously no
Need.

A fight. And intimidation of the mourners as they went into the crem.

At my dad's funeral, my aunt complained to my mum about my dad passing away on her wedding anniversary as "that day is ruined" for her now.
I didn't hear her say it my my mum and my Dsis were

Same aunt has got form for outrageousness at other funerals, inc her own husband's (which she does get a pass for)

DH cousin died by suicide. He was a colourful character and the funeral was eventful.
Half way through the service someone in the congregation stood up and yelled, "This is Bollox" , stormed out and slammed the door.

Then afterwards the hearse had left and we were in the carpark of the church. Two guys drove into the church and got our brandishing baseball bats. The person they were looking for jumped into his car and screeched off towards the exit. Unfortunately there was only room for one car to exit at a time and there was a queue of cars waiting. The baseball guys strolled towards the car and got in a couple of hits in before the car eventually drove out.

Nothing really 'bad' has happened at the funerals I have attended.

However, at DH's Grandad's funeral (on valentines day 😕) while DH's nan got up to sprinkle holy water on her husband's coffin her trousers fell down! All of us were trying so hard not to laugh, old Reg (the deceased) would have found it hilarious!

Sad thing is that it was quietest funeral I had ever been to as the deceased had no surviving family from his side. I also come from a large family where the men are the biggest criers so no funeral will be quiet.

At my grandfathers funeral (dad's dad). My uncles teenage stepdaughter turned up in hot pants and fishnet tights complete with thigh high leather boots. It was the only
Black clothing she owned apparently.

They (uncles wife and kids) barely knew my grandad but moaned they wouldn't sit in the funeral cars. At the tea (wake) afterwards, her and her mother get pissed and we're caught snorting cocaine in the toilets. No idea how my dad and his other brother kept their cool.

At my dads funeral . His sister made a deliberate and dramatic late entrance gasping and coughing and having people tend to her ( this behaviour was not unusual but youd have thought she would have had the decency to be on time) even my work colleagues who attended were “ who the fuck is that and whats she playing at.” It didnt wash with most of the congregation believe me.

Some of these motheroflittledragon I think I remember your thread.

My utter twat of a great aunt called my Mum an idiot (for supporting my brother and I) at my Mum’s funeral. What a great lass

SIL at MIL’s funeral. Oscar winning display of grief, howling and sobbing. Pity she never bothered with her when she was alive except when it was to tap money off her.
Then when it was over, ran back into the crematorium screaming that she couldn’t bear it. The next lot of people were already in there! The undertaker ushered her out, and on seeing my expression, said “She’s bloody hard work isn’t she?” (He does know the family, this wasn’t as inappropriate as it might seem).
At the wake, which was at MIL’s church, and had been beautifully catered by members of the congregation, made a big show of shifting a load of food away and plonking down three enormous quiches that she’s made. Trouble is, she’s a lousy cook - they went practically untouched.
Then had to be kicked out of the house as she was insisting on clearing it that day.

I feel very uncomfortable judging people's 'howling' - let them deal with things in their own way,it's not a competition.

My aunt wore a loud white and fuchsia dress to her mother's (my nan's funeral). She's bought it for the funeral so it wasn't a case of her not having anything else to wesr. There was no tacit agreement not to wear black so it just looked off.

Then she spent the entire wake separate from everyone else getting pissed with her immediate family and alcoholic mates. Didn't mingle with anyone or thank them for coming.

One of my best friends was at her dads funeral. Her dads girlfriend felt this was a good time to get drunk and tell her in detail about their amazing and experimental sex lite.

I’m wondering if anyone has or will post about me now.

I went to dh’s grandads funeral and completely broke down sobbing in the church and I hardly knew the man. I got a few strange looks from his distant family. But what thy didn’t know was I was 3 months pregnant, very emotional and had been to my ex mil (who I loved dearly) funeral the day before. I just couldn’t cope with seeing my mil and sil’s so upset.

Damediazepam, I’ll judge a woman’s crocodile tears, when she’d seen her mother twice in the months she was ill, and both times had her in tears within ten minutes, and who was financially and physically abusive to her mother. The only good thing about MIL’s death was that it removed any reason to ever set eyes on SIL again.

My sister left during our mum's wake without telling anyone because she was finding it hard talking to the guests. Yeah, cos DF and I were fucking loving it

In another country, my dad's cousin died. His wife got a call from the hearse company asking if she could get the (full) coffin to the nearest roundabout by herself, as parking at her place (where the coffin was) was tricky

Some of these are awful but people can do very odd things when feeling emotional.

The most recent one I attended involved arguments about who would sit in the cars. They were short two seats so sister and I said we'd make our own way there. No fuss. Got called stupid and that I was being "disgusting" for thinking I was too good to sit with the other grievers. :( I was just trying to make things easier.

Then when we got there people barged past me to sit at the front which caused a bit of upset for some family members but again I didn't mind if someone "less related" sat in front of me. I didn't say anything just sat down behind them. Afterwards I was told I shouldn't have gone if I didn't want to be there and my behaviour was "sickening". :( I've been racking my brains about what I actually did apart from let people sit down without saying anything.

Then there were arguments about the colour of the balloons for the balloon release. But worse the balloons had the deceased favourate saying on which was quite crass and had dome offensive words in it so although the sentiment was sweet, it really was inappropriate and people refused to take part.

I had to travel accross the country to attend. Husband had never met the deceased and I didn't mind him not going and child care would have been tough so I went by myself. Apparently husband was disrespectful.

I was shocked at BIL at FIL's funeral. The service and burial passed without incident but at the wake BIL got pissed and said he was glad the old bastard was dead because he had been a violent arsehole. That may have been true but I was really shocked he would say it at the wake. That's quite mild though compared to some of these horror stories.

NotToday
My cousins wife cried at my stepdads funeral. She really hardly knew him. I didn’t judge her. No one else did either. Really shouldn’t worry about it. Sobbing uncontrollably is fine. Making a spectacle of yourself and demanding an audience when you aren't a close relative of the deceased is not.

In the church someone climbed from the back to the front over the pews. Over about 9 pews. I was agog. It was a distant relative of my OH. Also my OH was the only man in a suit who wasn’t an undertaker. The men were all in leather jackets and a few in hoodies. I think the climbing over the pews was my favourite thing.

Two old biddies from the local church turned up at my MIL's house to the wake, claiming that they were paying respects to their "dear friend" but were only really there for a feed at the buffet and a nosey around the house. At the same wake, a cousin read off an actual list she had written to DH of items she would like from the house. Neither cousin nor biddies had come anywhere near MIL when she was alive and could have done with a visit or even a phone call. And to cap it off, the cousin's list sent SIL into a panic, so she started laying claim to stuff as well. Classy. Mind you, she was the one looking up house prices in the road not even 12 hours after MIL died (honestly, she must have been on RightMove at about 3am) so I'm not sure why I was surprised.

Funerals do funny things to people.

I had a friend at school who was obsessed with attending funerals, and would go to ones where she had the most tenuous link to the deceased. She never acted strangely at the ones I attended that she was also present at, but she just shouldn't have been there for a lot of them. It's just distasteful to revel in other people's genuine misery.

DH had been NC with his father for many years (due to MiL) but that's another essay. They got back in touch and had a cordial relationship. His father had remarried and there were now a number of step-siblings for my DH, some of whom we met. I got on well with both FiL and step-MiL.

SMiL died quite suddenly, so obviously DH went to the funeral some 300 miles away. Our DDs were very young then (2 and 4) so I organised nice flowers and sent my apologies which were accepted. The funeral went ok but FiL was very late to the wake which DH was puzzled about. It was only a couple of days later that he found out what had happened. SMiL had made a will which included DH and treated him equally with her own family (but ignored his handicapped brother). FiL had no will so under the rules of intestacy, the step-siblings would now get nothing. They came out of the church and went straight over to the solicitor's office to get him to make a will. The solicitor saw through it, declared that he was not of sound mind and would not act.

When FiL died a few months later, he still had no will. The husband of DH's step-sister was on the phone nearly every day saying "I hope you'll see us right", disregarding the fact that my DH had almost died 6 weeks earlier and was not really able to do much. At FiL's funeral, he made this great big play of how close he was blah blah, we were all one family, but as soon as DH handed over a token sum to cover their expenses in looking after FiL, we never heard from them again.

My exMIL could never miss any funeral, no matter how little she knew the deceased, and generally used them purely to draw attention to herself. So at the one for her late DH's old RAF mate she was appalled to find that, while the church service was open to all, the committal was strictly family only. She began by hectoring about going with "it's what DH would have wanted" and when they still gently refused, started actually crying and stamping in rage. To avoid an even worse scene they gave in, only to see the tears magically dry up and the demands start about attending the ash scattering too

Knowing her behaviour, her village community kept the news of a resident's death to themselves so she only found out there'd been a funeral afterwards. So enraged was she by missing this - once again for someone she barely knew - that she sent a poisonous letter to the widow in protest

No alzheimers or MH issues, BTW ... just a deeply unpleasant woman who couldn't cope with the word "no"

DS utterly disgraced himself at my aunt's funeral. To be fair, he was only 4 months old at the time. Had to take him with me as he was EBF at the time.

I'd not long fed him so he was sleepy and 'behaved' perfectly throughout the service. The minute there was complete silence was the moment he chose to let out the loudest, most horrendous burp I've ever heard from a small baby. It echoed around the chapel.

My family were pissing themselves. Aunt's adult stepchildren glared daggers at DS who just grinned and dribbled back at them.

Aunt absolutely loved babies and would've roared with laughter...

I always cry at funerals. They're bloody sad. It's a very strange British quirk that it's considered bad form to cry at the saddest occasion there is.