Has anyone ever been to a “bad0 funeral

[Iamnotagoddess]

Discussing with a friend who is supporting another friend who has had a close relative die suddenly.

Didn’t want to go to Co-Op felt it was too “cheap” and have gone elsewhere and are spending 8k.

She cannot afford it.

Does it actually make any difference?

I can’t remember going to a funeral and thinking the funeral was shit other than the obvious actual shitness of it.

Don’t the Irish love Funeral?

Is there anything the Irish don't love? Been to loads of funerals and it's a party for the Irish. DS was taken into PICU very ill once and the woman whose son was in the next bay introduced herself and said it was a pity that my ds wasn't brought in the day before as there had been a 'great atmosphere' the night before

The thing that makes a funeral good is not the cost of the coffin or the number of hearses and massive flower arrangements. It's the celebration of the life lived. Best I ever went to was so full of love for the person who had died far too young it felt almost like a wedding. Everyone was buzzing with how lovely she was, what she brought to the family, to her marriage, her children, her friends, her community. Her favourite music was played at the start of the service, a brilliant and funny anecdote about her from her final days alive was told by her sister. Songs and poems had been written about her - they were read and sung. It felt like she was there. The kind of party she'd have thrown. None of that was to do with the cost of the service but the effort put in by those who loved her to commemorate her.

Bit of an odd one as i do not want a funeral or grave and neither do several members of the family. I've never been to one that was anything other than a bit awkward and contrived to be honest, and personally find a number of aspects of traditional funerals somewhat morbid and generally cannot see the point in them personally, though it goes without saying that i am fully aware of and respect that for many it is a vital and meaningful part of the grieving process.

No idea who we used but the worst funeral i attended was my grandmothers, having to sit there and listen to the christian celebrant go on about a woman he had never even met's dedication to the church and how happy she lived a life praising god etc, instead of anything about the wonderful thoughtful women she was who took pride in a great many things including her family ( which he reduced down to a couple of sentences)- really grated. Honestly it could have been anybody's funeral. She had a very vague christian faith but was lapsed, did not attend church and it formed no part of her daily life so the whole thing was bizarre.

I wrote to say thank you after the day as we’d had so many compliments.

I'm glad you did that EssexGurl - it really makes a difference. I've had cards and telephone calls (I give the family my number in case they need to change anything) saying "Thank you" - and it is wonderful for me, because then I know that I've made their grief a little easier to bear. To send one to the funeral director is also a lovely thing to do.

friends coffin started ringing.

Which joker phoned him?? 😂

@DontDribbleOnTheCarpet Oh dear that is bad.

We shall sadly never find out Soup

I have been to very basic funerals - minimal coffin, minimal flowers - just the one on top of the coffin & cremation, which have been excellent because the eulogy has been well thought out and well presented - the key here is to brief the celebrant thoroughly and maybe write it yourselves so it IS accurate and the spokesperson can say it truthfully knowing it is correct, because it does work. Followed by tea, sandwiches and cake all home-made back at a village hall local to the relative, all lovingly made by the WI, who know the deceased very well. Each table had been individually decorated with a different 'favourite photo' of the deceased and a short 'my memories of xxx' accompanying a floral display including favourite flowers. It got everyone circulating and talking, was lovely and warm , and still, 20+ years on is probably the best I've been to.

I have also been to one hideous one in particular that must have cost thousands, horse drawn hearse, religious when I'm certain the deceased was agnostic at the very most f not atheist and never to my knowledge went to church, masses of flowers etc, but a very poor eulogy, you could tell the celebrant had only done very basic homework and hadn't a clue about the deceased. Followed by a wake in a cold but posh mansion with posh finger food and nothing like the down-to-earth deceased would have wanted IMHO.

Plentiful sausage rolls is all you need for a memorable funeral. Good idea to hold some back because the moochers will dive in first and eat them all.

I don’t think the cost is relevant to how ‘good’ it is. We have a local firm here who do things much cheaper than the Co-op yet my FiL’s recent funeral was lovely and the staff were amazing

The worst funeral I’ve ever been too was when the undertakers squeezed too many jobs in on the one day. They needed their cars elsewhere and practically chased the family out of the crematorium and into the car to drop them off

They also forgot the order of service booklets and forgot one of the floral tributes. They weren’t cheap either!

Do you have to have a celebrant talk? Can a relative do that?

Cardboard coffins are not cheap! They have to be reinforced to contain a body and so aren't like a cardboard box at all.

The Co-op and Dignity were both significantly more expensive than the independent firms we got quotes from, for exactly the same things.

My family suffered 7 deaths in not quite 3 years so I consider myself a bit of a 'hand' at funeral (and there've been a few more since that period). I was only aware of one of them being a Co-op funeral and it was no different from any of the others from the pov of those attending. Obviously, the more money lavished on a funeral the more luxurious it may seem, but basically, the church or crematorium will be the same no matter who's hiring their space.

If you hire the church hall it will be the church hall whether Prince Charles hires it or that woman down the road with barely two pennies to rub together. Charlie will have professional decorators and lavish caterers.

There are no bad funerals. They are all shit. And nobody cares who you're paying your money to.

I'm Irish so have only even been to excellent funerals.

My Mum's was fantastic - funeral home did an excellent job, but we didn't offer the option to visit her at the funeral home because I felt that was a bit grim, instead we had an open coffin at the catered reception at home before the funeral, then walked behind the hearse to the church down the road, then off in the cars to the rural graveyard and a full sit-down lunch at a local hotel.

Hundreds of people at the graveyard (well known family locally) but only 50 to lunch, then funeral cars stuck around (we gave the chauffeurs lunch too obv!) to take the mourning party back to the city.

To my mind, what makes a great funeral is the food and drink you lay on.

A burial is a burial is a burial. Not much you can do about that. You also want a nice priest (or whatever) who either knows the deceased or can be properly briefed before the mass. But the big variable is how good a party you put on after with plenty of food and proper management of the drink.

the key here is to brief the celebrant thoroughly and maybe write it yourselves so it IS accurate and the spokesperson can say it truthfully knowing it is correct,

HUGE second. This is the kind of thing that makes an impact (good or bad), not the price of the coffin.

a cardboard box is fine since nobody will be going above me (husband will get something more solid if he dies first, so the gravedigger doesn't get a nasty shock!).

I laughed at this because it reminded me of a dear friend. (As it happened he was an ordained priest but worked in the community - didn't have his own parish). Anyway - his father died and he went off to Scotland for the funeral, sorting out the effects etc- was away a couple of weeks in all.

When he came back I said "Lovely to see you back, Struan (not real name). I was so sorry hear about your dad. Are you ok?"

He said "I'm fine - an' it's nae me ye need tae feel sorry for- it's ma puir Mither."

"Your mother? I thought she'd died some time ago."

"Aye - she did. And now she's stuck fae all eternity wi' that miserable, whey-faced, driech auld bugger an tap on her. He had hissel put in the same grave."

Apparently his father had been an unpleasant bully when he was alive - had made the lives of his wife and three sons a misery - and Struan doubted that he'd changed now he was dead.

It was a thing with my grandma who buried you - there must have been a pecking order in town so if you had A you were someone, B you were poor. Like Waitrose v Asda v Lidl. When my friend died in the waiting room at the crematorium there were cards from all the directors and my mum commented on similar lines oh you were posh if you had x, different small town. I couldn’t tell you which funeral directors my friend had or any other funeral I’ve been to.

Honeyroar Yes you would know that it is the co-op because the have there details written( 2 inch high print) on the side of the hearse just under the glass

My ex MIL wanted nobody at her funeral accept her kids and their spouses. She wasn't religious and wanted two songs played. So it was just the 4 of us, each with a flower in our hand, feeling uncomfortable in the silence between the songs. It was awkward and uncomfortable. As long as there are some people there and someone giving a goodbye speach, it's a success in my experience.

My exMIL didn’t go to exFIL’s funeral as she was unwell. The priest went to great lengths to say how sad it was that Olive was unable to be there. He said this several times. The only trouble was her name was Ivy. Still, I suppose they are both plants of some description. 😂

I also don't think co-op funerals are cheap.

@callmeadoctor No you don't need a celebrant. But you do need someone who won't be too upset on the day to do it.
You also don't need a hearse, you could transport the body in a van.

My mother has planned her funeral service and paid for it, she has insisted that the undertaker makes sure that there are no mourners, myself included and that he's not to tell me the date.

Lovely post from @milliefiori

Ive been to many funerals and therefore some awful ones. All due to either the poor preparation of the celebrant or the poor behaviour of the family.

Worse ones were

The funeral where the family didn't accept the deceased’s marriage so told the vicar not to mention their spouse, even when they were sitting in the front row. None of the mourners spoke to the widow and she was told not to attend the wake. The funeral director had to escort her out of the church for her own safely as family members were so aggressive.

Another where the eulogy was given by a very esteemed high court judge - who talked about about how they met at uni, about the deceased’s work and career, their best known cases. But forgot ( i assume ) to mention his friends, family and his wife and three children who were there. He said with great admiration that when the deceased was terminally ill in hospital, he was still working on cases rather than spending time with his family.

The highly religious funeral of the devoutly atheist colleague . Even the priest felt uncomfortable as he kept mentioning that the man had converted on his death bed. Which would have hard as he was in ITU on life support.

The funeral of a teenager where the bereaved mother got up to give the eulogy. After one paragraph, the celebrant tapped her on the shoulder and told her to sit down because they had run out of time.