To ask what you wish you’d done (or not done) when planning a funeral?

[Canyoudigityesyoucan]

I am planning a funeral for the first time for an elderly grandparent.

I would appreciate any advice on what you wish you’d done when arranging a funeral or what you wish you hadn’t done. It’s overwhelming to know where to start, and I want to do it right.

Make sure you are comfortable with your choice of celebrant. We had three funerals fairly close to each other and when the celebrant came to see us we just knew he was right. He was warm and kind, he listened to our stories and had a gentle sense of humour.
He sat back and had a cup of tea while we showed him a few photos of our loved one and he made a lot of notes.
I was also giving a eulogy and he asked me to send over what I had written to say so that he could check what he was going to say against it.
The eulogy he delivered was spot on.
The last of the funerals was on a day he was already booked for and it was so different. The women might as well have been reading a shopping list. It was like chalk and cheese. I felt I had not done my best.

My aunty died suddenly in her 50s and her husband, lost in grief, just agreed to have a vicar do the service.
My aunty hadn't been to church in her entire adult life and thought religion was "a load of rubbish". Vicar droned on for hours about what "we believe". None of her family believed anything of the sort. It just wasn't about her at all.

By contrast, my dad's funeral was led by someone who knew him, all the music was chosen by his wife - and we all sang along - and we had a do at the local pub with a band he had liked. We ended the day dancing away to this band and feeling that he would have loved every minute.

I wish we had checked which tune the organist would play for one of the hymns, no-one knew the one he chose!
I wish we had chosen a better venue for the wake, although it was conveniently near the church.
Things that I think we did well: involving all grandchildren, young men as coffin bearers, young women read poems during service and at grave (it was a burial).
I wrote the eulogy myself and the priest read it, so it said exactly what we wanted it to say.
We printed out a selection of family members' memories of the relative and put them on tables at the wake, a lot of guests read them.

Thank you everyone for your really brilliant advice.

This entire process is made so much harder because I’m over 200 miles away from where my Nan lived and having spent three days there last week whilst she was in hospice and eventually passed away, I’m limited on the amount of times I can return for meetings with funeral directors and celebrants as I have to come back to where I live for work and family commitments.

Ive already spent half the week trying to get the dreaded green form and actually have Nanna collected and brought to the right home. The admin in death is insane!

However we have picked a funeral director who seem brilliant, and over a lunch as a family went through and agreed some rough ideas: a cremation, no funeral cars, flowers in lieu of donations (she loved flowers) and a simple wake in the local pub.

The bits which will need more work are things like what will she wear for her cremation, what goes in the coffin, making sure her hair and nails are done by the funeral directors properly (with photos for reference!) what photos we use for order of service, what poems or readings we do. The guest list is tricky too- my Grandad is 92 and now a widow, he is not in the right frame of mind to call her friends and acquaintances so I need to sit with her diary and do some calling! I’m not sure a WhatsApp invite will cut it!

There’s still so many big decisions like this now and it’s so much harder to do over phone. I am hoping we can organise a zoom call where I can meet the celebrant with my Grandad and be be useful.

But it’s not even a week since she died and I am exhausted. I love the comment on someone’s Mum planning their funeral before they’ve gone. I agree it would just be so much simpler if I didn’t second guess every single decision. When I have headspace I’ll do mine. But for now I’m off to agonise about what bloody outfit she’d want to be cremated in!

Yes, I did that with my husband's funeral - thank goodness. The eulogy was lovely in the end: I finished up typing it up and the celebrant tweaked it. His first draft was

"Though the stroke had robbed DH of his memories, he was still able to recognise close family members..."

Eh? My man was completely compos mentis. The celebrant had lasered in on "stroke" and ignored everything else.

At Dad's funeral, the stand-in for our minister insisted on copying down the names of my dad''s parents, his siblings...I was doubtful, but gave him the spelling and pronunciation. He mangled every single one.

One name was Ćiro (Cheero). Throughout the service, the name was intoned as " and Cheerio..."

My husband's funeral was lockdown, so conversations were over the phone. After the celebrant mucked up the first draft of the eulogy, I did everything by email - much safer.

The same happened at Mum's - right hymn, wrong tune.

We took home the main spray of flowers after the cremation and dismantled the arrangement and rearranged in two lots of fresh oasis. I took one arrangement and my mum took the other and it was really nice to have the flowers at home very gradually fading - they lasted 3 good weeks

If family give the eulogy make sure you check it mentions all the kids/grandkids equally or fairly. My brother gave the eulogy for my father and it was like a big egotistical speech on how they had the best relationship. Yeah they had a good relationship and my sexist father always had his son as his favourite but I could have done without the funeral being a stage for my narcissistic brother.

One funeral I love was someone who always loved a certain colour. She left instructions no one was to be allowed in if they were not wearing something that colour. It was such a bright colour full room was so different

Flowers. The funeral director said they charged the same for the flowers as the local florist which supplied them. No, they were a third of the price buying direct from the florist, and we could talk to the person making up the wreaths to get them right for the deceased.

It is difficult to get the numbers for catering, so you often end up ordering far too much food. For my FIL we went to the local Toby Carvery, not a big funeral, but everyone had plenty to eat, there was an offer on for free ice creams, and the drinks were reasonable. They set up a space for us and it worked v well. FIL would have loved the free ice cream. He loved a bargain!

It's easy to end up spending a lot of money on things the person you loved wouldn't have given 2 figs about. So keep it simple and concentrate your thoughts on allowing people to be there.

My mother had neighbours who would go to every possible funeral and eat lots of food. At her funeral, because of people's travel arrangements, we had the meal before the funeral. Their faces were a picture when they realised and I got into the funeral car saying 'my mother would have loved that'.

Put a sign up saying please turn off phones during the funeral AND ask the celebrant to repeat this before the service starts.

I went to a funeral and someone's mobile phone started ringing really loudly. It was awful!!!!

If the family funeral is published widely in the press, try and have a trusted person to sit in the house in your absence for poss security reasons.

I was (probably erroneously) advised not to invite too many/publish too widely as the church was tiny and historically people had to stand outside - a problem in bad weather. Unfortunately the result was that some former friends think I deliberately excluded them.

Yes to the photos on a USB stick or similar to play silently on a screen at the after-party.

The nicest event was a post covid memorial service a whole year later - everyone was less emotional, there was time to think it through and organise it calmly, the family said they appreciated the space to come to terms with things before the service.

Take the cards off any funeral flowers.

It's nice to keep them and read the messages in your own time!

100% this. Much easier to deal with a celebration of life when you're ready. Due to covid my DMs COL was 2 years after she died but we still had well over 100 people attend. Heard lots of memories from other people that we'd never heard before.

We did the same
It was a lovely emotional event full of happy memories

Yes to photos, hymns or songs they liked or remind you of them, and to simple catering at a venue.

All close family spoke at my mums funeral - uncle about my mums childhood, one brother about her adult life, one about funny stories and me with kind stories. It matched our personalities and didn't drag on, it brought us a lot of comfort.

We chose her favourite semi smart comfy clothes and buried her with her handbag as she was always worried about it being stolen, she would've rest without it. We put her favourite things in.

And I had my lashes tinted so I could cry freely, and my hair done so I wasn't fiddling with it as I tend to. I'm not vain at all but these helped me and marked the occasion.

This is a personal thing, but I'm not keen on too many jokes and anecdotes. I think it's ok to be sad and solemn at a funeral

@wotsitallfor that's a really lovely touch with the handbag. I also agree about the hair. My mum got a blow dry for several funerals of close family members (unfortunately at the stage of life where they are happening more frequently) as she said you are meeting people you haven't seen in ages so it's nice to look good.

Oh, of course - yes, you will be very sad, and that's absolutely fine and normal.

I'm not suggesting trying to make if into a non-stop Ken Dodd show or anything; just saying that it doesn't have to be (although, of course, it can be if you prefer) like reading out the deceased person's CV.

Most important, I think, is that it reflect your loved one and their character.

If they were a very serious person, a sombre funeral may seem the appropriate thing to do; if they always had a smile on their face and chuckled regularly at life's little absurdities, you may well want to pay tribute to that element of their character with a few lighthearted moments.

Booked the bagpiper for an extra 15 mins or so, he pulled up as we did and still had to set up and tune. He was aware of the timings and we assumed he would be ready and waiting as we arrived, just stress we didn't need

I booked the piper via the undertaker, so I didn't have to deal with the timings - but I can quite understand how you were caught out.

I attended a funeral a few years ago where the service was delayed because of the piper's absence. It so happened that I knew who the piper was. I'm not joking when I say that he probably had a hangover: he'd already been dismissed from a local pipe band.

Done a few funerals
Glad we kept costs down to a minimum
Glad we kept it as immediate family only, so much easier
Glad no religious stuff