Funeral Invitations and Funeral Favours!

[Robin60]

I’ve recently been helping a friend organise a funeral and don’t know if the funeral director is on trend (!) or taking advantage of those in a vulnerable position. We were offered formal invitations, thank you letters and favours - very similar to those offered for a wedding. I have been to a number of funerals and have never received a formal invitation or a thank you let alone a funeral favour! And would never expect one either. If you didn’t know funeral favours are in the form of a pin in a design of your choice.
Is this something any of you have come across and what are your thoughts?

We were given a little sachet with a tissue in it and a sprig of the person’s favourite flower. It was quite sweet and everyone needed the tissues.

I've been given forget me not seeds.Which still flower every year. A crossword and pen because he loved a crossword, I think it's a nice way to remember someone.These were not provided by the funeral director though.

Over the past 10 years, we have buried my mum and both my PIL, and we definitely did NOT have formal invitations, thank-you letters or favours provided by the funeral director, @Robin60.

We sent out letters ourselves - firstly notifying people that the person had died, and then notifying the date and venue of the funeral and wake, once those had been organised. We used mail merge, and printed them ourselves, and it wasn’t expensive.

I have never heard of favours at a funeral, though I do like @CharlotteSometimeslikesanafternoonnap’s relative’s idea of giving everyone a packet of seeds - I wish we had thought of that, as all three were keen gardeners, and would have approved.

The funeral directors did help us with the Order of Service - that was very useful, and well worth paying for, but favours, invitations etc does sound like an attempt to screw more money out of people at a difficult time - poor behaviour, imo.

I only discovered funeral favours were ‘a thing’ a few months ago when my aunty died. There were bowls of little wooden holding crosses at the doors for people to take if they wanted. It was a Christian funeral with a lot of Christians attending and I thought it was a nice touch.

Invitations just sound strange to me! Is this just another way to add to the funeral director’s bill? Every funeral I’ve ever been to, I’ve received the details by text or on Facebook.

I guess I have had the favour thing. It was a little bracelet with a butterfly and a quote/message. The person in question had arranged their own funeral as terminal illness so I guess thats what they wanted. Surely thats the point? Its up to families to decide what they want.

Personally I hate the flower letters set to spell out 'mother' 'grandma' etc. Could go on forever. I'm sure i've seen one for cousin!

At my auntie's funeral, they gave out packets of forget me not seeds - I thought it was rather lovely! Never heard of formal invitations though 🤔

Crazy idea, sounds like a money-making scheme for the F.D.

I've never heard of invites either, just tell the people who might want to come when it's happening.

The FD for my DM's funeral presented immediate family with laminated bookmarks with a twee poem on one side and a copy of the newspaper announcement of her death on the other 😕I was not impressed and 'mislaid' mine fairly promptly.

We chose a different FD when DF died.

As far as informing everyone was concerned,a few phone calls did the trick subsequent to the Funeral notice going in the local paper.

An acknowledgment was placed in the paper a couple of weeks after the funeral.I wrote personally to the people who had taken the time to write letters of condolence as I felt it was only fair to repay their effort in kind,and I used lovely ,quality ivory paper with matching envelopes.

If favours are really a thing, then I would have a poem printed on flower seed paper and invite people to take and plant.

Yes it's becoming a thing. We had personalised tissues at one a couple of years ago and a pin ribbon in city blue at a more recent one.

Seeds are a “thing” but never seen anything else and I host 15 or so a year. Invites are irrelevant if at all church or chapel as funerals are public occasions, any one can attend

Yes I have seen a lot of funeral favours. I’m not sure if that’s because unfortunately I attend a lot of children’s funerals. The favours (although I’ve never actually heard them called that) have been seeds, bubbles, sweets, something that had meaning to the child. It’s never felt crass, in fact quite nice to have something to have your own 5 minutes of remembering with.

I was given a packet of forget me not seeds at a funeral. I thought it was a lovely idea. Although the vet also gave me them when my cat died. But I think anything more than that is crass.

Yes that's quite sweet

You don't 'invite' people to funerals, that's very poor form. Let's not start turning funerals into Instagram opportunities please. You announce the venue and say all will be welcome and leave it to them. No-one should be expected to RSVP.

The order of service with some nice photos of the deceased has always sufficed as a memento in the past, but at the last funeral I went to, the family handed round a huge box of old photos at the reception tea afterwards and allowed friends and family to have a good rummage and take what they wanted. I thought that was lovely.

They try and upsell that cremation jewellery with the ashes built into them too.

Memory cards. Sadly I’ve quite the collection. My MIL’s is used as my book mark. She was an avid reader, so I think she’d approve.

I’ve recently attended a funeral and was given a small candle with a little wooden scroll with a poem printed on, in a little net bag. My mum thought it was lovely, I saw it as more of the endless tat I try so hard to keep out of my house. More waste for landfill, more of the earths resources wasted producing something that isn’t needed. What was frustrating was that they had plenty of these personalised favours to give out at the end (it had the name of the deceased on), but the printed order of services - there weren’t enough. There weren’t even enough for every pew to have one to share, and so we couldn’t follow the service and didn’t know the words to the hymns.

I attended the funeral of a friend who was a keen cyclist. He had asked that all his cycling friends attended wearing cycling gear.
The most colourful funeral ever locally.

Invitations to a funeral? Surely anybody can go, particularly when it’s part of 10oclock mass?

formal invitations are often sent to older people.
and favours - with a good photo of the deceased and some significant words for example- are often available at the funeral.

thank you cards for those who have travelled a long distance, or to post to people who can’t attend

but if you won’t use them don’t order them

It’s crass

We didn’t invite people to the funerals - we notified them of the date, time, venue and wake arrangements. We did hope that people would let us know if they were coming, so we had some idea of numbers for the catering, but it wasn’t a problem if they didn’t.

I potted up 100 little daffodils for my mum’s funeral and had stickers with a photo of her printed for the pots. I did it instead of order of services and it probably cost me about £30. My mum was a cyclist and loved/wore yellow, so it was just intended to be a little flash of yellow to remind them of her every spring. Her funeral was in January and now I’m getting lots of messages from people as their daffodils have started to bloom. It’s quite heartwarming to think there are little tributes to my mum dotted around. But it was never intended as a “favour” just something to remind people of my mum. I’d spoken to one of her friends and said I was having a yellow corner in my garden for mum, and she said “oh I might plant something yellow too” and that’s kinda where my brain had a lightbulb moment.

I had a box of photos at the wake too. I’d kept back all the photos that I wanted, but offered our everything I would otherwise throw away. It worked out well. I still threw quite a lot away!