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?

I was involved in planning a family funeral recently and the florist very strongly suggested extra arrangements to give away as gifts. I thought it was awful.

No what an awful thought!

if it's something personal & meaningful (like the seeds of their favourite plants) then yeah sure, but not as a routine thing.

Not the invites/thank yous

jydt another way for funeral homes to make money at the expense of the grieving family 😢

It's just so tawdry

There's a world of difference between a family giving out packets of bird feed or favourite flowers or whatever, if it's got a special resonance to the person who died, and funeral directors latching onto this slight trend and flogging stuff out of a catalogue. If a family feels it's a nice thing to do, it's because it's a personal thing, something of relevance. How is picking some crappy souvenir out of a catalogue going to feel personal?

IMO, while packets of flower seeds sound like a nice idea, I suspect most funeral goers leave them unplanted. I remember hearing about a funeral where pots of miniature daffodils were on all the tables at the tea afterwards and people were asked to take them home and plant them, and they're still flowering years later, which is lovely. But the sort of disposable, overpriced crap on sites like this: https://www.angelanddove.com/collections/funeral-favours-keepsakes

... it really makes m angry. Plastic tubes of bubbles to 'blow kisses to heaven', plantable wildflower shapes, sparklers FFS ... and loads of stuff on Etsy with bloody robins on, because of this twee belief that robins are the spirits of your dead relations. It just preys on people at their most vulnerable, and makes them think there's yet another thing they ought to be thinking about or spending money on, when they're devastated.

Sounds weird to me!
I'm older generation and even orders of service/tribute booklets are weird to me!

A Church funeral service is open to anyone. A secular service can be more selective but Ive never heard of invitations and sincerely hope that doesn't catch on. I received a tea light in a chiffon bag with a photo at a funeral last year but not since, thank goodness!

The word is offered. Let people greave how they want

You don’t need invitations to a funeral. You state in announcements if private family funeral or all welcome ( or variations there of say all welcome at church private committal or maybe funeral private public memorial to follow). If private funeral you might let good friends know they are counted as friends but formal invitations ridiculous unless it a state funeral. As for favours I know daffodil bulbs were given out at the funeral of a proud Welsh lady who died in the autumn and so couldn’t have them as funeral flowers and there was a Tunnocks wafer at every place setting at my Aunt’s wake which baffled some but was very nostalgic for the family. A pin I think is weird

I’ve been to a fair few funerals and have never had an invitation (other than a phone call, text message, email or announcement) and never a ‘favour’. One time recently, the family had a table of wild flower bombs for you to take if you wished. First time I’d come across this and provided by the family.

Not everyone does funeral announcements now as they're expensive (around £100-£200). People often don't want to put the details on social media either, especially if there are some contentious relationships involved. Invitations a cheaper and easier way to pass on funeral details and to indicate who is/isn't welcome.

Well sending out an announcement and details of the funeral is fine of course, but it's not an invitation per se. It's a notification. These days the chances of any interested party seeing it in the local newspaper is pretty slim. It's not like the old days where that was the only way of staying on top of goings on in the town. I imagine the majority of people now would announce a death and then funeral arrangements via facebook, and/or just send emails and texts.

Besides which, with stamps at £1.80 each plus the cost of these printed 'invitations' it may well cost 200 quid anyway!

This is why I’ve booked direct cremation, funeral favours WtF?

I suppose it is a generational thing. It would have been pointless putting my parents deaths on social media whereas the local paper reached people we wouldn’t have known how to contact. The local paper was very cheap while the Telegraph one was extremely minimal…

My late (ex) FIL had a very large wine cellar. Much more than we wanted to keep.

So we had swing tags printed with a pic of him and a message like ‘please enjoy and raise a glass to FIL.

At the funeral after party we put them all on a long table in the hallway (several hundred bottles) and invited guests to take as many as they liked on the way out. It was very popular.

I was at my dad's funeral a couple of weeks ago.

We had an order of service printed but nothing else.

My dad was a regular church goer so there was an announcement in the local parish newsletter and details of the funeral appeared there too (a bit of gap between the death and the funeral).

We got a few condolence cards and a few mass cards.

We had a private funeral for ds. Only 25 people. Invitation by phone calls and text.

@Lostsadandconfused - what a lovely way to remember your (ex) FIL.

Everyone needs a local version of RIP. ie.

It may well be a tradition that is kept on only by older generations, but RC wakes and funerals I've been to in Ireland and the US have a book of condolences to sign, and people who attend get a thank you note with a little laminated card (credit card sized) with a photo of the deceased on one side with dates of birth and death, and often a prayer or poem on the other side.

Me and my sister were given the wrong church for my Auntie’s funeral by another auntie! Luckily it was a 5 minute walk away so we made it in time so a invitation would have been handy in that case. I quite like the idea of flower seeds or bird feed packet. We also missed out on order of service because we were quite late because of going to wrong church. I’d say plenty of order of services…

I think in the days of family WhatsApp & Facebooks or text messaging I don't think invites are necessary.

I do know someone years ago, before mobiles, who mixed up the details of two funerals one day after the other. It was something like the Tuesday funeral was 10am and the Wednesday funeral was 11am.
They turned up at the cerm at 11am on the Tuesday. They ended up sitting through some random persons funeral.

Pin badges and favours are NOT common. Maybe at YOUR workplace, but that just means you're one of the trashy ones who prey on the sentiments of vulnerable people and have profit way way too high on your list of priorities.

I really really hope this does not become a thing.

We don't actually sell them...the family orders the stuff themselves...I only actually work for the company too I don't get a slice of the profit...but thanks anyway

i just attended a funeral yesterday and got:

an order of service,

a key ring with blue flowers (forget me nots or the dementia flower, could be either as both relevant),

a laminated credit sized photo of the person, gussied up as a wedding guest or for a day at the races looking fab.

forget me not seeds.

a prayer card.

I was against this tat, but i’m actually really enjoying them. feels like the person is still here seeing a photo daily so nice. Will put away in due course though.

I love this. It’s a really thoughtful way of remembering someone. We had dementia ‘forget me not’ pins at my grandad’s funeral (we’d made a large donation to a dementia charity in his memory)

I'd hate this.

What are you supposed to do with this stuff once you've left the funeral ?
It seems such a waste.
The whole move in the last few decades to request a donation to a favoured cause rather than flowers has been such a worthwhile and positive step, it seems like this would be such a backwards step for a whole load of money to be spent on 'stuff' nobody wants not to say landfill .
I've been to many, many funerals in my life and never come away with anything other than the Order of Service - and I never really know what to do with those. Direct to recycling seems a bit 'cold', but what am I keeping it for ? I'd hate to end up with piles of keyrings, laminated photos, prayer cards, etc.