No funeral arrangements..not sure what to do..

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My Dad is 85 and in a care home with vascular dementia and isn’t doing so well. Years ago I’d tried to talk to both my parents about funerals, etc. My dad said cremation with a church service. Since this time, relatives have sadly passed, leaving no one left apart from myself (husband and one child) and my mum. I’m unsure what to do in respect of funeral arrangements as having a service would be so small. My mum isn’t feeling a direct funeral either.
Any advice welcome?

Speak to your local funeral director. I am opting for a short 15 minute blessing at the crematorium for my relative. Will be immediate family (like yours) only. If anyone wants to do any more we can organise a separate service of Thanksgiving.

Given the cost of funerals this is becoming a more popular option, even with ardent church goers in my experience.

Yes defintely speak to a funeral director. Preferably an independent. Sorry to hear about your dad. It's an awful illness.

A short funeral at the crematorium was fitting IME
If there’s a small number of people, you can then just book a restaurant table and have a meal. That’s what we did for my dsf. My mum was pleased with it.

it still ends up quite a bit of money though, but dsf had a £5k funeral plan - that covered the crematorium and meal.

Service in a church or in the chapel at the crematorium? Is your father religious?

I don't see why you can't have a service, just pared back for the 4 of you. So no singing nor reading by a member of the congregation, but entry/exit music and someone leading you through the service. As you need to tell the celebrant (is that the right word or is that for weddings?) about the deceased person you could actually expand that and use the service for your family to reminice about your father's life and their favourite memories. Maybe bring your favourite photos.

Give a direct goodbye to your dad instead of performing it in front of other people. It could be a very intimate experience.

As part of my volunteer work I go to quite a few. Many crematoriums and funeral parlours now have a smaller room option, which is very fitting in this situation, you can still have a vicar if you think your dad would like that.

Sending strength, it is a very difficult time for you all, be kind to yourself.

If there was a particular Church he attended could the Vicar from that Church come to the Crematorium avd do the funeral service there. This seems to be the common way of dealing with the situation here.

I’m sorry you’re going through this. My DMIL had Vascular Dementia and it is a brutal disease isn’t it?

I’m really sorry to hear about your dad. There were slightly more of us but still a very small group when my grandma died a few years ago and she had similar wishes. We had a small, short service at the crematorium with a bible reading and a few prayers included on one day and then a few weeks later we went to have her ashes buried in the church graveyard with a blessing from the vicar. It felt like a really good way of respecting her wishes.

There were 7 of us at my DM's funeral at the crematorium. We had three pieces of music that she would have enjoyed and the celebrant read a psalm and a eulogy that I wrote.

Short and sweet.

I meant to say in my post above but it’s important that you do what you and your mum want too, a funeral is as much about you saying goodbye as anything else. Don’t not do what you want to do for worrying about what you “should” do or from worrying about whether it’s ok to do certain things with a small group. I’ve recently had to arrange and attend a tiny crematorium service, that I won’t go into the details of on your thread, but the point of mentioning it is that even in a quite big room our funeral director and the crematorium staff setup the room beautifully so that it felt intimate and special. If you talk to a good funeral director they will have done this before and will be able to guide you through it.

I looked after a distant relative who died in the summer at 95. She had outlived nearly everyone she knew, but had left instruction for cremation then ashes scattered in a memorial garden at the crematorium/graveyard.

We had eight plus the celebrant at the crem for her funeral. Small and cosy, it worked really well in the circumstances. Small numbers was no impediment to doing what we wanted.

you can have a service in the crematorium chapel (some have a smaller chapel available) you can also have a service in the lady chapel if it’s a larger church or just all sit at the front - local people who knew your dad may wish to come and members of the church do sometimes come along if families request it.

Friends and neighbours would usually attend a funeral, not just family members, so you might find that there would be more people that you seem to think. If your father was actively involved in his church, then other church members would also attend.

I help sometimes with funerals at my church and it's always lovely to see some of the care home staff at a funeral as well as (sometimes v old) friends and neighbours as mentioned above.

MIL died on Saturday. She had been in a nursing home and declined rapidly over the last month, so not unexpected. We are arranging a short crem "service" with the funeral director. She wanted cremation... that was all she specified.

No date yet (xmas etc), but people - who couldnt be arsed to visit when she was alive - already popping up with, oh, not at the church? Nope...

I went to a funeral recently which was in church, including the committal. The hearse then took the coffin to the crematorium but no-one attended there. We all then went to the wake. I really liked that way of doing things, and I suspect it would have been cheaper too.

The restrictions of Covid changed people’s expectations of funerals.

A good funeral director is absolutely key, the one we used was a long established family business and they did exactly what we wanted. We didn’t have a celebrant, just music that we knew the deceased had loved. There were a total of six people at my DF’s cremation and five at my FM’s.

There’s no right or wrong way to do these things and if, as was the case with my parents, there really is no-one to attend you can dispense with a lot of the ritual side of things and still say a loving and respectful goodbye.

I’m so sorry for your loss

The minister from my mum’s church came to the crematorium and gave essentially a church service, and we went to a local pub for the wake afterwards. There were quite a few people there, but it wouldn’t have mattered if there weren’t.

We had songs played over the loudspeakers rather than hymns.