As a funeral director, I do my very best to make a funeral service whatever it is that a family needs it to be. I’ve said before that we have thrown away the rubber stamp funeral and embraced the thought that there aren’t any rules anymore (except for the legal ones). Every family is different and every life that has been lived is different so my advice to you is that if you follow your heart, you will have no regret.
Personalization seems to have become a key word in the funeral industry now. I believe that personalization is a great thing, but just remember that it doesn’t need to come with a big price tag.
Let me give you this analogy: when you buy a new car, you give a lot of thought to what you need vs what you want. When I was a kid, there was a choice between a Chevrolet Biscayne, Bel Air or Impala. In 1963 those cars would have run between $2322 – $3170 depending on the model and accessories that you chose (or how you personalized it). An interesting fact though is in terms of production, about 61% of the Chevy’s produced that year were the higher end model. So even though a Biscayne would have gotten you to the same place, consumers showed that they would prefer getting to that place in an Impala. I don’t know if that was because they really wanted to drive an Impala or whether it was the fact that most of their neighbours had Impala’s sitting in their driveways and they felt that they needed to do the same.
Over the next two or three weeks I am going to challenge you and make you think. As I said, I am all for personalization. In fact, I often ask families what we can do to make a funeral a reflection of the life that was lived instead of the rubber stamp funeral of days gone by. But there are things that you can do yourself to personalize a funeral without making it cost a lot more. Stay tuned!
Marc
