Funeral planning can be a difficult process while grieving the loss of a loved one. But having a funeral provides those who are grieving a place to receive support, come to terms with their loss, say goodbye, and honor their loved one’s life. Being surrounded by family and friends lets everyone share stories and memories and creates a lasting support system as everyone begins their grief journey.
Burial Services
Depending on your personal preferences, there are several services to choose from for a loved one’s burial:
- For immediate burial, your loved one will be buried or entombed without a public service or gathering.
- A visitation, also called a viewing, calling hours, or wake, lets everyone gather together in a room with your loved one in an open or closed casket to say goodbye and comfort the bereaved.
- Funeral or memorial services can be held at a funeral home, church, or even your home. The service is for celebrating and honoring your loved one’s life. Both the visitation and service can be personalized to your loved one’s passions.
- Graveside, chapel, or committal services take place at the cemetery. They let everyone be present as their loved one is transferred to his or her final resting place through ground burial.
Cremation Services
For cremation services, we strongly encourage you to hold a visitation and funeral service to honor your loved one’s life. After the cremation and services, there are several options for your loved one’s final disposition:
- Interment is when you bury or entomb your loved one's cremated remains. This can be in a family plot, memorial site, cremation niche or urn garden, or other indoor and outdoor locations. Please reach out to our staff for a detailed list of interment options.
- Graveside cremation services are similar to traditional ground burials, as everyone is at the burial of the cremated remains and honor your loved one through other meaningful tributes.
- Scattering is when you spread your loved one's cremated remains in a memorial garden, cemetery, over water, or another significant location. You also can choose to scatter some of the cremated remains and retain the rest in an urn for interment or another form of disposition.
- By placing cremated remains in multiple urns, family members who live in different locations can each have their loved one's final resting place close to them.
Green Burial Services
There are many “shades” of green possible when planning a green funeral or natural burial, based on your preferences, available funeral home services, cemetery capabilities, and local rules and regulations.
A green funeral incorporates environment-friendly options, and may include any or all of the following: no embalming or embalming with formaldehyde-free products; the use of sustainable biodegradable clothing, shroud or casket; using recycled paper products; serving organic food (if food may be served in a funeral home in your state); locally-grown organic flowers; funeral guest carpooling; natural or green burial.
What is natural or green burial?
In a “purist” natural or green burial, the body is buried, without embalming, in a natural setting. Any shroud or casket that is used must be biodegradable, nontoxic, and of sustainable material. Traditional standing headstones are not permitted. Instead, flat rocks, plants or trees may serve as grave markers. Some cemeteries use GPS to mark the locations of gravesites. A “natural or green burial” may also simply mean burial without embalming, in a biodegradable casket without a vault, when permitted by a cemetery.
What is a green cemetery?
A green cemetery is a burial site that does not permit vaults, non-biodegradable caskets or embalming chemicals. It uses no herbicides, pesticides or irrigation for maintenance of the cemetery grounds. Any material used at a green cemetery must meet the goal of replenishing the earth. There are cemeteries in the U.S. that accommodate both conventional burial practices and burial without the use of a vault or outer burial container on their premises. Many natural or green cemeteries feature sustainable landscape design and natural memorialization.
The first green burial in the modern sense took place in England in 1993; in 2012, there were more than 250 green burial sites in operation in the UK. In the United States, one of the first natural burial grounds was opened in 1996 in western South Carolina. Some green cemeteries are established as conservation areas in accordance with specific state laws.
If there is not a green cemetery in your area, you may still be able to have a green funeral and possibly a burial in a traditional cemetery that incorporates many green elements. The use of outer burial containers or vaults is not required by federal or state law, but is required by many cemeteries. Your local cemetery may have begun to offer green burial sections that do not require vaults or may offer solutions that will allow the casket to be in direct contact with the earth, while still fulfilling cemetery requirements for an outer burial container. In many rural areas, vaults or grave liners are usually not required.​