I like at least 6, it is not unusual for someone to not take thier share of the load for whatever reasons.
And when you have four on the corners - someone not taking there share isn’t good. When you have six, you can put Uncle Al with the bad back and your nephew Austin who is twelve and not big for his age in the middle. Then put the granddaughters on the corners who are all built like German farm women. (Oh, maybe that’s my mother’s family).
Seems like checking with the undertaker would be appropriate, to check numbers and details.
It’s non-traditional, but not unheard of. Don’t let tradition bind your hands if your cousin who plays roller derby wants to help.
Vito is Italian and looks like a mob hitman. The first time I met him I was walking into my grandma’s funeral and bitching to my (then) wife about how I don’t know how to tie a tie. He said “here, I can do it for you”. I had this HUGE guy standing in front of me tying my tie for me to which I said “that’s really strange most of the time when someone ties a tie for someone else they stand behind…Oh, got it”
I realized midway through the sentence that he’s normally tying ties on corpses that are laying down, so he can do it from the front.
Yes, Rufo in Heinlein’s Glory Road had the same skill, for the same reason.
I would recommend at least 6 pallbearers. My grandmother’s casket was not heavy, but it was very awkward and unwieldy.
My paternal grandparents’ cemetery is built on the side of a mountain. Everything is on a slope. There are trees at inconvenient places, and tree roots at even more inconvenient places. The grass is always slippery, and when it rains, the soil turns to clay that sticks to your shoes an inch thick.
At my maternal grandparents’ cemetery, every family decorates their graves in a different manner. One plot may have a simple earthen mound. The next plot may be covered in a layer of ornamental gravel. The next plot may have a concrete slab over the grave, and a concrete border around the edge of the plot.
So, between the hearse and your relative’s gravesite, the terrain may be surprisingly treacherous. If you can, scout the territory ahead of time.
Update…
Glad that the funeral home let us do it with just us 4.
It worked out fine with the 4 pallbearers. Like what was mentioned, it was mostly just lifting from the cart to the hearse or hearse to cart. Maybe 8 steps at the grave site.
Thought it was more carrying when I was a pallbearer years ago. Thanks for all the replies.
This doesn’t sound even close to correct, IME. When we buried my aunt, there were 6 big guys, and it like to killed us carrying it; also, it wasn’t made easier by the big mouthed priest telling us not to step on graves as we went!
I would estimate the total weight of the load as being a lot more than 200-ish pounds.