My father-in-law was buried in December 2021, and as of today he still does not have his tombstone. My brother-in-law (his son) paid the funeral home for the marker, and they keep insisting that the problem now lies with a third party, the engraving company. The engraving company keeps saying that they only install tombstones when they have several to install so they don’t have to make one trip for one stone.
I’m not buying this explanation. For one thing, Dale was buried in what is essentially a family cemetery; it could be years before someone else is buried there. For another, it’s been seven months, and everyone in the family thinks that’s long enough by half.
Is this delay common in the funerary industry?
I find this interesting. When my father passed away in 2016, the funeral home gave me at least 3 recommendations for headstone companies. I contacted them individually for price, engraving options, and, yes, time before installation. We ended up choosing the one that had the best graphics for what we wanted on the stone, and I believe the total time from order placement till installation was less than 90 days. The longest wait of that time was getting the stone from their supplier, so that might be a longer lead time now.
It’s likely not that they have to deliver a group of headstones to a single cemetery, but that they need enough along a certain route to make it profitable. Headstones are heavy and gas is expensive. They also may be having trouble getting people to work for them on a regular basis, like everyone else these days the supplies chains are stretched.
That said, there should be no shortage of customers as the funeral industry is fairly consistent. Sorry for your loss and the wait time, I know the frustration.
When my mother died, it took a year for the headstone to be installed. There was some talk about first procuring the rock, then letting the earth settle and some other stuff. Seemed like an eternity to the family, but the cemetery (who wasn’t involved in the transaction) assured us that was pretty much par for the course. When my father died ten years later and we had the date inscribed on the headstone the monument company took care of it very quickly.