It’s possible I may be in charge of planning a funeral in the near (please no) or rather distant future.
The prospective dead person (my husband!) is an active Catholic and would like to be cremated and have his ashes buried in an already purchased spot in a cemetery containing many family members in a far distant state. So far, easy peasy.
But he would also like a local Catholic funeral mass for which the body is present, cremation to follow when convenient.
So what’s the body in for the funeral service? I am loathe to spend thousands of dollars for a box that’s going to be burned up (or one that’s just going to be buried now that I think about it!). Ideally I would spend…nothing. Anything more than say …$300 feels painful.
I’ve still got kids to get through college, I can’t be blowing money on pretty boxes!
Be nice to me! I really don’t want my husband to die, and I’m pretty sure we’ve got at least 10 more years, but we’ve had some close calls lately and I want to figure out how this works before I’m trying to make decisions while grieving.
Rental caskets are available for rent at many funeral homes. If you are interested in using a rental casket, make sure that the funeral home you are working with has rental caskets available.
I don’t know where you live, but when had my late spouse cremated, using a bare-bones service, it cost around $900. For that, the funeral director handled transportation of the body from the hospital to the cremation facility, the actual cremation, delivery of the box of ashes to me (actually, I picked them up but he still made sure I got 'em), and the associated paperwork like death certificates which you will need for settling his affairs. No embalming so no charges for that (you might want that if you have a funeral, though, unless it’s really soon after he passes - check local laws, but then, that’s one of the things a funeral director should be current on). No coffin - not sure if he was in a box or some sort of bag as I did not care to watch that part of the process.
I’ve never rented a coffin, so I couldn’t tell you the cost of that.
The more time you have to comparison shop the more you’ll save, up to a point, but few people want to do this sort of thing in advance. The other reason for doing it in as far in advance as possible is because the, ah, scruples of people in the funeral industry vary considerably. People in mourning can sometimes easily pressured to spend more than they want to or should. “Advance planning”, as it is often called, allows for more rational decisions, both as to what would be involved with the funeral/mourning rituals and final location of the deceased. It will be less stressful (not stress-free, just less so) to discuss what you want and to resist up-selling.
Read anything you’re handed to sign carefully before signing it.
If you/your husband are active in a parish the priest or someone else there (depending on size of the parish) might be able to suggest funeral homes/directors/cremation services to approach.
I hope you and your husband have many more happy years together before you’ll actually need this information.
Some mortuaries have sort of a cardboard shell that fits inside a casket. The casket is re-used; it’s just the shell portion that gets burned in the cremation.
My father-in-law died last January. He wished to be cremated and he did not want any sort of funeral or memorial service. Well, once he actually died, we figured that he no longer had a vote. My wife (an only child) honored his wishes to be cremated but she also elected to have a memorial service at the funeral home. Funerals are, after all, for the living. The living wanted one, so the living got one.
Anyway, in making the arrangements, we were presented with various options for the casket. All were horrendously expensive and would only be consumed by fire. If we had purchased one, I feel sure that my penny-pinching FIL would have come back to life and smacked us around (figuratively). A rental was presented to us. While still crazy expensive for what you get, it was far more affordable than an actual purchase. Furthermore, we all found the concept hilarious and we felt that my FIL would have enjoyed the humor and thriftiness of it.
We are Catholic. When my son died we opted for cremation - he actually wanted that too. One of his wishes was that he didn’t want anyone looking at him after he had died. The funeral home transported his body to the crematorium. Obviously there was no embalming. The funeral home showed us the different urns they had which were ridiculously expensive. Instead we went to a local ceramics shop and picked out a color for an urn and they made it for us. I brought the urn to the funeral home and they deposited his ashes into it. We had a celebration of life at the funeral home. Our little church wouldn’t have had enough room for everyone that attended (400+). The priest officiated (we weren’t required to have his actual body there). We didn’t buy the guest book, thank you cards or programs from the funeral home either- another overly inflated expense. We made the programs ourselves and bought the rest from Hobby Lobby. The funeral home provided lemonade and coffee afterwards and friends and family brought cookies, bars, fruit, etc. We had the funeral home make a DVD of pictures to show before and after the celebration. The grand total was about $900. We also didn’t bury his ashes, we have them at home with us.
We didn’t do it this way because we’re cheapos, we just felt that some of the things the funeral home offered were unnecessary and way too expensive. We had an amazing send off for him. You don’t have to spend a bunch of money to honor your loved one.
My cousin recently died. She was cremated, and the urn was in the church during the Catholic funeral. Directly after the funeral Mass, her urn was interred in the columbarium on the church grounds. I know cremation first isn’t exactly what your husband wants, but it is allowed by the Church.
Wow. I knew the cost of living is very high in the northeast, but I didn’t know the cost of dying is too. My parents’ cremations each cost $3000 and other than a nice urn each they were bare bones without memorial services or plots etc.
Anyway, the OP can actually get a decent idea of costs from local funeral homes using their tools meant to pre-plan arrangements, which is good because prices clearly vary wildly depending on where you are.
I’ve seen bare-bones cremations advertised as low as $495 in NYC - but in “fake booking” one, it turns out that $495 is just the funeral home charge. The actual price after required fees are added is $1031 - and that still doesn’t include anything remotely optional or that may not be needed in some circumstances . Not a service, not an urn, no casket/container, no copy of the death certificate - it doesn’t even include the charge to pick the body up from home rather than a hospital or the ME.
But the OP should definitely check using online planning tools - because I found another place in NYC that doesn’t advertise a super low price but the $1500 quote included the “alternative cremation container” ( which is often made of cardboard but can also be made of pressed wood)
My mother donated her body to science. We had a memorial Mass for her. Does your husband really want a funeral Mass, or would a memorial Mass be acceptable? As far as I can tell, the only real difference is that the priest says some prayers and sprinkles holy water on the casket if it’s a funeral.
BTW I’ve never been to a funeral Mass that had an open casket. From my perspective that means that the holy water thing is pretty much symbolic.
