From my experience in the US the viewing is generally held at the funeral home and the service at the church if the family belongs/attends a certain church, if not the funeral service is held at the funeral home. From there the deceased is either taken to to the graveyard or the remains taken to the crematorium (depending upon the wishes of the deceased/family). At any point an persona non gratis can enter the venue since usually public notices are publishes in the newspaper or online, although generally I don’t believe many people attend a cremation. Sometimes the public notice will state the funeral itself is private, I’ve never seen that for a viewing.
As for ex-wives at funerals, I wouldn’t mind my ex having one. Not sure if I would attend.
If my partner predeceases me, I’ll probably call his ex-wife and ask if she wants to attend whatever service there might be. Why not? I barely know her, but have no animosity towards her. She once loved him, and he loved her, it didn’t work out, they both moved on and are still cordial to each other.
And in Spain that wouldn’t be reason enough to call the cops, because while the church, or the chapel in a hospital, or the large room with pews and no religious symbols in a funeral home, are owned by someone, they are also considered “public whenever the doors are not locked”.
This, on the other hand, would be even if it happened in the middle of the street. The charges would range between Disorderly Conduct (not just for screaming obscenities, but for doing so in an agressive manner) and Assault (for throwing objects at people). We don’t even have something equivalent to plain “trespass” in the books; you need to do something else such as steal, attack someone or refuse to leave when told before it gets actionable.
Persona non grata. “Persona non gratis” would mean “people who have a price,” and I’m reasonably sure slavery is officially illegal in most countries including the USA. There was even some sort of ruckus about it a while back.
Also Bible Belt - rarely been to a funeral home funeral. Usually church service, then the walk over to the graveyard outside for the burial (rural area, and many of the churches here have onsite graveyards, and most of the funerals I’ve been too were at the same church/graveyard I’ve had relatives buried in for several generations).
Usually funeral home visitation is the day before the funeral. However, I do have a friend (goes to a church without attached cemetery, if that’s relevant), and several years ago she was told that they do visitation and funeral on same day (funeral right after visitation), and that’s what they did for two of her relatives. I presume they had the funeral at the funeral home.
You do have to wonder about the situation where someone who shows up quietly to pay their respects and sits in the back quietly is “persona non grata”. The only exception would be prominent public figures where the focus could stop being on the person in the casket. (i.e. if Brad Pitt or the Queen of England shows up to an event.) otherwise, I suppose the real problem is the person whose animosity means they cannot stand being in the same room as the other person.
Here in Canada, my (limited) experience has been about 50-50 church vs. funeral home.
I read an episode once where someone had a friend from college die suddenly. She went to her friend’s home town and found the location where the funeral was being held, showed up not long before the service was ready to start, stood around for a while then sobbing quietly went up to view the casket - then saw it was not her friend from college but some middle-aged man. She looks around and everyone else is staring at her wondering what’s the story here? She beat a hasty retreat - wrong funeral.
Yes, but it’s up to the person in charge of the church, not the person paying for the venue as you originally said. If my mother had wanted to bar her uncle* from my grandfather’s funeral she would have needed to get the priest to agree (which wasn’t going to happen) and have noticed he was in the church (50-50 chance at best- it was a huge church)
It’s probably technically up to the person in charge of a funeral home as well, although they will most likely do whatever the family wants if the family is of one mind.
She hadn’t spoken to her uncle since shortly after I was born, which was about 37 years at the time of the funeral. No way was the priest going to bar the deceased’s brother for anything less than actual disruption.
The funerals I’ve been to in the UK were either church service, which were open access (at my Great Aunts, two elderly ladies showed up who apparently went to every single funeral at that church- as it turned out, they did actually both know Auntie from years back, though she’d moved out 20 years ago) plus one non-religious crematorium funeral. That one was sort of invite only, but only as it wasn’t advertised outside of friends and family. Some of the deceased’s ex girlfriends did show up, come to think of it, but they were all friends with the widow.
A quiet word at the crematorium one was had with a few attendees about the possibility of one mutual friend with psychological issues and no filter showing up, but the gist was ‘try and make sure he stays at the back near the doors and get him outside if he’s causing trouble, oh and keep him away from the deceased’s parents please’, and the guy didn’t show anyway.
In my family, funerals are the one time everyone drops the minor feuds, typically before starting new ones over the will, but there you go.
This just happened to a family member. A brother and sister married a sister and brother. One of the couples got divorced. Then the mother of one brother-sister set died. The ex-wife, who had been strongly connected to her ex-mother in law for many years, attended the funeral (sitting in the back of the church), while the new wife did not.
I am single now, twice divorced. I have no contact with either ex-wife, nor did we have any children, nor do we have any friends in common that I’m aware of. Neither of them live within 500 miles of me.
I have left specific instructions in my will that neither of them be informed of my passing. It doesn’t specifically ban them from a memorial or anything, but that’s the implication and I doubt it will be an issue.
My partner had been married three times before we became a couple. After five years as a couple, she was diagnosed with breast cancer; we sort of by unspoken agreement put off talk of marriage at that point. When we finally realized that she wasn’t going to survive, we ran out of time to actually get married. So I never know whether to call her my partner, fiancee, “wife”, or what… anyway, that’s besides the point of the OP.
The second ex (which was a very ugly divorce) was long deceased at that point. As I expected, the first ex and the third both came to the funeral; both at the funeral home and at the cemetery. Only the first came to the more casual reception after the burial (thankfully).
There are strong family connections with both; the first ex being the father of my eldest stepdaughter, they live in the same small village and remain quite close; and the third being the biological uncle of the my two younger step daughters that they adopted at a young age. There’s also lots of other family/friend connections with the third.
I’d always been much more comfortable around my partner’s first ex than her third - partly because of their different personalities, and partly because of how recent the third divorce was. I’ve actually become much more friendly with her first ex since her passing.
IMO funerals are specifically and intentionally public events, and if you don’t want all comers then you don’t hold a funeral. Someone can certainly be not invited back to the house afterwards etc, but IMO the funeral service itself only exists in the first place so that everybody can attend.
In the same way that a wedding is not for the couple, it’s for everyone else, and weddings are a public celebration, and if you don’t want the public then you don’t want a wedding.
Inviting people to weddings and funerals is to make sure they DO come, not to make sure somebody else doesn’t.
I’ve seen funerals where widowed wives and ex-wives and non-married at-some-point girlfriends clustered together at the gravesite. It’s all different for each specific situation.
Not sure if I would attend. 