So a not very nice member of my family in England has died. No one on this side of the pond has lived there in the last 50 years so we are not sure of the protocol. I assume he will be cremated. Are flowers sent when someone dies? Are they sent to the Church? What size arrangement would a middle class family send to a close family member? Does it make sense that someone who died on a Friday might not have a service til the second Thursday following that?
Anything else to not look like gauche Americans and make it look like we care?
It varies a lot, of course, so I can only answer from my personal experience:
It is usual to send flowers. Not everyone does, but you can’t go wrong by sending them, unless the funeral notice specifies no flowers. They’d go to wherever the funeral’s being held, so yeah, the church if it’s in one. I don’t really know how to describe sizes of flowers - medium from the selection available, I guess?
Funerals here seem to be held a bit later than in a lot of other parts of the world, that delay is common.
If you’re not going to the funeral, and you not going is no big deal due to geographical distance, I can’t think of anything else you’d need to do for etiquette’s sake.
I would generally echo **SciFiSam **- only speaking from personal experience though and there is massive variation across the UK. One thought about the flowers - I think they would go to the Funeral Directors rather than direct to the church or crematorium. They would then travel with the hearse and the Funeral Directors take care of them.
As to the size of the display, I would say don’t go overboard. If you have not been on brilliant terms with your dead relative forking out a hundred quid on some gaudy display might be thought hypocritical. Also, if your display outshines the local relatives there may be mutterings about ‘gauche Americans’ - or even “bloody yanks - showing off” :dubious:
The one other bit of etiquette is not directly related to the funeral but it would be normal to send a “sympathy card” to the bereaved.
My condolences. I don’t know much about funerals, but the simplest way of sending flowers — if by no means the cheapest — is to contact the undertakers ( modernly called ‘funeral directors’ ) over the phone and select a bunch of flowers which they deliver along with other bunches and the body all at the same time. Along with a dictated note expressing your undying grief.
Note that a significant difference from America is that the body is not openly displayed to the public in a half-casket during the service. But if you’re x0000 miles away anyway, you won’t miss this treat.
Send flowers to the funeral director for the funeral.
Send another small arrangement to the survivors house in the interim with your sympathy card.
If it were me, I’d use a service like Interflora- a local florist will make up and deliver the flowers, you choose from a standard set of arrangements and plug in your credit card and the delivery addresses.
£30-50 per arrangement would probably be about right for a relative who can’t make the funeral, but would like to express their condolences.
That delay is common in England- because of waiting times at the crematoria (usually run by the local council- private funeral homes don’t usually have them).
In Ireland, where we bury more often the funeral is more often within 72hrs of the death.
Maybe it may be a suitable alternative to ask the closer family if the dead dude had a preferred charity to which you could make a donation in lieu of flowers? Most funeral flowers come with a sympathy card and if you have a lesser feeling of sympathy ( am seriously not judging here) it may be better to give a donation to a charity in his/her name than send over priced interflora flowers with a generic sympathy message.
Do, do try and check whether there is a “no flowers” request. This is becoming extremely common - the immediate family organise one display, and request that others make a donation to a relevant charity instead. After all, the flowers at a crematorium are on display for such a short time. A sympathy card is always welcome.
You can also leave a message on this website, which reproduces published announcements in a sort of “In memoriam” page. It might initially look a bit tacky, but I actually found it very useful and comforting to see who left messages on my husband’s page.
And yes, I agree with the others that this delay is not that unusual.
It’s quite possible that, if you use Interflora or find a florist yourself near to the crematorium or cemetary, they’ll already know about the funeral service and have other orders on hand!
When an aunt died last year I phoned a florist I had found on the internet which I knew was close to the place the service would be and had barely started giving the time of the Service when I was interupted with, ‘Oh, yes, that’ll be for Mrs. xxx; that’s no problem.’ They made them up and delivered them to the undertaker on the morning of the service.
Here are the flowers for that particular service; one of the smaller selections would be suitable, I expect.
I’ve been to one funeral in England, fairly recently, for an aunt. There were flowers at the cemetery/crematorium, which I arranged the previous day on behalf of myself, and of my father (the deceased’s brother-in-law, who could not get there), at a local flower shop. If you get in touch with a florist, and tell them who the deceased was and where the ceremony is, they’ll know what to do. After the ceremony, the funeral director asked me and a cousin (the deceased’s nearest living relatives) if we would like the flowers donated to a local hospital, and we agreed.
One thing on this issue - often if the flowers are delivered to any location other than where the funeral is being held, a funeral home may need to hire a transportation service to deliver these at the expense of the family. So my advice whenever this comes up is to contact the funeral home to see where they recommend the flowers should be delivered, however absent that direction the assumption should usually be that the flowers should go directly to wherever the funeral or memorial is being held, be it a church a cemetery or a funeral home.