How Long Does A Funeral Take To Plan

Making necessary funeral arrangements for a loved one can usually be done in as little as 3 hours working with a skilled, competent funeral home. With assistance from the funeral home, a week is usually plenty of time to make arrangements and make contact loved ones. Whether you want the funeral services immediately on the days after the loved one has passed away, or you prefer to wait several weeks, the caring staff of a funeral home will work with you and your family to meet your needs.

When planning the funeral of your loved one, you will want to consider friends and family members that need to travel to the service. As you plan your funeral services, there will be specific family members, friends, or church leaders that need or wish to attend. While you can plan the funeral or memorial service yourself, most people prefer to use a funeral home to plan their loved one’s services.

A funeral home can help you decide on the type of service you want to hold, and they can guide you through the planning process, telling you how much time will be needed to schedule the funeral or memorial service you are thinking about. The funeral director will help you with any necessary arrangements, including scheduling services, working with state and local authorities, and choosing caskets or urns. If you are having cremation before, you are not limited to holding a funeral in the first week or two of the death — you will have many options for scheduling a funeral or memorial service, as well as making arrangements for visits from outside of town and other arrangements.

If the body is cremated, family members are free to wait however long they want in order to have a funeral that is ideal to honor the loved one. Cremation typically takes place a few days after the death but can be delayed if plans are made for an open-casket funeral. If there is a planned open-casket funeral, and embalming is not going to take place, you might have just a few days for a memorial to happen.

Regardless of the reasons, if you (or the deceased) wish to hold an open casket funeral and do not intend on embalming the body, then the funeral must be held within three days after the person’s death. One of the biggest factors when deciding how long to hold funerals following a death is the religious beliefs of the deceased person and their family. For instance, Judaism requires that the funeral for the deceased take place usually within 24 hours after the death.

In that case, you can probably organize the funeral in just a couple of days — if only so you can give relatives and friends plenty of time to get there. Remember, if you have got families who have to travel a great distance to be at the funeral, you may have to push back the service a few days so they have more time to make the trip.