A funeral service should honor the deceased and their lives. It should also offer grieving loved ones a comforting place to mourn the loss and celebrate their family or friend. Draw inspiration from the following ideas to add touching and respectful details to the plans. 

How to Personalize a Funeral

1. Incorporate Favorites

Include what mattered most to your loved one in life. For example, you can incorporate their favorite color into flower arrangements, play songs by an artist they loved during the ceremony, or adorn the room with images of works by artists they admired. 

You could also mention quotes from the books of their favorite authors in your eulogy, or print them on the ceremony’s programs. 

Serve foods they enjoyed at gatherings after the viewing. Use some of their personal belongings as decorations to evoke fond memories for the guests. 

2. Create a Timeline

Display pictures, awards, newspaper clippings, and other items to show their milestones from birth to the present. Include graduations, their wedding day, the births of children, and any other major achievements that should be remembered and celebrated. 

The timeline can be collaged together on a single poster board or consist of a series mounted on the wall in chronological order. 

3. Design a Memorial

Consider designing a permanent memorial for your loved one. This can be a bench in their favorite park or a plaque at their high school or college. Inscribe their name so that others can see for whom it was made. A physical memorial in a place other than their burial site offers you another location to visit and remember them.

4. Give Take-Home Keepsakes 

Have a memento for funeral attendees to take home with them after the service is over.

Make sure whatever it is will connect to the deceased in some way. If they loved cooking, for example, hand out their favorite recipe. For gardeners, choose seed packets of their favorite plants.

For personalized funeral services to honor your loved ones, trust Arndt Funeral Home LLC in Rochester, NY. Since 1975, the funeral home has offered poignant and affecting services for their clients. In addition to funeral arrangements, the funeral home also offers preplanning, grief services, cremation and burial services, and an onsite chapel. Call (585) 225-6350 24 hours a day. Visit them online to learn more about their facilities.