Types of Services.

Receiving visitors during a visitation is an opportunity to activate your support system and allow others to express their concern and love for you. It provides a space for you to openly and honestly mourn the loss. By inviting friends and family to attend, they will not only remember your gesture but also remain more available to you in the months following the passing.

Commonly referred to as the wake, calling hours, or viewing, the visitation serves as a time for friends and family to come together and support each other in their grieving process. The deceased's body is often present in an open or closed casket, enabling you and others who cared for them to confront the reality of their passing and have the privilege of bidding them farewell.

This is the procession from the funeral service to the final resting place.

Also called the cortege, the funeral procession from the funeral service to the gravesite or columbarium, scattering garden or other final resting place is usually led by the hearse containing the casketed body.

The procession is a symbol of mutual support and public honoring of the death. Mourners accompany one another to the final resting place of the person who died. Often, even strangers take pause and are respectful because they know someone in your family has died.

It is a way of honoring the dead and helping them to exit this life with honor, dignity and respect. The act of watching the casket being lowered into the vault can be extremely powerful and offer additional momentum in the healing process to loved ones, relatives and friends. Some families choose to actively participate by placing earth on the vault.

Accompanying a body to its final resting place and saying a few last words brings a necessary feeling of finality to the funeral process. Even if you are having a full funeral service, you may want to consider having a short committal service at the gravesite, mausoleum, columbarium or scattering site. The committal service gives a feeling of finality to the funeral that you’ll never have otherwise.

This special time allows your family and friends to support one another.

Most funerals are followed by a gathering of friends and family. This special and essential time allows your family and friends to tell stories about the person who died, to cry, to laugh and to support one another. It is an informal time of release after the more formal elements of the funeral ceremony. The gathering is also a transition, a rite of passage back to loving again. It demonstrates the continuity of life, even in the face of death.

Some family members or friends may tell you that the gathering isn’t necessary or that they would prefer not to attend. It’s OK if everyone can’t (or chooses not to) be there. It’s still a very important time for many people who will attend the service.

The reception can be held in your family home, in a park or in a church meeting room. Many funeral homes also have reception rooms. A buffet-style meal is usually served at the reception. Sometimes family and friends contribute food potluck-style and sometimes the meal is catered. Again, do what feels right for you and your family.