Cremation Services

Part of making funeral arrangements on behalf of a loved one involves choosing between burial of the body, or cremation. Certainly this is a big decision, based on any number of factors: religious or spiritual beliefs, finances, or ecological awareness are just some of the reasons we've heard for choosing cremation. Before you can make the choice, you need to know exactly what it is you're considering. You can learn the basics below, however, if the content here raises additional questions for you, please give us a call. One of our cremation specialists will address any of your inquiries or concerns.

The Cremation Association of North America describes cremation as, "The mechanical and/or thermal or other dissolution process that reduces human remains to bone fragments". On our page, The Cremation Process, we offer a deeper look at the most common cremation process which uses extreme heat.

As we said earlier, people choose cremation over burial of casketed remains for any combination of reasons. Sometimes it's the simple fear of burial itself, which may stem directly from the Victorian phobia of being buried alive. 

For many families, they choose to hold a memorial service or celebration of life after the cremation has taken place. Holding a memorial service or celebration of life after cremation allows the family time to think about exactly what they want the ceremony to look like. These ceremonies often take place weeks to months after the death. Furthermore, a memorial service or celebration of life is much less formal and organized than a traditional funeral. These ceremonies have become increasingly popular because they focus more on honoring the deceased’s personality and can include whatever you like.

Below, learn more about memorial services. 

A memorial service is a ceremony that memorializes and honors the deceased after the body has been cremated or buried. A memorial service serves the purpose of any other type of funeral service; honor and pay tribute to the life of the deceased. The memorial service often takes place weeks or even months after the death has occurred. 

The biggest difference of a traditional funeral and a memorial service is that the body is not present in a casket at a memorial service. However, an urn with the loved one’s ashes may be present at a memorial service. Both traditional funeral services and memorial services have structure, and both bring the community together in support and remembrance. However, a traditional funeral ceremony has much more order and structure. A traditional funeral service commonly has specific rituals and is often associated with religion so it is led by a member of clergy, whereas a memorial service is led by a celebrant or master of ceremonies. Memorial services often give guests an opportunity to participate to some level, where guests of a traditional funeral are really just there to observe and reflect. 

A celebration of life is an event that truly celebrates the loved one’s passions, intellectual pursuits, personality, and personal accomplishments. A celebration of life can really have no structure at all and can be really anything you want.

A memorial service could be best described as a hybrid of a traditional funeral and celebration of life. A memorial service has some structure, but it still allows you the flexibility to make the ceremony unique and personalized to fit the individual being honored. Also the mood generally lies somewhere in the middle of completely somber and celebratory. 

Here are some of the most common reasons people choose memorials for loved ones over other types of funeral services:

• We find the most common reason people choose a memorial service is that they want the extra time to plan a ceremony. Since a memorial service can take place after the body has been buried or cremated, there is no rush to organize a ceremony. Immediately following a death, families are not emotionally ready to have a ceremony. Relatives and friends that live far away can organize their schedule to travel for the memorial service.
• Commonly those who are not spiritual choose to have a memorial service as opposed to a traditional funeral because traditional funerals are more often associated with religion.
• Memorial services tend to be less expensive than traditional funerals.
• As mentioned above, for some people memorial services serve as the perfect compromise between a celebration of life and traditional funeral service.
• Some people find celebrations of life do not pay enough attention to the deceased and turn solely into a party.