Monthly Archives: September 2020

Things to Consider When Buying a Cremation Urn

Are you in need of a cremation urn? If you’ve contacted a funeral home to plan final services and have opted to arrange a cremation, you’ll need to select an appropriate urn. The funeral director at any provider of cremation services in Silver Spring, MD will be more than willing to assist you in making the correct choice. You’ll find that the right cremation urn will depend on various factors. Read on to find out what you need to consider before making a buying decision.

Budget

You definitely need to think about your budget before doing anything else. While the average urn is a lot cheaper than the average casket, the reality is that there are urns priced at different price points. Some are relatively inexpensive while others are relatively expensive. A funeral director will be able to help you find an appropriate one no matter what your budget is. But you may be more limited in terms of choices if you have a very small budget.

Purpose

What do you ultimately intend to do with the urn? If you want to keep the urn in your home or place it in a columbarium — a structure where urns are displayed – then you might want to spend a bit more to get an attractive urn. Such an urn will, after all, be kept there for a long time. So why not get a really nice one? Do you wish to scatter the ashes? There are urns that make it easy to scatter, so you’ll want to ask the funeral director about that. What if you’d like to bury the urn in a cemetery plot or even in your backyard? You can get urns that are appropriate for this purpose. So, as you can see, the right urn will depend on what you want to do with it.

Size

The size of the person being cremated will determine the size of urn you require. You can rest assured that the funeral home director will be able to help you on this front.

Material

You can get urns made from different types of material such as ceramic, wood, glass, and marble. That’s just the tip of the iceberg, though, as there are other materials available. One thing to keep in mind is that some material types will cost more than others. So while you might want a higher-end material, you’ll need to consider whether your budget can accommodate it.

Do you need the help of a reputable funeral home to plan cremation services in Silver Spring, MD? We have a long track record of success, offer various final services packages for you to choose from, and are accessible by phone and in person. We’re also a family owned and operated funeral home that has been faithfully serving the people in and around the area since the early 1900s. You can count on us to help you make the funeral or cremation arrangements you need. We pride ourselves on providing quality products and dignified service at an affordable cost. Give us a call or pay us a visit

Why it Makes Sense to Preplan Your Final Services

Have you preplanned your funeral service or cremation service with a funeral home? If you either haven’t gotten around to it or don’t fancy doing it, you’re certainly not alone. While many people would likely agree that it’s good to look out for their loved ones, a lot of these same people might be hesitant about arranging their own final services with a funeral home in Silver Spring, MD. If you haven’t preplanned but are open to doing so, here’s why it makes sense.

You Get to Do Things Your Way

One of the main reasons preplanning makes sense is that you can do things your way. Who knows better than you do what you want for you? Others might have your best interests in mind, but you’re the best person to arrange your own body disposition. Instead of leaving it others to decide whether to plan a cremation or a funeral on your behalf after you die, you can take the initiative to preplan exactly what you want. That way, you can choose the body disposition you want, the specific final services package you want, and even the death care services provider you want. You’ll be in charge – and that’s how it should be.

You Can Spare Your Family

It’s never fun to have to plan the final services of a deceased loved one. For one thing, making funeral or cremation arrangements is an acknowledgment that they’re really gone. For another thing, it will be especially hard to have to plan while dealing with grief. So by simply taking a bit of your time now to arrange your body disposition, you will ensure that your loved ones don’t have to contact a funeral home and plan your final services. After you’ve made arrangements with a reputable death care services provider, you’ll want to ensure that your family members know the details so that they know which funeral home to contact after you die.

You Can Save Money

When you preplan, you can also prepay. How can you save money, you ask? When you prepay for a service you won’t need until sometime in the future, you’ll save by paying in today’s dollars. Consider the economic indicator of inflation. Over time, the costs of goods and services go up. That’s a given. So if you prepay now, you will end up getting a better deal versus if your family has to pay after you pass away. So it makes sense economically to preplan and to prepay.

If you need assistance from a reputable and experienced funeral home in Silver Spring, MD, we’re here to help. We have a long track record of success in helping families to make funeral and cremation arrangements. You can count on us to guide you through the final services planning process so that you can arrange a fitting final send-off for a dearly departed loved one. We’re also a family owned and operated funeral home that has been around since the early 1900s. You won’t only get the best customer service when you deal with us, but also affordable costs. Call or visit for the help you require.

3 Reasons Why Cremation is Becoming Increasingly Common

When planning final services for a family member who has passed away, you’ll need to choose between funeral services or cremation services in Columbia, MD. Whichever one you select is entirely up to you and your family since both body disposition options are honorable.

One of the things you should know is that cremations are now more common than they’ve other been. It used to be the case where funerals were much more common than cremations. However, cremations are the leading body disposition option in many jurisdictions.

Read on to learn about 3 reasons why cremation services are increasingly being chosen over funerals.

1. Cost-Effective

Cremations are more cost-effective than funerals are. This is the primary reason why cremation services have become so overwhelmingly popular. Why are they so much cheaper? If you plan a cremation, you can usually skip some of the options that are more common to funerals. For instance, you can skip the funeral service in a church, the viewing, the wake, the casket, the embalming, and the body preparations such as makeup and hairstyling. This doesn’t mean that you can’t add more options to a cremation service. But the extras are optional. So you can save a lot of money if you plan a cremation and stick with only what is absolutely necessary.

2. Options After Final Services

If your loved one is buried, their casketed body will be lowered beneath the ground and will be covered up. But there are lots of options after the final services if you go with cremation. This is one of the main reasons why many people opt to arrange cremation services. Options include, but are not limited to, scattering the ashes, keeping the ashes in an urn, bury the urn, getting cremation jewelry, combining the ashes with paint before painting a portrait of the deceased, interring the urn at a columbarium facility that has wall spaces where the urns can be stored, and more. You can ask the funeral director who helps you to plan for more suggestions.

3. Convenient

Sometimes people choose cremations because they offer more flexibility. For instance, if someone dies and their loved ones are spread out all over the world, it might be hard for everyone to get to a funeral service. In such cases, it might make more sense to plan a cremation service right away and to then plan a memorial service or celebration of life service down the road so that the family members have enough time to make travel arrangements.

Do you need to plan funeral services or cremation services in Columbia, MD? We’re a family owned and operated funeral home that has been serving the community since the early 1900s. So we have deep roots with this area and strong connections with the people in this area. You can count on us to help you plan final services for loved ones who have died. We can also be of assistance should you wish to preplan your own body disposition. This will allow you to arrange the service you want – so that your loved ones don’t have to after you’ve passed away. For the help you need, give us a call.

5 Things to Look for in a Good Funeral Home

After the death of a family member, you’ll need help from a funeral home in Columbia, MD. The right service provider will provide you with all the help you need to arrange final services, but how should you go out finding the right funeral home to work with? There are certain things to look for in a funeral home worth patronizing. Consider these 5 things to look for.

1. Good Reputation

You want to ensure that the funeral home you work with has a stellar reputation. Check out online reviews to see what previous customers have to say about different service providers. Be on the lookout for any themes, good or bad, that reviewers seem to repeatedly mention in their write-ups. While you shouldn’t make a decision solely based on online reviews from people you don’t personally know, you can nonetheless learn more about prospective service providers.

2. Wide Range of Final Services Packages

It’s also a good idea to find a service provider that offers a variety of final services packages. There are some funeral homes that offer funerals and cremations, others that offer funerals but not cremations, and others still that offer cremations but not funerals. Finding a funeral home that has a variety of body disposition packages to choose from will be especially useful if you’re not exactly sure which one you want for your deceased loved one.

3. Accessible Staff

The last thing you want is to sign on with a funeral home and to later find out that neither the funeral director not the rest of the staff are accessible. While you can’t expect someone to be by the phone 24/7, you should expect that someone will be regularly checking messages so that you at least get a call-back within a reasonable period of time.

4. In Business for a Long Time

Another thing to look for in a funeral home is a long track record. It would be too simplistic to say that a funeral home that has been in business for a long time is necessarily more reliable than a funeral home that has been in business for a short time. But researching companies is easier if they have a longer track record. So you can make things easier on yourself by finding service providers that have been serving customers in the area for longer than a few years.

5. Customization

When you visit a funeral home, you will be given a general price list. This document, which some funeral homes include as a downloadable file on their websites, lists all the final services packages the funeral home offers and the costs for all those packages. But what happens if you like a specific funeral service package but wish to make changes? A reputable funeral home will work with you to customize packages as required.

Are you interested in finding a reputable funeral home in Columbia, MD? We have a long track record of success, offer a range of final services packages, are accessible to our customers, have been a family owned and operated funeral home since the early 1900s, and will be pleased to customize packages to better meet your unique needs. Let us know how we can help.

BLOG