Funeral planning in the midst of a loss can be overwhelming. While trying to grieve, you are asked questions about arrangements, flowers, headstones, caskets, and a slew of other decisions that have to be made within a few short days of the death of your loved one. The choices are a lot to handle, especially as you are trying to honor your loved one’s last wishes. Jarod Steffen, funeral director for Fairhaven Funeral Home and Cremation Services in Fort Wayne, Ind., offers advice for those needing to plan a funeral, especially during a time of grief.

A meeting to plan funeral arrangements typically happens a day or two after a death. Generally, after the death of a loved one, a funeral home will try to schedule the arrangements meeting either the next day or the following day. The immediacy of the arrangements is due to the fact that many family members and friends are coming to town after they hear of a passing and so earlier arrangements are encouraged. However, the funeral home can work with you if you are needing more time.

There will be a lot of decisions that need to be made to plan the funeral. In planning a funeral, you will be asked a number of questions, but to start you will need to decide if you are having a burial or a cremation. This decision will guide the rest of your planning, which will be personalized to your circumstances. From there, the funeral planner will walk you through the other decisions— type of casket or urn, flower arrangements, memorial folder, calling service, etc. The funeral home will also ask you about the person who has passed. They will need to know information for the death certificate as well as for the obituary.

“We try to guide people,” Steffen said. “We have certain processes we present, and we try to take off as much as we can from families.”

Take someone trusted with you to the funeral arrangements meeting. In the time of grief, many want to be surrounded by their friends and family through the whole process. However, in planning the funeral, this is not advisable. For the funeral arrangements meeting, bringing fewer people is the best decision as this is not time for public grief but instead a time to plan that time to gather with friends and family. During grief, you may find that you are more tired, have brain fog, or are experiencing depression in addition to your sadness. In this time, decisions can be difficult to make, even small ones. Bringing someone who you trust to the planning appointment will take the stress off of you during this difficult time.

Use a funeral home to plan the funeral. This may seem obvious, but many times, individuals will want to plan a gathering or a memorial service on their own. They think that this would be more intimate or save them money, but as stated earlier, grief changes our physiology for a short while. It causes one to not think clearly. Planning a gathering can be difficult under normal circumstances, and these are not normal circumstances. You have a lot on your plate during grief; planning a service should not be something that you have to do on your own.

“There’s a lot of other things that people need to worry about other than just the logistics of the funeral,” Steffen said. “If we can come in and handle some of those logistics, it frees families up to handle some of the personal details that we can’t handle. It also allows people to grieve easier.”

Pre-planning a funeral removes some of the stress during a time of grief. The best advice for removing the stress of planning a funeral is to pre-plan. For most funeral homes across the country, this service is offered free of charge. A pre-planning counselor will work with you to discuss your wishes for your funeral (essentially all of the elements discussed above) and then will document these items to share with your family. It is recommended that you discuss your wishes with your family before your appointment so that you can know their opinions. Following the appointment, you are given literature and documentation that lists out your wishes for your funeral.

You are also afforded the option to prepay for your funeral. The option allows families to lock in certain service prices. This money is then put into a trust and paid to the funeral home at the time of the services. Also, since the money is put in a trust, it is protected if the funeral home ever goes out of business or a family decides to move, and it can easily be transferred.

“Pre-planning provides peace of mind and a lot of comfort to families,” Steffen said.

“We try to guide families depending on where they’re at. Different families have different requests, and they have different price points. Funeral homes will do their best to come alongside the families.”

~ Jarod Steffen, funeral director for Fairhaven Funeral Home and Cremation Services in Fort Wayne, Ind.