There’s a reason people reach for light when words run out. After a death, families often want a moment that feels bigger than the room they’re sitting in—something that lifts, something that carries a message, something that says, “We loved you,” without needing a speech. A sky lantern memorial can look like that kind of moment: a soft glow rising into the dark, a shared breath, a brief hush that feels almost holy.
But in real life, grief has to share space with safety, law, and the world we still live in. Open-flame sky lanterns can drift far beyond your gathering. They can land on dry grass, rooftops, trees, and power lines, and the remains can become litter. Many places prohibit them entirely, especially in areas prone to wildfire. So if you’re considering a lantern release as part of a memorial, the most caring thing you can do—for your family and your community—is to plan it with the same tenderness you’d use to plan any other part of a service.
This guide walks you through what to ask before releasing, how to think about legality, and how to choose meaningful alternatives when open flame simply isn’t worth the risk. And because many families are planning memorial rituals alongside decisions about cremation and ashes, we’ll also connect the lantern moment to practical options like cremation urns, keepsake urns, cremation jewelry, and the reality of funeral planning—so your tribute fits the whole story, not just a single evening.
Why sky lanterns feel so meaningful in grief
When someone dies, the world can feel unbearably heavy. A release ritual—whether it’s a lantern, a candle, a ribbon, or a simple shared action—gives that heaviness a place to go. Sky lanterns are especially appealing because they look like a visible “sending.” People attach wishes, prayers, apologies, gratitude. The light rises, and for a moment it feels like the heart might rise with it.
Families also like that a lantern release can work in many settings: after a memorial service, at a beach gathering, during a celebration-of-life dinner, or on a meaningful anniversary. It can be gentle for children, symbolic for people who aren’t religious, and inclusive for groups with different beliefs. It’s a way to do something together when nobody knows what to say.
Still, meaning doesn’t require open flame. The heart of the ritual is not the paper and fuel cell—it’s the shared intention. If you hold onto that, you can create something just as beautiful without putting your community at risk.
The safety and legal reality: why many areas restrict or ban sky lanterns
Open-flame sky lanterns are, at their core, a small uncontrolled fire that you release into the air. That’s why so many jurisdictions treat them like a fire hazard rather than a harmless symbol. The International Code Council includes a straightforward prohibition in the 2021 International Fire Code: “A person shall not release or cause to be released an untethered sky lantern.”
Fire safety organizations echo the concern. The National Fire Protection Association warns that sky lanterns pose a serious fire hazard and notes that their use is prohibited by NFPA code requirements. The U.S. National Park Service also strongly discourages their use, citing fire hazards and the fact that they are banned in many places.
Even if your state doesn’t have a clear statewide ban, local rules often do. Fire districts, city ordinances, park regulations, seasonal burn bans, and venue policies can prohibit releases. In practice, the question is rarely “Are sky lanterns legal in the U.S.?” and almost always “Are they legal here, today, under current conditions?”
Questions to ask before you plan a lantern release
If you’re still hoping to do a sky lantern memorial, start by slowing down and asking questions early—before you buy supplies, invite guests, or build expectations around a moment that may not be permitted.
Is it legal at your exact location?
Call the local fire department or fire marshal and ask directly about “untethered sky lanterns” and “open-flame lantern releases.” If you’re on public land (a beach, park, lakefront, or trail area), ask the land manager too. Policies can differ even within the same city. If the answer is uncertain, treat that as a “no.” Grief is heavy enough without the added stress of enforcement or liability.
What are the current conditions?
Even places that allow certain open-flame activities may restrict them during drought, high winds, or elevated wildfire risk. Think in simple terms: if you’d hesitate to light a bonfire today, you should not release something that can drift out of sight.
Can you truly control where it lands?
You can’t. That’s the hard truth families often don’t hear until late in planning. Once released, you can’t guarantee it won’t travel miles. If a ritual depends on perfect outcomes, it’s fragile. A memorial ritual should be sturdy—something you can feel proud of even after the moment passes.
Do you have a cleanup plan?
With open-flame lanterns, cleanup is uncertain because you may never find the remnants. Even “biodegradable” claims don’t always mean “safe to leave behind.” If your tribute creates a mess someone else has to handle, it’s worth choosing a different symbol.
Eco-friendly alternatives that keep the meaning
The most comforting memorial rituals are the ones you can focus on fully—without scanning the sky for danger or worrying about consequences. These alternatives can still create that shared moment of light and release, while respecting safety and the environment.
LED lantern memorials
For many families, an LED lantern memorial is the closest emotional match to a sky lantern release. You can distribute lanterns, write messages, and create a coordinated “lighting” moment together. Some families set lanterns in a field, line a walkway, or arrange them around photos. Others place them in a circle and invite guests to step forward one by one, reading a name or a short memory.
If you want a sense of “sending,” consider this: instead of releasing them into the sky, let the light “travel” through your gathering. Begin with one lantern lit by the closest family member, then pass the light outward until everyone’s lantern glows. It’s a release ritual that stays grounded—literally—and often feels even more intimate.
Memorial luminaries
Memorial luminaries can be as simple as paper bags with sand and battery candles, or glass luminaries arranged along a path. They work beautifully for a cemetery visit, a home gathering, or a community vigil. They also leave you with a tangible keepsake: you can fold and store the bag with the written name, or save the candle holder to reuse on anniversaries.
Candles with strong boundaries
Some families still want real flame, and in many places a candle ritual is safer and more acceptable than a drifting lantern—especially indoors or in a protected outdoor space. If you choose candles, make the safety plan part of the care. Use sturdy holders, keep flames away from fabric and dry plants, assign a few “safety stewards,” and consider wind covers if you’re outdoors. If children are present, LED candles are often the gentlest choice.
Ribbon rituals and message trees
If what you love about lanterns is the act of sending words into the world, you can do that without light at all. Set up a small “message tree” with ribbon tags. Invite guests to write a sentence and tie it on. The visual becomes a living memorial—color, movement, and messages gathered in one place. Afterward, you can keep the ribbons in a memory box, photograph them, or choose a few to preserve in a frame.
A “release” that doesn’t fly: floating flowers or stones (where permitted)
In some settings, families create a release ritual using flower petals, biodegradable flowers, or smooth stones placed gently at a shoreline. Regulations vary, and protected waterways often have strict rules, so check local guidelines first. If your ceremony involves ashes, a more formal, regulated option is water burial planning—especially for ocean settings—where rules can be specific and important to follow. Funeral.com’s guide on water burial planning explains the real-world steps families consider, including regulations and practical safety.
How lantern rituals connect to cremation decisions
Many families planning a lantern memorial are also living inside a second set of decisions: what happens after cremation, and what to do with ashes. For some, the lantern moment is the ceremony. For others, it’s a companion ritual after a private cremation, or a way to include friends when the family is keeping the disposition simple.
This is where the planning can feel tender and surprisingly complicated. A lantern release is a moment; ashes decisions can stretch across months and years. And you don’t have to decide everything at once. In fact, one of the kindest approaches to funeral planning is to separate “what we need right now” from “what we may want later.”
When a family is cremating, a practical anchor is choosing a primary container—something that can hold the remains safely while you decide what comes next. That might be a full-size memorial from the cremation urns for ashes collection, or a more specific choice like full-size cremation urns for ashes if you want something meant to serve as the main home memorial.
From there, families often build options around it: a few small cremation urns for sharing, a set of keepsake urns for siblings, or cremation jewelry for the person who wants something close during daily life. This is not about turning grief into shopping. It’s about preventing one painful question from becoming a family conflict: “Who gets the ashes?” Keepsakes create room for shared love instead of a single decision that feels like a verdict.
Cremation is common—and families are choosing more personal memorial options
These choices are also happening in a broader trend: cremation has become the most common form of disposition in the United States. According to the National Funeral Directors Association, the U.S. cremation rate is projected at 63.4% in 2025 and projected to reach 82.3% by 2045. And the Cremation Association of North America reported that the national cremation rate reached 61.8% in 2024, noting that long-term growth is continuing even as the pace slows.
What those numbers mean in real families is simple: more people are facing ashes decisions, often without prior experience. That’s why ritual matters. It’s why people look for light, release, and symbolism—whether through a lantern moment or something safer and equally meaningful. The ritual holds the emotion; the practical plan holds the remains.
When the loss includes a pet: tenderness deserves a plan too
Pet grief can be both profound and strangely lonely—because the world doesn’t always recognize it the way it recognizes other losses. If your lantern ritual is honoring a pet, you may be navigating a second layer of pain: the quietness of the goodbye, the routines that suddenly feel empty, the way a collar in your hand can hurt more than you expected.
Families often create a small release ritual for a pet because it feels right-sized—intimate, personal, honest. Pairing that ritual with a memorial you can keep can help grief feel less unmoored. Funeral.com’s pet urns for ashes collection includes designs in many materials and sizes, and there are also more specific options when you want a memorial that reflects personality, like pet cremation urns in figurine styles that look like art rather than a container. If multiple people loved the same animal, pet urns for ashes in keepsake sizes can let everyone hold a small piece of remembrance without dividing the grief into “owners.”
And if a wearable memorial feels right for the person who was closest to the pet day-to-day, a cremation necklace—often called an ashes necklace—can be a quiet comfort. The cremation necklaces collection is a place to browse styles, while Funeral.com’s guide Cremation Jewelry 101 explains how these pieces are designed to hold a tiny portion securely.
Keeping ashes at home, water burial, and other paths families choose
Sometimes the best “next step” is simply to bring the ashes home and let decisions wait until your nervous system is calmer. For many families, keeping ashes at home is a bridge—between the day of death and the day you’re ready to decide what comes next. If you want practical guidance (including how to set up a safe, respectful space), Funeral.com’s article on keeping ashes at home walks through common questions families have when the urn comes home.
Other families know quickly that they want a placement ceremony. That might be scattering in a meaningful place (where permitted), placing keepsakes for family, or planning a structured ocean ceremony. For those drawn to water as a symbol of return and continuity, water burial can be a beautiful option—but it’s also an area where rules matter. The U.S. EPA guidance and practical planning steps are why many families start with a checklist like Funeral.com’s water burial planning guide.
No matter the path, one of the most stabilizing steps is choosing a container that matches your plan. If you’re trying to decide how, Funeral.com’s guide How to Choose a Cremation Urn is designed to help families think in calm, practical terms: where the ashes will go, what size you need, what material fits your life, and how keepsakes or jewelry can reduce pressure on one person to “hold everything.”
Cost matters, too—and it’s okay to ask about it
Families often feel guilty asking cost questions, as if love should make budgeting irrelevant. But cost is part of care. When you’re planning after a death—or planning ahead—you deserve a clear answer to the question people search most often: how much does cremation cost?
Pricing varies by location and by the type of service (direct cremation versus cremation with viewing and ceremony). A steady, plain-language place to start is Funeral.com’s 2025 guide: How Much Does Cremation Cost. It explains common fees, what changes the total, and ways families often reduce costs without giving up dignity.
When cost is part of the story, it can actually support safer memorial choices. A lantern ritual, for example, doesn’t have to be expensive. Many alternatives—LED lanterns, luminaries, ribbon rituals—are budget-friendly and easier to do legally than open-flame releases. Your tribute can be beautiful and responsible at the same time.
