The Funeral.com Journal

Resources to help you create tributes as unique as the people (and pets) you love. Learn how engraving, photos, colors, and symbols add meaning; discover scattering rituals and at-home memorial ideas. We focus on the details that matter—because small choices can carry a lifetime of comfort.

Burying Ashes After Cremation: Cemetery Rules, Burial Urns, and Urn Vault Basics

Burying Ashes After Cremation: Cemetery Rules, Burial Urns, and Urn Vault Basics

After cremation, families often expect life to move forward in a clean, linear way. The paperwork is handled, the phone calls slow down, and then a quiet question settles in:...

Where to Put Cremation Ashes: 12 Meaningful Options (Home, Scattering, Cemetery & More

Where to Put Cremation Ashes: 12 Meaningful Options (Home, Scattering, Cemetery & More

If you are trying to decide where to put ashes after cremation, you are dealing with a decision that is both emotional and practical. The question rarely shows up as...

Where to Put an Urn After Cremation: Home Display, Cemetery Placement, Scattering, and More

Where to Put an Urn After Cremation: Home Display, Cemetery Placement, Scattering, and More

After the service ends and the calls quiet down, a very real question tends to arrive in the most ordinary moment: you are holding (or imagining) the urn, and you...

What Urns Can Be Buried? Materials, Biodegradable Options, and Cemetery-Friendly Choices

What Urns Can Be Buried? Materials, Biodegradable Options, and Cemetery-Friendly Choices

If you are reading this after a loss, you are probably trying to make a decision that feels both practical and deeply personal. You may have the cremated remains back...

How Deep Do You Bury an Urn? Cemetery Rules, Urn Vaults, and Practical Burial Depth Guidance

How Deep Do You Bury an Urn? Cemetery Rules, Urn Vaults, and Practical Burial Depth Guidance

If you have cremated remains in your care and someone asks, “how deep to bury an urn,” it can feel like the kind of question that should have one clear...

Can You Bury or Place an Urn in a Cemetery? What Families Should Know Before Interment

Can You Bury or Place an Urn in a Cemetery? What Families Should Know Before Interment

After cremation, families often expect the next step to feel obvious. Instead, there is usually a quiet pause where grief and logistics overlap. You may have the ashes back, but...

Green Burial Shrouds: Materials, Costs & How to Wrap a Body

Green Burial Shrouds: Materials, Costs & How to Wrap a Body

In the first quiet hours after a death—or during the slower, thoughtful months of planning ahead—families often discover that the choices they assumed were “standard” are only one path. A...

Holiday Wreaths at Cemeteries: Common Rules, When They Get Removed, and How to Avoid Heartbreak

Holiday Wreaths at Cemeteries: Common Rules, When They Get Removed, and How to Avoid Heartbreak

You arrive with a holiday wreath in your arms, fingers cold around a wire frame that suddenly feels heavier than it should. Maybe it’s your first season without them. Maybe...

Leveling Headstones: Why DIY Fixes Are Risky (and What Families Can Do Instead)

Leveling Headstones: Why DIY Fixes Are Risky (and What Families Can Do Instead)

You don’t always notice it right away. Sometimes it’s a small shift you only see once you’re standing in the same place you always stand—near the corner of the plot,...

Adding a Date of Death to a Headstone: On‑Site Engraving, Matching Fonts, and Timing

Adding a Date of Death to a Headstone: On‑Site Engraving, Matching Fonts, and Timing

There is often a quiet blank space on a headstone that families don’t notice until they have to. It may be a single line left open on a companion monument,...

QR Medallions on Graves: How Digital Links Work, Privacy Risks, and Cemetery Approval

QR Medallions on Graves: How Digital Links Work, Privacy Risks, and Cemetery Approval

There is a particular kind of quiet that settles in when you stand at a gravesite. Even when you know the name and the dates, there is often a feeling...

Bench Headstones and Estate Monuments: What They Are, Costs, and Cemetery Rules to Know

Bench Headstones and Estate Monuments: What They Are, Costs, and Cemetery Rules to Know

Some memorial decisions arrive quietly. You may be walking through a cemetery after a service, or months later on a day when grief shows up without warning. You notice how...

Cemetery Scattering Gardens: How ‘Raking In’ Ashes Works and What Options Families Get

Cemetery Scattering Gardens: How ‘Raking In’ Ashes Works and What Options Families Get

You may have already decided on cremation, and then a new question arrives: where will the ashes rest, and where will your family return when you need a place to...

Cemetery Flower Vases and Theft: Practical Ways Families Reduce Loss (Without Breaking Rules)

Cemetery Flower Vases and Theft: Practical Ways Families Reduce Loss (Without Breaking Rules)

A graveside visit is often made of small, steady acts: refreshing flowers, rinsing the vase, brushing away leaves, and taking a quiet moment to feel close to someone you love....

Abandoned Cemetery Restoration Laws: Permissions, Liability, and How to Help Without Causing Damage

Abandoned Cemetery Restoration Laws: Permissions, Liability, and How to Help Without Causing Damage

It often starts with a discovery that feels personal: a forgotten family plot behind a treeline, a churchyard no longer maintained, or a handful of stones in a field that...

Memorial Gardens for Graves: Perennials That Return Each Year (Plus Low‑Maintenance Layout Ideas)

Memorial Gardens for Graves: Perennials That Return Each Year (Plus Low‑Maintenance Layout Ideas)

The first time you stand at a gravesite with a handful of flowers, it can feel like you’re doing something small in the face of something enormous. You set the...