Funeral Service Length

wesmarvan
Sep 3, 2015
2 min read

I have come across many families that say from the beginning of our arrangment conference that they don't want a lengthy funeral or memorial service for their loved one. This is understandable especially given the fact that some family and friends attending the funeral or memorial service will be either elderly or disabled. Some things that make the service long is...

MUSIC: Think about it, if you have 4 songs and each song is 4 minutes in length, that is 16 minutes in just music.

MEMORIAL VIDEO: Many families are choosing to have a video slideshow of memorable pictures of their loved one as part of the service. More and more funeral homes are offering to make these beautiful videos for you or you may have someone in the family that is computer savy and makes one for you. Just remember that the more pictures you add the longer the video will be. It is very hard to go through pictures and only choose a few that highlight the life of your loved one. Typically 35-50 pictures is an adequate amount of photos for a good memorial video. If your video turns out to be long, you might think about playing it during the visitation times or before and after the funeral or memorial service.

OPEN MIC: It is a wonderful thing to have friends and family share memories of your loved one, it brings a personalization feel to a funeral service that can be missed. However if you are in favor of a shorter service, this may add several minutes in length to it. If you want to "open the floor" for comments, perhaps the best way to make sure that comments are kept short is to have the speaker to indicate that comments are to be kept brief.

VIEWING OF THE BODY: If the service is large and you opt for a "pass by" viewing of the body, remember this is something that could take a while. Remember that your friends and some family may not have seen you in a while and they would like to express to you their condolences in the form of a hug, handshake and kind words once they have been by the casket, this adds length to the funeral or memorial.

PREACHER: I am not trying to be mean or anything, because I come from generations of ministers, but some preachers are what we call "long winded". If you are wanting a short funeral service, get with your minister or speaker and let them know that you want it "short and sweet".

Most funerals last aproximately 45 minutes from start to finish, however I have seen them last much longer and even shorter. If you don't want a long funeral in a church or chapel, you might consider a graveside service. Graveside Funeral Services are typically much shorter than a traditional church or chapel funeral.