Burial Services

People often confuse not having traditional earth burial as not having a funeral.  Even if a family chooses cremation over traditional earth burial, they can still have a meaningful memorial service. 

Cremation or Burial

This is a very personal decision and one of the major decisions that needs to be made when a death occurs and it usually depends on a variety of things.  If the family has traditionally chosen burial in previous generations, they may decide to choose earth burial as the family might own plots together in a local cemetery.  Furthermore, a family may not like the idea of cremation and opt for burial.  There are certain costs associated with burial.  Some of them include casket selection, plot within the cemetery and headstone in the cemetery.  Each cemetery is governed by their own local board and therefore prices and guidelines differ from one cemetery to the next.

"Disposition" is the term used by the funeral industry to describe the final resting place of the deceased's remains. Although your initial decision for the disposition of the body is between burial and cremation, there are several variations on each. Whichever choice you make, the body will return to its natural elements.

Burial Choices

• It can be interred (earth burial)
• It can be entombed in a crypt within a mausoleum (above-ground burial)
• It can be buried at sea

Reasons For Choosing Burial

1. Burial is traditional within your family, religious group, or geographical area. 
2. You do not like the idea of the body being "burned"
3. You prefer to have the body slowly return to the elements.
4. You want to erect a monument on the grave
5. Perhaps you want to visit the grave in the days to come, and you find a graveyard more appealing than say, a columbarium.

Decisions You Must Make If You Choose Burial

• Whether or not the body is to be embalmed
• Which kind of casket the body will be layed to rest in
• Whether or not the cemetery requires a vault or grave liner
• Which cemetery to use
• What kind of plot
• What to put on the gravestone