What it costs
What a funeral costs, and what moves the number
There is no figure on this page and that is deliberate. What is here instead is the decision that moves the total more than every other put together, the ones behind it, and the list a funeral home has to put in your hands first.
Why there is no number on this page
The same family can spend very different amounts in the same week depending on one decision, so any single figure would be a guess dressed as an answer.
No prices on this site. There is no price anywhere on this site, and that is deliberate. This is a demonstration and any figure here would be invented — a made-up price for a funeral is worse than none, because somebody would plan against it. What a real funeral home owes you is a printed list you can take away.
What a real funeral home owes you instead
This site prints no prices, and that is on purpose rather than by omission. Woodside Memorial is a demonstration and any number here would be invented; a made-up price for a funeral is worse than none, because somebody would plan against it. What a real funeral home owes you instead is a printed list you can hold, given to you at the start of the conversation rather than at the end.
In the order it moves the total
One decision moves it more than all the others put together
Burial or cremation is not one item among many. It decides whether a cemetery is involved at all, and a cemetery's charges arrive as a second bill, frequently larger than ours. The five below are in the order they move the number.
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Burial or cremation By far the largest
This one decision moves the total more than every other decision put together, mostly because burial brings the cemetery's charges with it — the grave, the opening and closing, the outer container, the perpetual care. Those are the cemetery's bill and not ours, and they are frequently larger than ours.
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Whether there is a viewing Large
A viewing usually means preparation, usually means embalming, and means the rooms and the staff for several hours across one or two evenings. Nothing else on the list has as many consequences attached to it.
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The casket or the urn Large, and entirely yours to control
The range is enormous and it is one of the few places where a family has complete control on the day. You are entitled to see the price list before you see the caskets, and you are entitled to buy one somewhere else and have us use it without a penalty.
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Cash advances Moderate, and easy to misread
Flowers, notices, the clergy or celebrant, musicians, certified copies, the cemetery's and the crematory's fees. We pay these out for you and put them on the bill. Ask any funeral home whether it adds anything to them; we do not, and it is a fair question to ask everybody.
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How far, and how many journeys Small, unless it is not
A collection in the next street and a collection in Suffolk County are different jobs. So are one journey and three. It is usually small and it is occasionally the largest surprise on the bill, so it is on the list you are given.
What a cemetery charges for, and what to ask before a day is fixed
What you are owed
eight things you are entitled to from any funeral home
None of these is a courtesy and none depends on how much you intend to spend. A funeral home that makes any of them difficult has told you something useful about itself.
- A price over the telephone. You do not have to give your name, and you do not have to come in. Ask, and any funeral home has to answer.
- A printed price list, to keep. Handed to you at the start of any conversation about arrangements, goods or prices — before the discussion, not after it, and it is yours to take away and compare.
- A separate list for caskets and for outer containers. Given to you before you are shown any, so the first thing you see is the range and not the display.
- The right to buy only what you want. You may decline any item on the list except the basic services fee, and no funeral home may refuse to sell you the rest.
- The right to supply your own casket or urn. Bought anywhere. No funeral home may charge you a handling fee for it or refuse to use it.
- An itemised statement before you pay. Every item you have chosen, what each costs, and what the total is, in writing, before any money changes hands.
- No compulsory embalming. It is not ordinarily required by law, and no funeral home may tell you that it is when it is not.
- No casket for a direct cremation. A funeral home that offers direct cremation has to make an alternative container available and may not tell you a casket is required.
What you are entitled to. You are entitled to price information over the telephone, to a printed price list to keep before any discussion of arrangements, to buy only the items you want, and to an itemised statement before you pay. Every funeral provider in the United States owes you those.
A package and a list are two different things, and you are owed both
A package is a bundle: several items from the list, sold together at one price. There is nothing wrong with one, and it is often better value than the same items bought line by line.
What a package must not do is stand in for the list. You are entitled to see the itemised prices as well, for exactly the items inside it, and to decline any of them. That is not about suspicion. It is that a package is built for the average family and no family is average: if it carries two evenings of viewing and you want none, you should be able to see what that line costs and take it out.
So the question to ask about a package is not whether it is good value but what is in it, and what happens to the price when something comes out. If a line is removed and the total does not move, that is worth knowing at the table rather than afterwards.
Whichever way you buy, the statement you sign at the end is itemised: every item chosen, what each cost, the total, in writing, before any money changes hands. If the statement and the conversation disagree, say so on the day.
Before you agree to anything
three questions worth asking every funeral home you ring
You can ask all of them on the telephone, you do not have to give your name, and the answers compare between one funeral home and the next because the categories are standard.
- What is your basic services fee? It is the one item nobody may decline, so every funeral home has the figure and every family pays it. Ask for it first and write it down.
- What does a direct cremation cost, complete? One price, with the container included and nothing else to add. It is the simplest arrangement anybody sells, which makes it the cleanest thing to compare between two funeral homes, even if it is not the arrangement you want.
- Do you add anything to cash advances? Flowers, notices, the clergy, the crematory and the cemetery: money a funeral home pays out for you and puts on your bill. Some add a charge for handling it and some do not.
Write the answers down as you go. The same three answers from three funeral homes tell you more about what this will cost than any funeral home's website, including this one.
Why the first of those cannot be declined, and what it pays for
Ask us what something costs, before you come in
You do not have to give your name or come in. Ask on the telephone and you get a real answer, at any hour.