Pre-planning your final resting place with a cemetery can give both you and your loved ones peace of mind. Making these plans in advance helps provide your family with a blueprint to ensure that you forever rest where and how you want.
How can you pre-plan your final resting place at the cemetery? Let’s talk about what steps to take. This process is often easier than you may think.
5 Steps to Pre-Planning Your Final Resting Place at the Cemetery
1. Choose a cemetery.
The first step is to decide where you’d like to be laid to rest. There are a few things to consider before choosing a cemetery. If your family has historically chosen a final resting place at a specific cemetery, you may decide to join them there. Otherwise, you should consider the location of the cemetery you choose. Choosing a cemetery close to your loved ones ensures that they can visit you with ease.
You may also want to look up the cemetery online to see if they have the specific offerings you want. For instance, if you’d prefer to be in a particular structure, like a mausoleum, or a burial spot with another person, you would want to decide on a cemetery that can accommodate your wishes.
2. Schedule a consultation with the cemetery.
The next step is to contact the cemetery directly. Reach out to the cemetery to schedule a meeting for you to come and learn about their offerings and tour the grounds. During this meeting, you’ll speak to the staff that may one day care for you and your loved ones. This meeting can give you a better idea of the care that they can provide.
3. Ask about all of your burial options.
Although you may have already done some research online as to what the burial and cremation options are at this particular cemetery, your consultation gives you the opportunity to dive deeper into what you’re looking for. Now is the time to ask questions and ensure that you have a full picture of what your burial and final resting place will be like.
4. Decide which options you want and create a written plan.
Once you decide on your final resting place, the cemetery staff will help you document your plans. These documents will be that crucial blueprint that will guide both your loved ones and the cemetery staff in ensuring that you receive the burial that you want.
5. Communicate your plans with your family.
Your loved ones can’t follow your plans if they don’t know that they exist. It’s crucial that, after you pre-plan, you talk to your family about your wishes. Hearing your wishes directly from you can help them feel more confident later that they’re providing you with the final resting place that you wanted.
Ultimately, it’s a good idea to speak to all of your immediate family about your wishes so that everyone is on the same page when the time comes to enact them. But above all, the person who needs to know about these plans is your next of kin.
In most cases, cemeteries and funeral homes are required by law to listen to the next of kin when making final arrangements for a loved one. While next-of-kin laws vary from state to state, that person is often the decedent’s spouse. If their spouse has passed on or if the decedent was separated from their spouse at the time of their passing, the next of kin that follows is usually their children. You should familiarize yourself with your state’s next-of-kin laws to ensure that person knows about your pre-planning.