funeral choices

your choice of funeral

Everyone deserves a beautiful funeral. It’s a reflection of a person’s life, love, personality and character. As that person is unique, their funeral should be as well.

Funerals come in all shapes and sizes. Simple without fuss, a huge celebration and everything inbetween. Whatever it takes to create a beautiful funeral, you can count on us to deliver exactly that.

Full Funeral

Most families choose a full funeral service where it’s open to all family and friends. This might be a service held in one of our chapels led by a celebrant, a church service led by a minister, or a service at the local crematorium chapel or other venue such as a golf club, home or stadium. Where the funeral is held is up to you. At the funeral there is often an opportunity for people to speak, to play music, to say their goodbyes and show their love and support. Often refreshments are provided after the funeral which gives people additional time to catch up and share memories.

Simple Farewell

You can choose to have a private funeral service where only those personally invited attend.  Or you might decide to have a small viewing before the cremation takes place and use this as a time to say goodbye, or a direct cremation might take place now followed by a memorial service later.

Direct Cremation

A direct cremation takes place directly following the death without any funeral service or other ceremony being held. In these situations we collect the deceased from where they have died, provide a casket, complete the required paperwork, register the death and organise the cremation.

Direct cremation is often chosen because “I don’t want any fuss” or to make things easier on those left behind.

Our experience tells us that having no funeral service is not always as straightforward a decision as it might seem. Before locking in the choice to have a direct cremation we would recommend that you talk over this option with everyone involved.

Many times we have seen where family left behind feel like they have missed out by not having a funeral service, even though they are respecting the wishes of the deceased by not doing so.

Repatriation

When someone dies overseas, or in another part of the country getting the person home for the funeral service creates additional layers of stress and complication to the funeral process.

However this is something we do frequently.  Our experience in repatriating deceased persons makes us confident that we can meet the specific challenges and requirements each situation presents.

As members of the Funeral Director’s Association of New Zealand we also have strong links to a network of funeral homes around the world should we need their help.