By Nikki Schmutz

Direct Cremation Families Aren’t Foregoing Funeral Events

With the inevitable rise of direct cremation over traditional burial, it’s been easy to assume that families are no longer having funerals and many are skipping any type of ‘remembrance event’ with family and the community.
But that’s not really true.

Families still want to remember their loved ones. They’re just doing it in new, more meaningful ways.

What We’re Learning

Recently CANA commissioned a research that looked into how direct cremation families approach funeral services. They wanted to better understand the families who did direct cremation and had no type of remembrance event at all. 

To gather data, they wanted to create a focus group of around 20-30 families who had no type of remembrance event. Yet despite the thousands of families they surveyed that chose direct cremation, they could not fill a room with people who had no type of event.
Out of thousands of families, almost all of them had some kind of event. They still gathered with family and friends. They still shared stories. They still remembered.

They just didn’t do it at the funeral home.

Families Want Personal Ways to Remember

More and more families want their ‘funeral events’ to feel personal.
I saw this first-hand when one of my friends who had worked in the funeral industry for years lost his dad. I asked if his family would do a funeral service, he said no.

Instead, they planned to have a fish boil. This less formal style of event felt like a better fit to celebrate his father’s life.
As more families have non-traditional services, more people will be exposed to the idea by attending them. Over the next decades this will become a real question that everyone planning a funeral has to face – what type of remembrance event do we want to hold, and does it make sense for our family to do that through the funeral home?

When families don’t gather at the funeral home or a church, they’re still coming together to mourn, remember, and celebrate together. That might happen at home, a park, outdoors, or in a non-traditional event center.
These gatherings may not look like a traditional funeral, but they still matter. They still help families connect and heal.

What This Means for Funeral Homes
You get to decide if this change is a threat to your business, or an opportunity.
If you don’t adapt your offerings to match what families want, this change is a threat.

If you’re willing to be flexible and change, this is an opportunity. Go deep on understanding what your community wants and find creative ways to help them get what they want.

At the end of the day, the way each family commemorates the passing of a loved one is not a cookie cutter experience. Yet there are a few things that are certain:

Families still need help, they still need guidance, and are still in need of our support. And the best way to help these families is understanding their unique needs and preferences and doing our best to help make those a reality.