Modern Estate Planning Blog

While discussions about burial and cremation are not necessarily the most enjoyable part of meeting with your estate lawyer in Fair Oaks, they are relevant and necessary. Determining what will become of your body after death is a deeply personal experience and estate planning lawyers understand this.

It’s not unusual to make your arrangements with a funeral home well in advance. Most offer pre-planning as a typical service. If you aren’t sure where to turn, your estate lawyer will be able to offer you some options and recommendations based on experience working with the various funeral homes in the Sacramento area.

Planning Ahead is Better for Everyone

It goes without saying that planning for one’s own funeral or cremation can be difficult, but by making arrangements in advance, you are doing an important service to both yourself and those you leave behind. Planning a service can be difficult in the “best” of situations, but it becomes ever more challenging when family members have to make arrangements in the height of their grief, usually under very tight time constraints.

Estate lawyers in Fair Oaks are forever seeing the fallout from not planning ahead. Family members may squabble, or worse, over the logistics of the service. Out of a sense of loyalty, guilt, or just not knowing what to do, they may end up spending far more money than you would have wanted. They may even become overwhelmed and end up unable to reconcile themselves with the decisions that have to be made.

You can take this burden off of your loved ones by making your own arrangements. This also helps you to keep costs at a level that you feel is reasonable, not to mention that you can have a say in how you are remembered.

Some Considerations

There are many decisions to be made when it comes to planning your funeral, the first of which is whether you want to have one at all. Here are just some of the considerations:

• Deciding whether to be buried or cremated
• Choosing a casket or urn
• Picking a headstone or other marker
• Designating where you want the service to take place (religious or not)
• Do you want a viewing?  What would you like to wear?
• Choosing an epitaph
• Purchasing a burial plot or crypt
• Choosing music, scripture, and/or readings
• Planning a reception, celebration of life, or other memorial
• Writing an obituary

Many of the costs associated with these things will be included in a plan created with the funeral home. Your wishes, however, should be discussed with your Fair Oaks estate lawyer to be included in your plan.

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