Ideas & Benefits of Memorial Services in Northridge
Our staff here atCrawford Lorenzen has years of experience providing quality memorial services to families in Northridge, CA. Below, we have provided you with a breakdown explaining what a memorial service is as well as some tips to help you come up with great memorial service ideas for your loved one.
What is a Memorial Service?
A memorial service can be held in a church, the funeral home or a community hall, or somewhere of importance to the deceased and family. There is usually music, selected readings, and a eulogy. Memorial services can be further personalized as a celebration-of-life.
Memorial Services vs. Funeral
The biggest difference of a traditional funeral and a memorial service is that the body is not present in a casket at a memorial service. However, an urn with the loved one’s ashes may be present at a memorial service. Both traditional funeral services and memorial services have structure, and both bring the community together in support and remembrance. However, a traditional funeral service is much more structured and formal. A traditional funeral service is often associated with religion so it is often led by a member of clergy, whereas a memorial service is led by a celebrant or master of ceremonies. Memorial services often allow for each guest to participate to some level, where guests of a traditional funeral are really just there to observe and reflect.
Memorial vs. Celebration of Life
A celebration of life is an event that truly celebrates the loved one’s passions, intellectual pursuits, personality, and personal accomplishments. A celebration of life can really have no structure at all and can be really anything you want.
A memorial service could be best described as a gentle mix of a traditional funeral and celebration of life. A memorial service has some structure, but it still allows you the flexibility to make the ceremony unique and personalized to fit the individual being honored. Also the mood generally lies somewhere in the middle of completely somber and celebratory.
Rather than opting to do things "the same old way", many families today want to celebrate the life of a loved one. If you too desire to make the funeral for a loved one more engaging and personally meaningful, a celebration-of-life may be the perfect concept to build on.
Memorial Service Ideas
Our experience has shown us that many of today's families want more than a traditional funeral . This can be done by bringing more of the personality and lifestyle of the deceased into the arrangements. A memorial service can become more personal and individualized by displaying photographs or staging the event around a favorite pastime.
Coming up with memorial service ideas that best represent your loved one can be challenging. We have provided some prompting questions that may help ease the process:
- What are some hobbies or pastimes your loved one like to do?
- What was he or she like as an individual?
- What was their profession and how did that shape their life?
- Was your loved one spiritual?
- Was he or she proud of their cultural or ethnic heritage?
Why a Memorial Service?
Rather than opting to do things "the same old way", many families today want to celebrate the life of a loved one. Many funeral service professionals see this change as one of the many contributions to social change made by " Baby Boomers ". The National Funeral Directors Association notes, "As baby boomers age and find themselves having to plan funerals for loved ones and themselves, they are making funeral choices based on values that are different than previous generations. Baby boomers see funerals as a valuable part of the grieving process and are seeking ways to make them meaningful." If you too desire to make the funeral for a loved one more engaging and personally meaningful, a celebration-of-life may be the perfect concept to build on.
We find the most common reason people choose a memorial service is that they want the extra time to plan a ceremony. Since a memorial service can take place after the body has been buried or cremation, there is no rush to organize a ceremony.
Immediately following a death, families are not emotionally ready to have a ceremony – They need time to grieve. Relatives and friends that live far away can organize their schedule to travel for the memorial service.
- Often those not religious choose to have a memorial service as opposed to a traditional funeral because traditional funerals are more often associated with religion.
- Memorial services tend to be cheaper than holding a traditional funeral
- As mentioned above, for some people memorial services serve as the perfect compromise between a celebration of life and traditional funeral service.
- Some people find celebrations of life do not pay enough attention to the deceased and turn into solely a party
Memorial Service Planning Considerations
Use of a Civil Celebrant
Often memorial services are led by celebrants. A celebrant is a person who has been trained to conduct formal ceremonies, such as weddings, baptisms and funerals. They are not clergy; instead they are experienced masters-of-ceremony and story-tellers. A celebrant works closely with surviving family to create a ceremony which reflects the beliefs, cultural background, values and aspirations of your deceased loved one, and your family. If you think you would be best served by a celebrant, please speak with your funeral director.
Places to Hold a Memorial Service
You have a lot of flexibility when it comes to a location especially since the body will not be present. We have had families hold memorial services at beaches, community centers, parks, restaurants, banquet halls, and at family homes. For some that want some religious facets it is probably best choose a place of worship. Keep mind that you want a space/location that can hold a large group of people and that has the amenities for any of the features you have planned. For example, if you want a photo slideshow, choosing the beach as your location would not be ideal.
