Information About Alternative Funerals

If you have us build a casket, we of the Sweet Earth Casket & Cradle Shop make you a promise with your purchase. We will provide you with a thorough education on the ins-and-outs of funeral home funerals and all of the vital information you need to carry out a family-orchestrated ceremony should that be your wish. Funeral ceremonies done solely by family and friends are more common than most of us think. They would be done this way more often if people realized that in most states it is 100 % LEGAL to do a funeral without the assistance of an undertaker. (Click for more information about No-Undertaker Funerals)

Regardless of where you live, we will guide you through the decisions each of us must make to have the funeral service we want; which may be something other than the standard canned mortuary production. However, even if you intend to use the services and goods of the funeral home we are still able, almost always, to save people great expense while obtaining virtually the same assistance or funeral hardware, but at a greatly reduced price from that first quoted. You simply need to know a few things and you need to do some investigation before the death occurs.

BE PREPARED

This is the Boy Scout motto. It is also our motto at "The Shop" and as the first step of your education, you must make it your motto also. The second step of the education we will provide is a free copy of a workbook written by a nurse and funeral reform lobbyist to assist in making and conveying in writing our feelings and wishes about end-of-life questions and decisions. A copy of Critical Choices is sent immediately upon receipt of casket orders.

This excellent book, and the questions we will ask you directly via e-mail or via telephone, will prompt you to make the initial decisions necessary in the planning of a funeral. Once these first decisions are made and you have chosen between a funeral home-directed service and a family/friend-conducted service, we then proceed from there with the education, going one way if you opt for the one and another if the decision leans toward a more homespun ceremony. And if you're not sure, we can discuss the advantages of and possible problems with both ways.