Creating Your Legacy by Preplanning Your Headstone

When we think about planning for the future, many topics may make us uncomfortable. The thought of having to pre-plan your funeral, burial, and headstone can be a subject many don't wish to consider. While it may not be an easy subject to broach, ensuring that your life and memories are preserved in the manner appropriate to you is essential, not only for you but for those you leave behind.

Your friends and family will be dealing with your loss and grieving. By taking the time to pre-plan everything, including your headstone design, you are looking after them and yourself in the future by making this process as easy as possible so that they can focus on navigating the world without you and healing. 

Today, we would like   to explore why pre-planning your headstone design creates a lasting legacy and is a significant and considerate step at any age.  

What does it Mean to Pre-plan? 

While funeral planning and headstone planning are separate processes, families can benefit significantly by ensuring arrangements have been made for both. When you pre-plan all aspects of your final arrangements, from the service to the burial to the headstone, you allow your family to have an essential step in the grieving process within the first week or more of grief—which is creating the space for them to express their feelings and work toward acceptance. 

When families and friends have to navigate that process and all the paperwork and figuring out who to call and what to do—there's little time to sit and absorb what has happened.

A headstone or monument offers a lasting tribute for surviving family and friends to visit for generations and work through their grief, giving a physical place for all to gather, see, and remember.  

What Does Pre-planning Entail? 

Pre-planning a memorial and headstone can involve many decisions, including: 

• Choosing a cemetery. 
• Choose and purchase a plot in the cemetery. 
• Finding out and understanding the cemetery's rules and regulations on gravestone size and shape, learning if there are any cemetery restrictions for headstone decorations or accessories. Learn if the cemetery specifies the quality and type of materials that can be used for a memorial marker. 
• Choosing whether to have a traditional burial in a cemetery, or a modern burial in an eco-friendly cemetery, or a modern burial. 
• Choosing whether or not a eulogy will be given and who will give it
• If cremation has been selected, do you want to be memorialized in a location that is not the cemetery? If so, are ashes allowed to be scattered or interred there? 
• What designs, sayings, epitaphs, or lettering would you like on your pre-planned memorial or headstone?  

Reasons Why So Many Pre-plan Their Headstone Designs

1. Lessen Emotional Burden
   After the loss of a loved one, surviving friends and family are often consumed with grief, which makes final arrangement decisions extremely challenging. However, when we choose to pre-plan, we can provide them with that moment to process and grieve without the emotional burden of planning our funerals and headstones. 
    
2.  Ensuring Final Wishes are Honored
   When someone we love passes away unexpectedly, it can be difficult for surviving friends and family to understand exactly how they may have envisioned their final arrangements when they leave no instructions behind. When we pre-plan our burial arrangements and headstones, your last wishes are documented, involving family and loved ones in the decision, and it helps prevent unnecessary confusion regarding your burial arrangements. 
     
3. Can Alleviate Financial Responsibilities
    Planning a funeral can become one of a family's most expensive purchases. From funeral plans, flower arrangements, headstone purchases and customization, cemetery fees, and more—the costs can quickly add up and seem endless.

While it is not required, when you pre-plan your end-of-life arrangements, you can also choose to pre-fund them. When you pay ahead,  you lock in today's cost—avoiding any potential inflation or rising fees or costs. One of the fantastic benefits of pre-planning a headstone and memorial service is that it allows you access to flexible payment plans. Instead of paying a large chunk of savings all at once, you can space out payments to fit your budget perfectly.  

Pre-Plan Your Perfect Headstone With The Experts

At Legacy Headstones, we are here to help you craft the memorial or monument for a legacy that will live on for generations. If you would love to know more about pre-planning your headstone or have any questions for us, our customer service representatives will be happy to help.

Let us create the one-of-a-kind marker that will honor you or a loved one.