What Does a Funeral Director Do?

It has been estimated that over 136 individual activities must take place in order for one funeral to be conducted. The funeral director is actually an organizational specialist.

Here is a condensed list of some of the more visible activities of a typical funeral director:

• Removal and transfer of the deceased from place of death to funeral home.
• Professional care of the deceased, which may include sanitary washing, embalming preparation, restorative art, dressing, hairdressing, casketing and cosmetology.
• Conduct a complete consultation with family members to discuss specific arrangements for a funeral and gather necessary information.
• File all certificates, permits, affidavits, and authorizations, as required. · Acquire certified copies of the death certificate as requested by a family. · Compile an obituary and place in newspapers of a family's choice. · Make arrangements with a family's choice of clergy person, church, musicians, etc.
• Make arrangements with cemetery, crematory, or other place of disposition. · Provide a register book, prayer cards, funeral folders, and thank you cards, as requested by a family. · Arrange for clergy and musician honorariums, flowers, additional transportation, etc.
• Care and arrangement of floral pieces and the post funeral distribution as directed by a family. · Arrange for casket bearers, automobiles, and special services (fraternal or military) as requested by a family
• Care of all floral cards, mass cards, or other memorial contributions presented to the funeral home.
• Your funeral director, with his/her staff personnel, will direct the funeral in a most professional manner, and be in complete charge of the funeral procession to the cemetery or other place of disposition.
• Assist a family with social security, veteran's benefits, insurance claims, and other death-related claims.