It probably doesn’t come as much of a surprise to learn that most British people, when questioned on the subject, say that they would prefer a cremation to a burial these days. This is something that has been consistently reported in numerous consumer surveys. Despite the undoubted popularity of cremations, there is still a significant proportion of people in the country who would prefer to be buried, however. Among this group, a sizeable number of people will want direct burial service. What are direct burials and what do they entail? Read on to find out.
Firstly, there are plenty of similarities between a traditional funeral and a direct one. With a direct funeral arrangement, for example, a firm of funeral directors will usually take care of the body and prepare them for the funeral. This may mean keeping the body in their mortuary until the burial can be arranged and even dressing them although other services, such as embalming, won’t be included. The appointed funeral directors will provide a coffin. These are usually plain or even made from stiff cardboard rather than wood to keep the costs down. The funeral directors will convey the body to the burial site at the appropriate time. They’ll do so with the minimum number of pallbearers and without any funeral cortège to help lower the overall expenditure.
On the face of it, therefore, there are not many differences between a traditional funeral and a direct one. However, there are some significant factors you will need to take into account if you are thinking about staging one. With a direct burial, there will be no service. There won’t be a humanist or a religious leader to oversee the funeral. No funeral venue will be hired and there won’t even be a graveside committal. Instead, the coffin will be taken to the burial plot – usually one in a local authority cemetery – and interred straight away. No flowers will be expected or sent and only a handful of mourners will be present, at most. Usually, a grave marker will be all that denotes the spot so no headstone will need to be bought. The whole idea is to keep the costs of burying someone down to a minimum, of course.
According to one direct funeral service company that advises many people on how to arrange funerals, Newrest Funerals, more and more people are planning their own direct burials these days. They say that people are choosing to do so in ever greater numbers simply because the arrangements won’t be left to surviving family members after they pass on. Indeed, many people also like to pay for their direct funeral in advance by settling their bill before they die in monthly instalments. This means being able to pay for a direct funeral at today’s prices rather than what they will be in the future. This is a good thing to know if the primary appeal of a direct funeral for you is its low price tag given that direct burials can cost less than a quarter the sum needed for even a relatively modest traditional burial.