Should you choose cremation, please know that you have a variety of options to create a truly meaningful funeral service to allow your loved ones to say a final goodbye to your loved one.

Although your faith or culture may dictate some elements of a funeral service, there are many opportunities to personalize the service for your own family.

You have many options to honor your loved one, including:

• Providing a final chance for family and friends to say goodbye with a public visitation.
• Providing a chance for immediate family to say goodbye with a private viewing.
• Holding a formal or informal service with your loved one’s body present.
• Holding a memorial service or Celebration of Life after the cremation, with or without the cremated remains present.
• Holding a formal or informal service at a cemetery, if the cremated remains are being buried or placed in an above-ground niche.
• Holding a formal or informal service before scattering your loved one’s remains.

You can choose to include a visitation – also known as a wake or viewing – the evening before or immediately prior to your funeral service. This time allows loved ones to pay their respects and offer condolences to your family.

We will also work with you to choose a location that best suits your funeral service: our chapel, a church, graveside or interment chapel at the cemetery of your choice, or some other appropriate setting.

Our professional team will help you choose an appropriate urn for your loved one. Today there are many modern options beyond the traditional metal or wooden urn. We can incorporate laser-engraving, photos and even hobbies like sports, art or music.

You have the option of one large urn, or separating remains among your family with smaller, matching keepsake urns.

We offer beautiful memorial stationery options through our partner, Life Tributes with BerylMartin. Some funeral homes use standard DIY print-in-office cards, but we work with professional graphic designers to create memorial cards, programs and register books that reflect the memory of your loved one in an artistic and truly memorable way.

We also offer many special memorial keepsake options to allow you to keep memories with you forever. Our specialty keepsakes include beautiful jewelry incorporating your loved one’s cremated remains or even their fingerprints.

Beyond choosing the actual urn, the decision of where to place the urn is important. Should you decide to keep your urn at home, consider creating a long-term plan for a final resting place after the surviving family member passes away.

Cremated remains can be:

• Buried in-ground at your cemetery of choice. Depending on the style of urn, you may also be required to purchase an urn-vault to preserve the natural landscape.
• Placed above ground in a niche or columbarium
• Placed above ground in a mausoleum
• Scattered at a specially-designated scattering garden
• Scattered on private land with the consent of the landowner

Our Elgin community has several picturesque cemeteries, with a variety of options to meet your needs and budget. If you consider the Chicagoland area at large, you will find no shortage of options for cemeteries and memorial parks with both in-ground and above-ground interment options.

Our trained professionals will help you navigate the choices and select the perfect final resting place for your loved one.

Should you choose burial for your loved one’s cremated remains, you will have the option of installing a flat marker or an upright headstone to permanently memorialize your loved one, in accordance with cemetery regulations.

Our professionals can help you order a headstone or schedule engraving for an existing headstone. Please be aware that this process can be lengthy and is affected by seasonal changes (headstones cannot be installed in winter months when the ground is frozen).

Should you choose placement above ground in a niche or mausoleum, we can assist with the addition of a permanent, engraved name plate for your loved one.

For more information on how you can create a memorable cremation service for your loved one, call our friendly team today at 847-741-1128.