Funeral Planner Template: What to Document Before You Need It

A funeral planner template is a document where your parent records their wishes, practical information, and decisions about their funeral and memorial service in advance. The goal isn't morbid — it's practical. Families who have this information make better decisions, spend less money, and avoid conflicts that damage relationships during one of the hardest periods of their lives.

Here's what a comprehensive funeral planner should contain, and why each section matters.

Why Funeral Pre-Planning Saves Money and Prevents Conflict

Without documented preferences, families face two problems simultaneously: grief and decision-making.

Decisions that need to be made within 24–72 hours of a death include burial or cremation, which funeral home to use, what kind of service to hold, casket or urn selection, and whether to do embalming. These decisions cost thousands of dollars. Making them while exhausted and grieving, under soft time pressure from a funeral home, is how families end up overspending.

The NFDA reports that the median cost of a funeral with burial in the US is approximately $7,848 (2023 data), but total costs including cemetery, monument, and additional services frequently reach $12,000–$20,000. Families who have pre-planned and documented preferences tend to spend 20–30% less than families who plan reactively.

Beyond cost, undocumented preferences create the conditions for family conflict. "Mom would have wanted a big Catholic Mass" vs. "She told me she wanted something small" is a conversation that can damage sibling relationships permanently. A written record removes the dispute.

What a Funeral Planner Template Should Include

Section 1: Personal and Identifying Information

This is administrative information that the funeral home, death certificate preparer, and newspaper (for the obituary) will need:

• Full legal name, any former names
• Date and place of birth
• Social Security Number (stored securely — needed for death certificate and benefits)
• Current address
• Citizenship status
• Military service: branch, dates, discharge status (VA benefits and military honors at burial require the DD-214 discharge papers)
• Father's name, mother's maiden name (for death certificate)
• Highest level of education, occupation (for death certificate)

Section 2: Body Disposition Preferences

This is the most consequential section — the decisions that affect every downstream funeral choice:

Burial vs. Cremation Your parent should explicitly choose one. If they're undecided or want to leave it to the family, they should say so in writing rather than simply leaving it blank.

If burial:

• Preferred cemetery (name, location, contact)
• Whether a plot is already owned (location within cemetery, deed stored where?)
• Type of burial: conventional, green/natural burial, mausoleum/entombment
• Casket preferences: material, price range, any specifics

If cremation:

• What to do with the remains: kept by family, buried, scattered (where?), divided among family members
• Urn preferences: material, style, price range
• If scattering: specific location, who should be present, any ceremony

Embalming and viewing Does your parent want an open-casket viewing? Do they object to embalming on religious or personal grounds? Note that embalming is not legally required in most states, but may be required by some funeral homes for viewing.

Organ and tissue donation Is your parent a registered organ donor? Has this been documented with the state DMV? (Registration matters more than the card.) For tissue donation — corneas, skin, bone — the timeline is different from organ donation and doesn't require dying in a hospital. If your parent has strong feelings either way, document them explicitly.

Body donation to science Medical schools accept body donations through established programs. This is a distinct process that must be arranged before death — not something that can be decided afterward. If this is your parent's preference, they need to register with a program in advance and the family needs to know.

Section 3: Service Preferences

Type of service

• Traditional funeral service (body present)
• Memorial service (after cremation, body not present)
• Graveside service only
• Celebration of life (informal, party-style)
• No service (private family only)
• Virtual/livestreamed component

Location

• Religious institution: which one, contact information, relationship with clergy
• Funeral home chapel
• Family home
• Outdoor location
• Community center or reception venue

Religious/spiritual preferences

• Religious affiliation (if any)
• Preferred clergy or officiant
• Specific religious traditions to include or exclude
• Readings from specific texts

Personal preferences

• Music: specific songs, hymns, or music styles; music they don't want
• Readings: favorite poems, passages, or secular texts
• Photos for display: where are they stored?
• Flowers or alternative (donations to a charity in lieu of flowers — which charity?)
• Dress code for attendees (if any)
• Reception after the service (yes/no, who should organize)

Section 4: Obituary Information

An obituary typically includes:

• Full name, age, date and place of death
• Cause of death (at family's discretion)
• Survivors: spouse, children, grandchildren, siblings — names and relationships
• Career, achievements, memberships, volunteer work
• Education
• Military service
• Specific wishes for the obituary's tone ("He would have said...")
• Publications to notify: local newspaper, any professional or community publications

A parent who writes a draft of their own obituary gives the family an enormous gift. It captures their voice and relieves the family of assembling this under time pressure.

Section 5: Financial Information Relevant to Funeral Planning

• Existing pre-paid funeral contracts: funeral home, contract number, what is covered
• Burial insurance or final expense insurance: carrier, policy number, contact
• Existing cemetery plot: deed location, cemetery contact
• Budget range for funeral costs (not binding, but guidance)
• Life insurance policies that might cover costs: carrier, policy number, contact

Section 6: Important Contacts

• Funeral home preferred (name, address, phone) — or instruction to choose based on best value
• Cemetery (name, address, phone)
• Clergy or officiant
• Attorney (for will/estate)
• Executor of estate
• Family members to notify first
• Close friends to notify

Section 7: Practical Post-Death Information

A complete funeral planner also covers what the family needs to do, not just what the deceased wanted:

• Location of will (original, not copy)
• Location of important documents (passport, birth certificate, Social Security card, military discharge papers)
• Location of life insurance policies
• Contact for financial advisor, accountant
• Bank account information (which banks, account numbers, or where to find this information)
• Instructions for pets
• Instructions for property, vehicle, plants

How to Have the Conversation

Most parents will engage with funeral pre-planning if it's framed as a gift to the family rather than a discussion of their death. Try:

"I've been reading about how much stress families go through when they don't know what their parents wanted. I'd rather know what you want now, so that if something ever happens, I can make sure we honor you the right way — not guess."

Or more directly: "The funeral home makes all the decisions when no one knows what the person wanted. Can we spend 20 minutes so that never happens to us?"

Many parents are willing to answer specific questions but resist sitting down with a blank document. Ask individual questions first: "Burial or cremation?" "Do you care where your ashes go?" "Is there a song you'd want?" Small answers compound into a complete picture.

Using the End-of-Life Planning Workbook

Our End-of-Life Planning Workbook includes a structured section for funeral and memorial preferences that covers all of the categories above in a fillable format your parent can complete at their own pace. It's part of a complete end-of-life planning bundle that also includes:

• Conversation scripts for opening difficult discussions
• Legal document reference guides (US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand)
• Document locator and financial overview worksheets
• First 30 Days Checklist (what to do after a parent dies)
• Annual Review Worksheet (how to keep documents current)

A completed funeral planner, filed with the rest of the end-of-life plan, means that when the time comes, your family executes your parent's wishes rather than guessing at them. That's a meaningful difference.

Get the End-of-Life Planning Workbook — $14

The template itself is straightforward. The harder part is starting. Most families who do this say the conversation was easier than they expected and that they felt better having done it — not worse. The same is usually true for parents.