My son was cremated and his casket cremated with him. I did not want the casket just him. The funeral director said that is the way it is done. I think they just wanted to make money on the casket. I have been told by others that you can rent a casket and then they are taken out of the casket and cremated. Of course the funeral parlor told me they can not be responsible for the condition that the casket arrives in. Another gimmick no doubt for the funeral parlor to soak you at a vulnerable time.
We also "negotiated" the contract terms when we bought the plans, and they included a nice mahogony cremation urn as well as postal arrangements to mail cremains/urn. (I did have to remind them that the mailing was included in Mom's contract, because it wasn't "standard" with that plan - was hand-written into the contract - and would have been about $125). Basically everything was done very smoothly and with almost no hassle for me. I did have to order and pay for death certificates separately, although they would have helped if I'd needed. (Who knew there are "long" and "short" death certificates? And that the med examiner/coroner can make huge mistakes when filling them out? Mom died "accidentally" from a fall while living in a nursing home when a CNA was transferring her from her wheelchair to a shower chair, and she died 10 days later as a result of that fall.) The med examiner filled out that she had died in MY home after an unobserved fall! It took the State of Oregon an extra month to process the correction!
I feel I need to comment about what are, to me, insensitive responses in this thread? I don't think it's appropriate, necessary, or even kind to go into morbid/graphic details of funeral practices (embalming, cremation details, etc.) and maybe that's not the kind of information many people want to dwell on? I certainly don't... I also think this thread isn't the time for personal critical opinions about the wasting of land for cemeteries or the space taken up by buried bodies? Grief, burial beliefs, individual feelings and choices about organ donation are all personally valid and, to some, "sacred". I choose cremation personally, and don't want to be embalmed (I was already aware of the "details" of that process, but thank you for the reminder...) but this just isn't the venue to criticize or "guilt" those who choose more traditional paths. I don't think that was the intent or content of the topic here. Yes, cemeteries do take up real estate, but so do strip malls and parking garages... Sorry, but I just don't think this forum should be used to disrespectively criticize or demean anyones' choices for these final and personal decisions... In some cases procedures are also dictated by culteral or religious beliefs - and that should also be respected.
To speak to your question about gimmicks - I believe the costs associated with funerals are a racket, and prey on grieving people who may feel obligated to “do right” in honoring their deceased love one. American cultural values seem to be changing, though I think it depends on location and family and ethnicity. We used to have a 3 day ordeal, with all day visitation at the funeral home, where the family would gather for exhausting days, and then have a service at the funeral home, on to the church for a mass, then a graveside service, followed by a wake. That’s just too much for me, both in terms of cost and emotional expense. That scenario I just described would be well over $20,000 in my area.
When my husband died this past fall, we had him cremated, and no service at a funeral home. I had contacted a local funeral home and they wanted $2000 to use a room for 2 hours for a memorial, which I think is absurd, so didn’t do that. Fortunately, we had a ceremony at no charge at his Masonic lodge, and then a funeral mass and graveside service. The cremation was about $800. We didn’t have to buy a casket.
At the time a felt a little worried about having a “budget funeral”. After a all, I loved my husband and wanted nothing but the best for him. Now that a few months have passed, I’m really glad I did what I did. The people who loved him were there, and he would be happy we didn’t waste a lot of his hard earned money for no added value. He had a very meaningful send off.