Sending flowers to a funeral is the gesture almost everyone makes and almost nobody has made before. You have a florist's website open, eleven arrangement types you cannot tell apart, and no idea whether what you are about to order is too much or not enough.
The short version: check what the family asked for, send something modest unless you are immediate family, have it delivered to the funeral home rather than the house, and write the card properly. The sympathy and condolence guide is the wider starting point.
Before anything else, read the obituary or the funeral home's notice.
If it says "in lieu of flowers," believe it. Send the donation instead, and say you have done so in a card. In lieu of flowers covers what that phrase actually means and what to do about it, including the awkward case where you would rather send both.
If it names a charity but not flowers, the family has stated a preference without closing the door. A donation is the safer read.
If the service is private or direct cremation, there may be nowhere to send them. Flowers to the house, later, are the alternative.
And if it says nothing at all, flowers are welcome. That is the default and it is what most families expect.
For the shelf, once the arrangements have gone
This is the part nobody explains, and it is almost entirely about how close you were.
Immediate family — the casket spray. The arrangement that lies on the casket is traditionally chosen and paid for by the spouse, children or parents. One only, and the funeral home will coordinate it.
Close family — standing sprays, wreaths and large arrangements. Siblings, grandchildren and the closest friends send the pieces that stand on easels around the casket.
Everyone else — a basket, a vase arrangement, or a plant. Sent to the funeral home for the service or to the house afterward. This is the great majority of what arrives, and nobody is counting stems.
Colleagues and organizations — one arrangement from the group. A single piece signed From everyone at Ashworth is better than nine small ones, and cheaper for everybody. Condolence messages for a coworker covers the card that goes with it.
A funeral wreath with ribbon is the traditional form for a club, a union, a regiment or a workplace, and the ribbon is where the group's name goes.
And the specific relationships have specific forms in many communities — a heart for a spouse, a broken heart or a "gates ajar" piece, a chair or a pillow arrangement. Ask the florist what is usual locally rather than choosing from a photograph.
Getting this wrong is the most common practical mistake.
Do you send flowers to visitation or funeral? To whichever comes first, and to the venue rather than the family. The funeral home receives flowers all day, has somewhere to put them, and moves them to the service. A house has neither.
Order to arrive the morning of the visitation if there is one, or the morning of the service if there is not. Same-day delivery to a funeral home is normal and florists expect it.
Give the funeral home's name, the deceased's full name, and the service time. Without the deceased's name the delivery cannot be matched to the right room, and funeral homes run several services a day.
For the house, send later. A plant or a small vase arrangement in week two, when the first wave has died and gone, lands far better than another delivery on the day.
If you have missed the funeral entirely, send to the house with a note saying you only just heard. Late flowers are welcome; the second and third week are quiet.
And check for restrictions. Some faiths do not use flowers at funerals at all — traditional Jewish practice and most Islamic funerals among them — and some crematoria limit what can be brought in. One question to the funeral home settles it.
Color matters less than people fear, and there is only one real rule: nothing that looks like a birthday. This is the part people search as sympathy flowers etiquette, and it is the part with the fewest actual rules.
White — the safe answer everywhere. Lilies, roses, chrysanthemums, orchids. Reads as reverence and works at any service.
Blue and white flowers for a funeral are the other reliably safe combination — calm, quiet, and traditional for a man in many places, though nobody will read anything into it either way.
Purple flowers for a funeral signal dignity and remembrance, and they are the traditional choice in several European and Latin American traditions. Searched as purple flowers for funeral and as funeral flowers purple, and either way they are also a common choice for a grandparent.
Pink is gentle and often chosen for a woman, a mother, or a young person.
Red is strong, and it reads as love — right from a spouse, occasionally too romantic from anybody else. A single red rose from a partner is a recognized gesture.
Yellow means friendship, and it is right from a friend and cheerful enough to be worth a second thought elsewhere.
And what to avoid: anything in the deceased's team colors as a joke, balloons of any kind, and bright mixed bouquets that look like a get-well arrangement. If you would send it to somebody in hospital, do not send it here.
Anyone asking how much to spend on funeral flowers wants a number, and the honest answer is that the number depends on four things rather than on etiquette.
What decides the price
On the average cost of flowers for a funeral: any single figure you read is a national average across all of those variables and will not predict your quote. The same is true of any average cost of funeral flower arrangement — the range between a plant and a casket spray is larger than the range between two florists.
So decide by relationship rather than by price. Working out how much to spend on flowers for a funeral is really working out which arrangement type your relationship calls for, and then buying the honest version of that. A modest basket sent with a well-written card is never wrong, and nobody at a funeral is pricing the arrangements.
Split it if there are several of you. One good piece from six people beats six small ones, and the funeral home has less to move.
And if it is beyond you, it is beyond you. Sympathy gifts by budget sets out what is appropriate at every price, and a card and a casserole are worth more than flowers you cannot afford.
Not every service wants lilies, and unusual funeral flowers land beautifully when they are about the person rather than about being different.
Their garden, their yard, their favorite. Sweet peas, dahlias, sunflowers, wildflowers. A florist can build almost anything if you name it.
Potted and living. A rose bush, an orchid, a tree for the garden. It goes home afterward and keeps going. Preserving flowers from a funeral covers what happens to the cut ones afterward.
Seasonal and local. Cheaper, fresher, and it looks considered rather than catalog.
Something meaningful. A single stem of what was in the wedding bouquet. A color from a football club. These land hardest of all, and they need a card that explains them.
Where to be careful: heavily scented flowers in a small room are overwhelming, and some mourners react badly to lilies specifically. If the service is intimate, ask.
A few things that go wrong between the website and the chapel.
Use a florist near the funeral home, not a national website. The big relay services take your order and hand it to a local florist anyway, with a cut taken out of the middle — so the same money buys a smaller arrangement. Search the funeral home's town.
Ring them if the service is inside twenty-four hours. Websites do not always show the real cut-off, and a florist will tell you in ten seconds whether they can make it.
Ask what is actually in season. Florists will build something better and cheaper from what arrived that morning than from a photograph taken in another country last year.
Understand "as shown." Most sites promise the arrangement in the picture as a style, not stem for stem. If a specific flower matters, say so in the notes.
Get a photograph of what was delivered if you cannot be there. Any florist will send one, and it is the only way to know it arrived and looked right.
And keep the receipt with the deceased's name on it. The family may want to know who sent what, and the card sometimes goes astray between the van and the chapel.
The flowers wilt. The card goes in a box with the order of service and gets read again in five years.
Write it yourself if you can. A florist will take dictation over the phone and it will read like it. Type it into the order form or write it and have it attached.
Sign it so the family knows who you are. Ravi and Priya (from number 14) — a first name alone is useless when forty cards arrive at once, and the family are writing thank-you notes from those cards. Funeral thank-you messages covers the note that comes back.
Keep it to two or three lines. What to write on funeral flowers has the wording for the card and the ribbon, including how few words a florist will actually fit.
And if the flowers are from a group, list the group, not eleven names in six-point type.
Worth knowing before you order.
If you want to send something that is still there in a year, the keepsake gifts range is the alternative most often chosen alongside flowers rather than instead of them, and sympathy gift etiquette covers the timing.
Do you send flowers to the funeral home or the house? The funeral home, for the visitation or the service. To the house only if there is no service, or later, once the first wave has gone.
When should funeral flowers arrive? The morning of the visitation if there is one, otherwise the morning of the service. Florists expect same-day delivery to funeral homes.
What color flowers are appropriate? White is safe everywhere. Blue and white, purple and pink are all traditional. Red reads as romantic love, so it suits a spouse more than a colleague.
How much should I spend? Choose the arrangement type your relationship calls for and buy the honest version of it. A basket or a plant is right for most people; the casket spray belongs to the immediate family.
Can I send flowers if I did not know the person who died? Yes. Most flowers at funerals come from people who knew the family rather than the deceased. Sign the card so they know which of you it is.
What if the notice says in lieu of flowers? Send the donation. If you want to do both, send the donation now and flowers to the house two weeks later.
Is it too late to send them after the funeral? No. The second and third weeks are quiet, and a delivery then is often more welcome than one on the day.
Read the notice, pick the arrangement your relationship calls for, send it to the funeral home for the morning of the service, and write the card yourself.
Then sign it so they know who you are — because that card is going in a box, and it will be read long after the flowers have gone.
