Nobody is born knowing how to put together a fitting funeral service, which in turn means it’s the sort of unfortunate experience we all have to go through from time to time. And as such, the first time anyone is faced with the prospect of putting together a funeral service it can be not only daunting, but fraught with a million and one potholes just waiting to trip you up. Funerals are not only deceptively complicated, but never fail to take folk by surprise in terms of expense either. Indeed, making even bog standard funeral arrangements Melbourne for example can see total expenses hitting five-figures in no time, which is suffice to say the kind of cash most do not have lying around.

However, if you avoid the most common mistakes made by first time funeral planners during the planning stages of the service, chances are you’ll come out proud of your accomplishment and satisfied with the departed’s send-off. For example, the biggest and most common mistake of all is that of rushing to get the plans made in literally the shortest possible time. There is of course a degree of urgency as the longer things are allowed to draw out, the more painful the whole experience is. However, this does not mean that everything needs to be organized in 30-minutes and then you don’t have time to think about what you want and how to make it happen. Take your time and make sure you decisions are based on what you want, not that time or date it is.

The second most common mistake is overlooking the importance of a pro funeral director, having written off such involvement as an unnecessary expense. It may seem at the time like to add yet another bill to the list is in fact the worst thing you could possibly do, but in reality this is not the case at all. The reason being is that funeral directors wrote the book on minimizing expense and maximizing value for money. Which in turn means that if there is a savings to be made or a special deal to be found, they can make it happen?

It’s also far too common to see those faced with the job or trying to organize a funeral for the first time insisting on doing it all alone. Not only is this a bad idea for the simple fact that this is no time for solitude, but also because it is impossible to make 100% sound and logical decisions with a head that’s pretty much exploding with emotion. You need a cool, calm and collected party to bounce ideas off – that’s an absolute must for any funeral.

Last but not least, another enormously common mistake is that of thinking that in order for a funeral to be in any way fitting or appropriate, it needs to be crammed with as much expensive stuff as possible. From flowers to decorations and really everything else besides, these are not the things that convey emotion and respect for the dead, but are instead simple garnishes that should be treated as such.

Tobin Brothers, an Australian family owned and operated funeral company, are dedicated to providing specialist services to client families and ethnic communities. Servicing the Melbourne metropolitan area and Echuca, they have become one of Australia’s largest and most respected family owned Funeral Company.