Asking
Six questions worth asking the funeral home.
Funeral directors answer these questions every week. Asking them takes one phone call and removes most of the guesswork from everything else on this site.
The short answer
Ask: what size does your easel take, do you print in house, when do you need the file, do you supply the frame, do you have an order of service template, and can you recommend a printer nearby.
The answers decide the print size, the mount, the deadline and the design — which is to say, they decide everything. Guessing at any of those costs a day you may not have.
01 · The sixIn the order that matters.
- "What size print does your easel take?" Usually 16 × 20, sometimes 18 × 24 or 20 × 24. This decides the file you need and the money you spend.
- "Do you provide the frame or the mount?" Some do, and some have a house frame that your print has to fit. Finding out after you have ordered an unframed print is a nuisance; finding out after you have ordered a framed one is worse.
- "Do you print in house?" A number of funeral homes print the order of service themselves, and some print the easel portrait. If they do, they will have a template and a preferred file format, and using theirs is faster than making your own.
- "When do you need the photograph?" Usually the day before, for setting up, which is earlier than most families assume. Ask for the time as well as the day.
- "Do you have a template for the order of service?" Almost always yes, already the right size with the right bleed. It removes the fold and trim problems in one download.
- "Is there a local printer you use?" Funeral directors order prints constantly and they know who is reliable, who is open early, and who can mount on the same day.
02 · What they will not decideThe choice that stays with the family.
A funeral director will tell you the size, the deadline and the supplier. They will not choose the photograph for you, and it would be unfair to ask — the decision belongs to the people who knew the person, and it is the one thing on this site that no professional can take off your hands.
What they can do is tell you what usually works, and most will if asked directly: which size photograph families tend to be glad they used, whether the room takes a landscape print, whether a large board is common at that venue. That is useful local knowledge and it is freely given.
If you are arranging this on behalf of someone else — a parent arranging for a spouse, an adult child arranging for a parent — the funeral director is often the only neutral party in the conversation. Use them.
03 · The venueThe crematorium or church is a separate call.
A funeral home and a crematorium are usually different organisations, and the photographs go to both. The questions for the venue are different:
- How does the slideshow play? Which file format, on what equipment, and does it need to be on a USB stick or sent in advance.
- Is there a screen, and how large? This decides whether the slideshow is worth making at all. Some small chapels have a screen that four rows can see.
- Where does the easel stand, and is there room for a board as well? A memory board and an easel portrait are sometimes too much for the same space.
- What time does the room open for setting up? This is when the photograph physically needs to be there, and it is often the tightest deadline of the week.
Questions people ask at this point.
Do funeral homes print photos?
Some do, particularly order of service programs, and a few will print the easel portrait. It varies by home and by country. It is worth asking first, because their template and their paper will match everything else in the room.
Will the funeral home choose the photo for me?
No, and it is better that they do not. They will tell you what size works in their room and what families usually choose, but the decision about which photograph is the family's, and it needs two or three people who knew the person to agree on it.
What if I do not have a photograph at all?
Tell the funeral director. They have seen it before and they will have suggestions — a photograph of something belonging to the person, a document in their handwriting, or simply a service with no portrait. Nobody will think it strange.
Once you know the size, the rest is arithmetic
The size table converts whatever the funeral home tells you into pixels, and tells you straight whether your file can carry it.
Open the size table