As the torch passes from one generation to another, the ways in which we remember our departed loved ones are changing as well. Focus is shifting from traditional funeral services to new and more personal for of remebrance. New trends include:
1. Less formal services; focus on “celebration of life”
2. Personalization in all aspects of the service, flowers, etc.
3. Trend away from internment (burial) toward cremation
4. Less script being used (gold glitter lettering that spells words like mom, dad, grandpa, etc)
5. Trend toward preplanning one’s own funeral services including the music, flowers, etc.
Some families are choosing to use community centers, hotel ballrooms, and other locations to host memorial services where stories are told and memories are shared; where a loss isn’t mourned but a life is celebrated for the ways in which others were touched and changed by sharing that life. Traditional funeral arrangements are morphing into garden style vases that are taken back to the home for a fellowship time. Memory tables filled with scrapbooks, photos and trinkets are adorned with a vase of the loved one’s favorite flowers.
Familys bring personal items like grandpa’s golf gloves and T’s, grandma garden hat and gloves, or a favorite blanket and teddy bear to be worked into the memorial flowers. Rather than a cold, clinical interview discussing carnations and budgets, encounters with floral professionals are becoming times to share tidbits, tales and recollections to allow the floral artist to capture a loved one’s essence and express it in flowers.
And as cremations begining to outweigh traditional burials, the casket spray that said “mom and grandma” in gold glittered letters is giving way to a memory table with a vase of garden blooms and a photo, or a half circle of meadow blooms embracing and sheltering an urn.
As always, your professional floral artists at Lowe’s Floral are here to consult with you about flowers for a memorial or funeral service. We can create and delivery funeral flowers from traditional services to personal tribute settings. For questions, call the Lowe’s Floral Hotline at 701/839-2000 or visit us online on our website.
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