My Funeral Wishes Template: What to Include, With Examples

The arrangement room at a funeral home is always quiet: a box of tissues, a catalogue of caskets, a director who has learned to ask the questions gently. On a Tuesday morning three siblings sit in one, and the first question stops them. Did your mother ever say what she wanted? One remembers a hymn she hummed while cooking. One thinks she said cremation, or was that their aunt? The third knows only that she hated lilies. The will is in a safe deposit box that opens Thursday. The funeral is Saturday.

A funeral wishes template exists to end that scene. It is a short document, written by you, answering the questions the director will ask before anyone has to guess. The hard part is not writing it. The hard part, and the part most guides skip, is getting it into the room on Tuesday.

What Funeral Wishes Are, and What They Are Not

Funeral wishes are your preferences for what happens after you die: burial or cremation, the kind of service, the music, who speaks, who organises, where the money comes from. You write them in plain words, for the people who will sit in that room. Some call the document a statement of wishes in the event of my death, a letter of wishes, or simply my funeral wishes. The name does not matter; the clarity does.

They are not a will, which deals with property and goes through a legal process; funeral wishes are the personal note beside it. They are not a medical directive either: the American Five Wishes form, from the nonprofit Aging with Dignity, covers decisions made while you are still alive. Funeral wishes begin where those end.

Why Write Them Down

Because families argue about this, in good faith. One sibling knows Dad wanted something simple. Another heard him ask for the full send-off, pipes and black cars. Both remember real conversations from different decades. Without a written note the loudest memory wins, and the quietest person carries the doubt for years.

The guessing is measurable. SunLife's Cost of Dying Report 2026 found that only 47 percent of people who organised a funeral had been told the wishes directly by the person who died, and that organisers who knew some of the wishes spent about 335 pounds less than those who knew none. When you do not know, you buy more, just in case. Asked about their own funerals, those same organisers were no better prepared: 12 percent had put their wishes in writing, and 35 percent had made none of their wishes known at all.

In the United States, a Pew Research Center survey of 8,750 adults, published in November 2025, found that 32 percent have made a will, and only 20 percent have made any arrangements for their own funeral. And a will is the wrong place for wishes anyway: it is often not read until after the funeral, so the document people trust arrives a week too late.

Are Funeral Wishes Legally Binding?

In many places, no: written funeral wishes are treated as requests, and the person with legal control of the funeral, often the executor or next of kin, has the final say. In practice most families follow written wishes anyway, because a clear note settles an argument nobody wants to have.

Rules vary by country and by state, so check yours. France is one clear exception: a law of 15 November 1887 on the freedom of funerals gives wishes set out in a will, or in a declaration made in testamentary form, the same force as a testamentary disposition about property. If your family is likely to divide over this, ask a lawyer where you live.

So the practical safeguards matter more than the legal ones. Write plainly, name who is in charge, and make sure the right people have the note before the day.

What to Include: The Full Checklist

A complete set answers the questions the funeral director will ask, in the order the family will face them:

• Burial, cremation, or other: and where. For a woodland plot or a shroud, see our guide to green burial options.
• The service and its tone: religious or not, a funeral or a memorial later, or none at all.
• Music and readings: what to play, what to read, what never to play.
• Who speaks: who gives the eulogy, and who should be spared. Some write it themselves; see writing your own eulogy.
• Who organises: one name to lead and one to help, so nobody assumes another has it handled.
• Flowers or donations: and if donations, to which cause.
• Clothing and belongings: what to dress you in, what goes with you, what comes off first.
• Ashes or grave: where they go, or what the marker says.
• Costs: any prepaid plan or insurance, and where the paperwork is.
• The guest list: who must be told, and who has the numbers.
• Anything you do not want: the open casket, the lilies.

The Free Funeral Wishes Template

Copy the lines below into a document and fill in the brackets. Skip anything you have no opinion about; a blank tells your family they are free to choose. Write it in the first person. This is you talking.

Burial, cremation, or other.

I would like to be: [buried / cremated / other]. The place I have in mind is: [ ].

The service.

I would like: [a funeral / a memorial later / a small gathering / no service]. I would like it to feel: [ ], and it should [include / not include] a religious element.

Who organises.

Please let [name] take the lead, with [name] helping.

Who speaks. Naming a speaker is a kindness; excusing one is a bigger one.

I would like [name] to speak. Please do not ask [name] unless they offer.

Music and readings. Three songs are plenty.

Please play: [song], [song], [song]. Please do not play: [ ]. Please read aloud: [ ].

Flowers or donations.

I would prefer: [flowers / donations instead of flowers]. Donations to: [ ].

Clothing and belongings.

Please dress me in: [ ]. I would like [item] to stay with me. Please give [item] to [name].

Ashes or grave.

My ashes should be: [scattered at / kept by / buried at]. Any marker should say: [ ].

Paying for it. What exists, and where it lives.

There [is / is not] a prepaid plan, with [provider]. The paperwork is kept: [ ]. Please spend no more than [amount].

Who must be told.

Please make sure these people are told: [names]. [Name] can reach my friends from [ ].

What I do not want. The line families are most grateful for.

Please do not: [ ].

A line for the day.

If you are reading this, I want you to know: [ ].

A Short Filled-In Example

Here is what a filled-in set might look like, from a retired teacher in her seventies.

I would like to be cremated, in nothing expensive; a plain box is fine. Hold a memorial a few weeks later, when people can actually get there, at the community hall rather than a chapel. Tea afterwards, and somebody must make the lemon drizzle from my blue recipe card or I will haunt the kitchen.

Rosa, you take the lead; you are the organised one and you know it. Danny helps, which means Danny drives and does not argue about the music. Play Louis Armstrong, and the In Paradisum from the Fauré Requiem. Not the song from Mum's funeral; I could never get through it.

Rosa reads the Mary Oliver poem from the kitchen drawer. Dress me in the green cardigan, and take the ring off first; it goes to Ellie with the story about the bus. My ashes go on the hill above the reservoir where your father is. No lilies. The prepaid plan and its folder are in the bureau, second drawer. Do not spend a penny more: spend it on a holiday instead.

Why a Funeral Wishes Template Should Read Like a Letter

Most legal-forms sites sell a funeral wishes template made of tick boxes, and tick boxes are fine for the funeral director. They are not fine for the person who has to read them. They will read it once, on the worst week of their life, and a ticked box marked cremation tells them what to do without telling them you were sure. A sentence does both. "I would like to be cremated, and I am at peace with that" carries something a form cannot: permission.

So use the template as a spine and write over it. Explain why the hall and not the chapel. That is the difference between a family following instructions and a family feeling accompanied.

Music, Readings, and the Things People Forget

Music is where families guess worst, because taste is private and grief makes every song sound like a message. Name three, forbid one, and say where the playlist is. Name the reading too: the actual poem, the actual verse. "Something from the Bible" has started more kitchen-table arguments than any hymn ever ended.

Then the things nobody writes down in time. The photo, or the family picks the passport picture. The person who must not be left out: the neighbor who drove you to appointments, the ex your children do not know you still rang every Christmas. Without a name and a number, they hear weeks later.

And the one thing you do not want. "No open casket" takes a decision off a person who already has too many. It is also the right place for the kind of joke your family actually makes: "no sad songs, we are not that sort of family."

Paying for It: Prepaid Plans, Insurance, and Where the Paperwork Is

A funeral usually gets paid for in one of three ways: a prepaid plan, a life insurance or funeral policy, or the estate and the family afterward. For your wishes the job is simpler: say what exists, what it covers, and what it does not, so nobody discovers the gap while standing in it.

Then say where the paperwork lives, precisely enough to act on: the bureau, second drawer, the folder marked funeral. A plan nobody can find may be paid for twice. The wider file your family will need is covered in our when I die file checklist; your wishes belong in it, and in one other place besides.

And if there is no plan and no money, say so. "Keep it simple and do not go into debt for me" is one of the most loving sentences a person can write.

Your Wishes, and a Few Words, in Your Own Voice

A written list says what you wanted. A recording says it the way you would have said it, with the pauses and the joke you could not resist. It carries the one thing a form cannot: the tone you used when you were not frightened.

You do not need a script. Read your wishes aloud, then keep talking for a minute about why you chose them. Our guide to recording a message for your funeral covers what to say and how long. Some people go further and hold the gathering while they can attend; our living funerals guide explains how.

Getting Your Funeral Wishes to the Right People in Time

Everything above still fails in the usual way. Paper wishes sit in a drawer, the will is read a week late, and the person who knew where the folder was is the one who died. The document is not the hard part. Delivery is.

This is the problem Goodbye App was built for. The letter you write there has a Funeral Arrangements section and an End-of-Life Wishes section, which between them ask the questions above: burial or cremation, the service, who organises it, the prepaid plan, organ donation, what happens to your ashes. There is a recording too: what would you say at your own funeral? You choose who receives it, the people who will actually be in that room, and it reaches them by email on a date you set or after you are gone. Until then it is private, it is free, and you can change it whenever you change your mind. It is not a will, which is the point: it is the note that reaches your family on Tuesday while the will waits for Thursday.

Keeping Them Current

Funeral wishes go stale in ordinary ways. The friend you named to organise moves abroad. You marry, you divorce, you bury the person you planned to lie beside. A funeral wishes template filled in at forty and never touched again can send a family looking for a church you left in 2009.

So revisit it once a year, on a date you will remember, and sooner after any move, marriage, or death. Check that the people named still know they are named. Ten minutes a year, and the note still describes the life you are actually living.

Common Questions

Do family have to follow funeral wishes? Legally, in many places, no: the person with control of the funeral decides, and your wishes are treated as a request. In practice most families follow a clear written note; what defeats wishes is rarely defiance, it is that nobody found them in time. Rules differ by country, so check yours.

Can I put my funeral wishes in my will? You can, but it is rarely enough on its own. In many places a will does not make the wishes binding, and it is often not read until after the funeral. Put the same wishes where your family will see them in the first days.

Where should I keep my funeral wishes? In more than one place: with your practical documents, with the person you asked to organise things, and in a form that reaches people rather than waiting to be found.

What is a letter of wishes? A plain-language note that sits alongside a will and explains what the will does not: funeral preferences, who should have particular belongings, the reasons behind decisions. It is not usually binding, which is why you can update it whenever you like.

How detailed should funeral wishes be? Detailed enough to settle the decisions your family would otherwise argue about, and no more. Burial or cremation, the service, who organises, three songs, one reading, and what you do not want cover almost everything. Leave the rest blank on purpose.