Funeral Acknowledgement Wording
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Short acknowledgements
One or two sentences. Use these when the back panel is already carrying a poem, a photograph or the repast details, or when the family simply does not want to say more.
1. The plainest version
22 words · suits any service
Thank you for being with us today. Your kindness this week has held our family up, and we will not forget it.
2. Formal, third person
18 words
The family of Ruth Delaney Marsh thanks you for your prayers, your cards and your presence here today.
3. For a room full of people who fed you
24 words
We are grateful beyond words for every call, every meal and every hand on our shoulder these past ten days. Thank you for coming.
4. One sentence, for a father
14 words
Thank you for loving our father, and for coming to say goodbye with us.
5. With the reception details attached
25 words
The Nakamura family thanks you for the kindness you have shown us. Please join us for lunch in the fellowship hall immediately following the service.
6. Warm and specific
20 words
Your presence here is a comfort. Thank you for the part each one of you played in our mother’s life.
7. Traditional phrasing, very short
20 words
The family of Walter J. Pruitt acknowledges with gratitude the many kindnesses shown to us during our time of sorrow.
8. When the stories matter more than the flowers
13 words
Thank you for coming. Thank you for the stories. Please keep telling them.
Standard acknowledgements
Three or four sentences, which is what most programs carry. Each of these thanks the room, names the kind of help the family received, and stops.
9. Written as if spoken to each person
51 words
There is no way to thank each of you properly, so please take this line as though it were spoken to you by name. You called. You cooked. You sat with us. You came. Our mother would have said that was the whole of it, and she would have been right.
10. Dated and formal
46 words
The family of Arthur Lee Brennan is grateful for your presence today, and for the many kindnesses shown to us since the eleventh of March. Your cards and calls carried us through days we could not have carried ourselves. Thank you for honoring a good man.
11. Invites people to stay
52 words
We want to thank everyone who has helped our family this month: the neighbors who cleared the driveway, the friends who answered the phone when we could not, and every one of you who has come today. Please stay afterward. Eat something. Tell us a story about him we have not heard.
12. For a mother, warm and concrete
49 words
The family of Yolanda Reyes Castillo thanks you for being here. Your love for our mother has been plain to us all week, in the food left on the porch and the flowers we ran out of room for. We are grateful, and we are glad you knew her.
13. Written by one of the children
33 words
On behalf of my mother and our whole family, thank you. Dad spent fifty-one years telling us he was a lucky man. Looking around this room today, we finally understand what he meant.
14. For a small, deliberately quiet service
32 words
Our family is small and this gathering is small, and that is exactly how she wanted it. Thank you for being one of the few she would have chosen to have here.
15. After a long illness
34 words
To the friends who visited when visiting was hard, who kept calling after the first month, and who never once asked us to explain: thank you. You know who you are. So did he.
16. After a sudden death
47 words
We do not have words yet. What we have is the sight of this room full of people who loved him, and that is more help than you know. Thank you for coming, and thank you in advance for your patience with us in the weeks ahead.
Faith-based wording
Seven versions for a service where faith is part of how the family speaks. The homegoing and Catholic wordings below follow the forms those congregations expect.
17. Christian, general
51 words
The family of Ellis Ray Tanner gives thanks to God for the life we were given to share, and thanks each of you for the love you have shown us. We rest in the promise that we will see him again. Until then, thank you for walking these days beside us.
18. Christian, shorter
34 words
We thank God for every remembrance of her, and we thank you for your prayers, which we have felt. May the God of all comfort keep each of you as He has kept us.
19. Catholic
37 words
The family of Rosemary Anne Doherty thanks you for your presence, your prayers, and the Masses offered for the repose of her soul. Eternal rest grant unto her, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon her.
20. Catholic, naming the parish
40 words
We are grateful to Father Reyes and to the parish of St. Brigid for the care shown to our family, and to all of you who have prayed for Dad and for us. Please continue to remember him at Mass.
21. Homegoing, traditional
41 words
The family of the late Deacon Otis Ray Pemberton acknowledges with sincere appreciation your many expressions of love, sympathy and kindness shown during our hour of bereavement. Your prayers have strengthened us. May God richly bless and keep each of you.
22. Homegoing, warmer
44 words
The family of Mother Bernice Louise Ashford wishes to express our deepest appreciation for every prayer, every phone call, every dish of food and every act of kindness extended to us. We could not have stood these days alone. To God be the glory.
23. Jewish
37 words
The family of Dr. Aaron Weiss thanks you for your presence today and for the comfort of your company. We will be sitting shiva at the family home through Thursday evening. May his memory be a blessing.
Many homegoing programs also carry the traditional verse that begins “Perhaps you sent a lovely card” in place of a written acknowledgement. Most funeral homes keep it on file and will set it for you if you ask. Other closing verses and cover lines are collected in funeral program wording.
Non-religious wording
Four versions with no mention of faith, for a secular service, a graveside gathering or a celebration of life.
24. Plain and affectionate
26 words
Thank you for coming today, and for everything you have done for our family this month. Nora would have hated a fuss and loved the turnout.
25. For a celebration of life
45 words
There is no order of service to follow here and no wrong thing to say. Eat, stay as long as you like, and tell us something about him we do not know. That was the whole of his plan, and we are keeping to it.
26. Grateful for practical help
32 words
Our family thanks you for the extraordinary kindness of these past weeks: the rides, the meals, the phone calls at ten at night. We hope you will let us return it someday.
27. In her voice
29 words
Thank you for being here. If you knew her at all, you were told what to do at least once. Consider this her last instruction: look after each other.
If the whole service is being built this way, the celebration of life program guide covers the rest of the wording, and funeral poems has the readings that usually sit above this paragraph.
Naming particular people
Six versions that thank a specific group. Use one of these on its own, or drop the middle sentence into any of the standard examples above.
28. Hospice
41 words
We are grateful to the nurses and aides of Fairhaven Hospice, and especially to Denise, who cared for Mom with such patience in her last three weeks and treated all of us as though we were the only family she had.
29. A nursing home or memory care unit
44 words
Our thanks to the staff of Willow Creek Care Center, who looked after Dad for four years, learned his jokes, and were with him at the end when we could not be. You gave him a home, and you gave us peace of mind.
30. A church family
34 words
To the congregation of Bethel Chapel: you fed us, you drove us, and you filled this room. Thirty-one years of Sunday mornings brought us here, and we are grateful for every one of them.
31. Coworkers or a union local
26 words
Thank you to the men and women of Local 214, who stood with our family this week the way they stood with Ray for thirty-two years.
32. Pallbearers and military honors
32 words
Our thanks to the pallbearers, who carried him with such care, and to the honor guard for the military honors rendered today. He would have stood a little straighter to see it.
33. People who traveled a long way
38 words
To those who took time off work, drove through the night, or flew in from three time zones away: thank you. She would have told you it was far too much trouble, and she would have been pleased.
A word of caution about naming people. If you name one nurse, name the unit as well, so the others are included. If you name one grandchild, you have to name all of them. The safest rule is to name institutions and roles, and to save individual names for the thank-you cards you send afterward.
Where it goes and how long
The acknowledgement lives on the back panel of the program, almost always. On a bi-fold it sits under the closing verse or the photograph. On a tri-fold it takes the final panel on its own. On a booklet it is the last page, sometimes with the repast details beneath it.
Setting the acknowledgement on the page
- Heading it · Acknowledgement, Acknowledgements, In Appreciation, With Grateful Hearts, or Thank You
- Length · twenty-five to seventy words; past a hundred it crowds the panel
- Sign it as a family · “The Family of Ruth Delaney Marsh” or “The Marsh Family”
- Or sign it with names, if the family is small · “Lovingly, Tom, Anne and Grace”
- Set it centered, in the body type · italics for the whole paragraph gets hard to read at small sizes
- Keep it away from the fold · leave at least a quarter inch of clear space on the folded edge
- Read it aloud once before printing · this is the paragraph most likely to have a name spelled wrong
Wording worth avoiding
| Instead of | Write | Why |
|---|---|---|
| We would like to thank | We thank / Thank you | The conditional weakens it. You are not requesting permission to be grateful. |
| Words cannot express our gratitude for all of the many acts of kindness | Thank you for every kindness | The long version says less. Short thanks reads as sincere. |
| A list of eleven names | The family name, or the institution | Somebody will be missed, and that person will read the panel twice. |
| The family home address for cards | Nothing, or the funeral home’s address | The program is handed to strangers and the house is empty during the service. |
| We will be in touch with each of you personally | Thank you for your kindness | It is a promise made in the hardest week of your life. Do not print it. |
| Thanking sponsors, florists and the caterer | Only the people who helped the family | Vendors were paid. The acknowledgement is not a credits page. |
You are allowed to do less than you think here. A single sentence is a complete acknowledgement. No one has ever left a funeral feeling the family owed them a longer paragraph, and nobody keeps the program to audit the thanks. If you are down to your last hour before the printer closes, use example 1 and move on.
The program note vs the cards you mail
Families often try to make one piece of writing do both jobs, and it is the reason the acknowledgement gets stuck. They are different tasks, written at different times, to different people.
The acknowledgement in the program
Written before the service, for everyone in the room at once. General on purpose. Two to four sentences, signed by the family as a whole, printed on the back panel.
It has one job: to thank the room out loud so that nobody has to wonder whether the family noticed.
The thank-you cards you send after
Written in the weeks afterward, to one person at a time. Names the specific thing that person did, in one or two handwritten lines.
There is no deadline that anyone enforces. Six weeks is normal. Three months is fine. Not everyone gets one, and that is also fine.
The wording for the mailed cards is a separate job, and it is covered on the funeral thank you card wording page, with lines for flowers, food, donations and pallbearers. For everything else that has to appear on the program panels, see what to include in a funeral program, and for the wording of a homegoing program in particular, the homegoing service program guide.
If you are building the program itself rather than only writing the words, Reposa places the acknowledgement on the correct panel, at a size that fits, alongside the order of service and the obituary.
Writing your own in five minutes
If nothing above fits, build it from three sentences. First, thank people for being there. Second, name the kind of help that actually arrived: the meals, the calls, the driving, the sitting in silence. Third, say one true thing about the person who died, and stop.
That is the whole structure, and it is why the examples on this page are all roughly the same shape. Write it once, read it out loud to one other person in the family, and let it be finished. This is not the paragraph that will decide how anyone remembers the day.
Common questions
What is an acknowledgement in a funeral program?
How long should the acknowledgement be?
Who signs the acknowledgement?
Do we have to name the hospice, the church or the doctors?
Is the acknowledgement the same as a thank-you card?
What heading should sit above it?
Can we write it ourselves instead of using an example?
Keep reading
- Funeral Thank You Card WordingWhat to write in a funeral thank-you card for flowers, food, donations, pallbearers and the people who simply showed up.
- Funeral Program WordingCover lines, section headings, acknowledgement paragraphs and closing wording for a funeral program. More than sixty examples to borrow.
- What to Include in a Funeral ProgramA checklist of everything that belongs in a funeral program, panel by panel, plus the things families most often forget.
- Funeral PoemsPublic-domain funeral poems you can print in a program or on a card, with any cut marked, plus the modern ones families ask for most, listed by title and poet with a note on which you can print.