Funeral Program Wording

Front cover wording

The line above the name sets the tone for the whole booklet. Choose it before anything else, because the headings inside tend to follow it.

Here are three complete covers, set out exactly as they would be printed. Everything in them is invented, so change the names and they are yours.

A note on the time. Spelling it out, as Ten o’clock in the morning, is traditional and reads well on a cover. Numerals are equally correct and easier to take in at a glance. Use one style through the whole booklet, whichever you pick.

The name and dates line

This is the line people photograph and keep. It is worth ten minutes of care. Use the name the person actually went by, and make room for the nickname if there was one.

Two things to check before this goes to print. First, the year. Families type the month and day correctly and drop or mistype the year more often than any other error in the booklet. Second, the maiden name. If the person was known by it at church, at work, or to half the room, put it in parentheses rather than leaving it out.

If you are still deciding which pieces of information belong where, the funeral program format page walks through each panel in order, and what to include in a funeral program is the full checklist.

Headings for the inside pages

Inside the program you are writing labels, not sentences. Each heading sits on its own line, with the name of the person doing it underneath in smaller or italic type. That is the entire convention.

Two rules keep this section from going wrong. Use the same heading style all the way down, and put reflections before the eulogy rather than after, because open remarks that follow the eulogy tend to run long. If you want the full sequence for a particular tradition, the funeral order of service page sets out each one in order.

Headings for the other panels

The panels that are not the order of service need headings too. These are the ones families use most:

• Obituary · Life Sketch · A Life Remembered · Our Mother
• Survived By · Cherished Family · Left to Cherish Her Memory
• Preceded in Death By · Reunited With · Gone Before Him (used sparingly)
• Pallbearers · Honorary Pallbearers · Flower Bearers
• Interment · Final Resting Place · Committal
• Acknowledgement · A Note of Thanks · With Gratitude · Thank You
• Repast · Reception · You Are Invited

Naming the officiant, pallbearers and musicians

This block usually sits on the inside right panel or the back, under the order of service. Set it in two columns if it is long. Names go in the order they will appear at the service.

Honorary pallbearers are named but do not carry. The title is a way to include someone who is too old, too far away or too unwell to lift, and it is one of the kindest lines in the whole program. A group can be named instead of individuals, as above. Pallbearer duties covers how many you need and who to ask.

If a name is spelled two different ways within a family, use the spelling that person uses for themselves. If you cannot reach them to ask, use the spelling on the wedding invitation or the Christmas card list.

Interment, repast and reception lines

These are single lines, and precision matters more than warmth. People read them in a parking lot on their phone. Write out the address.

One practical note. If the reception is somewhere other than the church, add the town as well as the street. Half the people at a funeral drove in from out of state that morning.

The acknowledgement paragraph

This is the family speaking directly to the room, and it is the part people most often stall on. Two to four sentences is the whole job. Thank people for coming, thank anyone who carried the family through the week, and stop.

You are allowed to do less than you think here. A single sentence of thanks is a complete acknowledgement, and no one has ever left a funeral feeling the family owed them a longer paragraph. If you want more to choose from, there are thirty full examples on the funeral acknowledgement wording page, and separate wording for the cards you send afterward on funeral thank you card wording.

Closing lines for the back page

The last thing on the back panel is usually one short line, verse or poem, set on its own with space around it. Short works better than long. People read it while standing.

Scripture, in the King James Version

• “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.”

  Psalm 23:1

  The single most used line on a funeral program.

• “In my Father’s house are many mansions.”

  John 14:2

• “And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.”

  Revelation 21:4

• “Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.”

  Matthew 5:4

• “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.”

  2 Timothy 4:7

  Often chosen for a long illness or a long working life.

• “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.”

  Psalm 116:15

• “He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather the lambs with his arm.”

  Isaiah 40:11

• “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.”

  Ecclesiastes 3:1

More of these, sorted by theme and by length, are on Bible verses for funeral programs.

Lines with no religious content

If you would rather use a full poem than a single line, the funeral poems page has more, all in the public domain, sorted by length so you can see which ones will fit a panel. The same short pieces work on the back of a prayer card.

Wording by type of service

The vocabulary shifts between traditions, and using the wrong word is the one thing that makes a program look as though nobody checked. This is the short version.

If your service belongs to one of these traditions, the tradition pages carry the full order and the exact wording, including the Catholic funeral program, the homegoing service program and the celebration of life program. And when the wording is settled, making the program itself takes about half an hour.

Wording worth avoiding

Before it prints, read the whole program aloud to one other person in the family, pointing at each name as you say it. Names, dates and times are the only errors that will genuinely bother anyone later, and reading aloud catches all three. If you would rather not lay any of this out yourself, Reposa asks for these details in order and sets them into a print-ready program with matching cards, using the wording on this page as the starting point.