Pallbearer Duties

What a pallbearer does, in order

The job is about ninety minutes of being in the right place, and perhaps four minutes of carrying. Here is the whole of it, from arrival to the end of the graveside service.

1. 1

   Arrive early and check in

   Thirty to forty-five minutes before the service. Go to the funeral director rather than the family. The director gathers the pallbearers, explains the plan, hands out boutonnieres and gloves, and assigns positions. Ask any question you have here, because this is the moment it is easy.

2. 2

   Move the casket into the church or chapel

   If the casket is not already in place, you take it from the hearse and bring it in. Inside the building it usually goes onto a wheeled cart, and you walk alongside with a hand on the rail. In a Catholic funeral, the family drapes the white pall over the casket at the door while the pallbearers step back.

3. 3

   Sit together in the reserved pew

   Pallbearers are seated as a group, usually in the first few rows on one side, so they can move together without climbing over anyone. Sit where you are put. You are part of the service from this point on, so keep your phone off and follow the order of service like everyone else.

4. 4

   Carry the casket out at the end

   When the service closes, the pallbearers move first. You take the casket down the aisle ahead of the family, out to the hearse, and slide it in. The funeral director leads and sets the pace. Nothing about it is fast.

5. 5

   Travel in the procession

   Pallbearers often ride in a car provided by the funeral home, directly behind the hearse, or drive at the front of the procession with headlights on and a placard on the dash. Stay close to the car in front so the line does not break.

6. 6

   Carry to the grave

   At the cemetery you take the casket from the hearse and walk it to the grave, then set it on the lowering device. This is the harder carry, because it is over grass and often slightly uphill. Take small steps and watch the person in front of you rather than the ground.

7. 7

   Stand for the committal

   Once the casket is set down, step back and stand behind or beside the seated family for the graveside prayers. At a military funeral, pallbearers move clear so the honor guard can fold the flag. Stay until the family leaves.

Two things nobody tells first-time pallbearers. You do not need to know any of the traditions about which end goes first or which way the casket faces, because the funeral director handles all of that. And if you become upset in the middle of it, you stop, someone steps in, and the service continues. Funeral homes plan for it.

How many pallbearers you need

Six is the default because most caskets are built with three handles per side. The number should always be even, so that the weight is shared evenly and the two sides move at the same pace.

Name one or two alternates. People get sick, flights are canceled, and someone occasionally realizes on the morning that they cannot do it. If you end up short, funeral home staff step in without being asked; it happens at funerals every week.

A casket with a person inside is genuinely heavy, and the weight is not the hard part. The uneven ground, the narrow doorways and the slow pace are. If anyone is unsure whether they can manage, the funeral director can tell you what that particular casket weighs.

Who to ask

There is no rule about relationship. Families most often ask adult sons, grandsons, sons-in-law, brothers, nephews, and close friends, then look outward to coworkers, fellow veterans, church members, and people from a lodge, union or department the person belonged to. Daughters, granddaughters and sisters serve as pallbearers routinely.

Think about the immediate family separately. A widow, a widower, or an adult child may want to walk beside the casket rather than carry it, and should be told plainly that either is fine. In some homegoing traditions the family enters together in a processional behind the casket, which makes the choice simpler. The homegoing order of service sets out how that usually runs.

How to ask, and what to tell them

Ask by phone or in person, one at a time. Not in a group text. Being asked is an honor, and people should be given the chance to hear it that way and to say yes properly.

Tell them all of this in the first conversation:

Send a follow-up text with the date, the address and the arrival time the day before. Everyone involved in a funeral week is operating on about half their usual memory.

Honorary pallbearers

An honorary pallbearer is named and honored but carries nothing. It is not a consolation prize, and families use it far more than they realize they can.

Honorary is the right answer when:

Honorary pallbearers should still be told what is expected: where to sit, whether they walk in, and what time to arrive. Being named in a program and then not knowing where to stand is an uncomfortable way to spend a morning.

How the carry actually works

The mechanics take under a minute to learn, which is why the funeral director explains them on the day rather than in advance.

Two practical notes. Wet grass and a slight slope are the only real hazards, so shoes with grip matter more than strength. And if you feel your grip going, say so out loud rather than quietly struggling; every other pallbearer will simply take more, and the funeral director is standing three feet away.

What pallbearers wear

Match the family and stay dark. Unless the family has asked for something specific, that is the whole rule.

In winter, wear a coat you can move and lift in rather than a heavy overcoat. Remove hats indoors at a Christian service, unless a head covering is expected in that tradition. If you are unsure about anything else, general funeral etiquette covers the rest of the day.

How pallbearers are listed in the program

Pallbearers are almost always named in the funeral program, usually on an inside or back panel, after the order of service and before the acknowledgement. Use first and last names, no titles, no relationship labels, set in two columns.

Get the spellings from the people themselves, not from memory. A misspelled name in a printed program is the kind of small thing families remember for years. What goes in a funeral program shows where this panel sits relative to everything else, and funeral program wording has the headings and acknowledgement lines to go with it. If you are building the program itself, Reposa sets the pallbearer list under its own heading, alongside the other closing matter, and fits it to the panel so the names do not run over the fold.

At a service with military honors, the honor guard is separate from the pallbearers and is usually acknowledged in its own line. The military funeral program shows how both are set out.

If you have been asked and need to say no

Say it now rather than on the day. The family needs the information, not the apology, and replacing a pallbearer three days out is a two-minute phone call.

If you have said yes and you are anxious about it, the reassurance is simple: you will be told where to stand, when to lift, and how fast to walk. The task asks almost nothing of you except showing up early and moving slowly. Most people find it is the one part of the day where they knew exactly what to do.

Afterward, pallbearers are among the first people families thank. Thank-you card wording has a short line for them, and if you are the one organizing the week, the funeral planning checklist keeps the rest of it in order.