Easily Create a Funeral Order of Service Booklet

The order of service booklet needs to be printed. There are many options open to you. You can print it yourself, have your funeral director print it on their office printer, or send it out to be printed and delivered. Unless you’re printing it at home, you’re relying on someone else to fit the printing into their schedule. In our experience and from talking with many people, this can be the cause of significant stress, because there isn’t usually much time. We recommend you prepare the order of service booklet as one of the first tasks, or delegate it to someone who can do it quickly for you.

An order of service for a funeral can both guide guests through the day but also act as a treasured keepsake for years to come. On the day an order of service will often:

- Help guests follow the service

- Let guests know who will be speaking and their relationship to the one who has passed

- Share lyrics for any hymns or songs to be sung or prayers to be spoken

- Share meaningful photos of the person who has died

Before you start to create the Order of Service booklet, it’s a good idea to discuss the service you plan to have with your celebrant. You’ll want to plan your readings, hymns and prayers. Who will read each of them? And consider the order in which they will run. When you know your service plan, you’ll be ready to start your funeral order of service booklet.

There are many different ways and traditions for the running order of a funeral. The best option is to discuss with your funeral arranger. A classic Christian funeral often follows the format:

Opening Music

Welcome

Readings

Blessings/Prayers

Committal

Closing Music

Most funeral order of service booklets will serve as a program to guide the guests through the service. Typically, this means a list of the order of each part of the service and who will lead it, from the welcome to the hymns, prayers and readings. In each of the Eulogise templates we’ve added placeholder text to make it easy to know what to include. The best first step is to talk with your celebrant or arranger.

Eulogise has a range of themes, or layouts, specially designed for funeral order of service booklets. They range from simple to bold expressive styles and from classic to modern formats. Select the theme that is closest to the style you like for your service, and you can customise it from there, to create something truly personal. You have full control over the fonts, photos and even backgrounds.

Different cultures, religions and backgrounds all have different customs when it comes to funeral orders of service. With Eulogise you are able to add as many additional pages as you would like.

The funeral service booklet can include several pictures or may feature only one or two. Your theme will help you determine how many pictures you need for it. You may have many pictures already of your loved one, however, it can be helpful to ask family and friends if they have any others to share. You may just find one you haven’t seen before, that serves perfectly for the order of service. Eulogise makes it very easy to collect all the pictures from the family, ready to use in your funeral booklet.

If the picture you need for your funeral service booklet is a printed photograph, don’t despair. And certainly, don’t spend time or money scanning printed photographs. Your smartphone will take excellent quality pictures that will print beautifully in an order of service booklet. Save your time for reflecting on the pictures. We recommend Google PhotoScan as an app on your smartphone because it’s free. And it creates excellent, high-resolution digital versions of your pictures. Eulogise is designed to make it super easy to collect your digitized pictures right off your phone.

The choice of cover photo is personal and important. We believe reviewing the pictures with close family members can be a rewarding process. It can prompt conversation, sharing forgotten memories as you reflect on the pictures. And we’ve found talking at a time like this generally helps. You may wish to show a portrait of your loved one on the cover, or alternatively, opt for a mood image instead. If you choose a portrait, find the one you feel most captures their spirit. It may be from any age in their life. Consider both the expression and the photograph itself. Eulogise has themes with mood images as a background that also enable you to add a portrait if you wish. You can add a large, small, or multiple images.

It is entirely up to you. Some families opt for a gallery of multiple photos on the inside pages. Others only add a second portrait on the back. Any additional pictures can span the lifetime of the deceased. Or you may choose to focus on the most significant period of their life. You could also include mood pictures of memorabilia or locations they loved. It’s as much as an opportunity to tell a story, as to guide the congregation through the service. Something to keep in mind, many people will hold onto the order of service booklet as a memento for years to come.

The paper a funeral service booklet is printed on makes a difference to the quality and appearance and how well it will keep into the future. Many people keep the funeral booklet for years to come, enjoying a moment of reflection as they periodically come across it over the years. We recommend paper at least 220 grams in weight. It’s not quite card quality, but it’s a lot heavier than office printer paper.