Burial Services

We provide professional and compassionate burial services in Lafayette, CA with reputable and licensed funeral directors.

When we experience the death of someone we love, a funeral service fills several important needs.

First, it provides for the dignified and respectful care of the person and special tribute to their life. Equally important, the funeral service helps survivors face the reality of death, which is the first big step toward taking grief from the inside and allowing us to express it on the outside through mourning. Together, close friends and relatives can lend support and consolation when they're needed most.

• Graveside funeral services, which can include involvement from a religious leader, masonic rites, military ritual, or readings from family members.
  
• Committal services, in which loved ones gather to commit a loved one to the Earth—a symbolic gesture of healing.
  
• Immediate burials, for families who have a sudden and unexpected need to bury a loved one.

For unexpected deaths please call 911.

Meaningful funeral services make a significant difference in how families channel their grief toward health and healing. During the funeral, the community comes together and responds to the reality that someone has died, and also to the reality that those remaining will need support, compassion, love, hope, and understanding. The funeral encourages you to think about the person who has died and to explore the meaning of their life and the ways in which they touched the lives of others.

The remembering, reflecting and choices that take place in the planning and conducting of the funeral service are often an important part of the process of grief and mourning. And ultimately, this process of contemplation and discovery creates a memorable and moving funeral experience for all who attend.

The Visitation

Receiving friends through a visitation activates your support system and allows others to express their concern and love for you. Having a visitation encourages you to openly and honestly mourn the death. Friends and family will remember you invited them and often stay more available to you in the months that follow the death.

Sometimes called the wake, calling hours and viewing, the visitation is a time for friends and family to support one another in their grief. The body is often present in an open or unopened casket, allowing you and others who loved the person who has died to acknowledge the reality of the death and to have the privilege of saying goodbye.

The Procession

Also called the cortege, the funeral procession from the funeral service to the gravesite or columbarium, scattering garden or other final resting place is usually led by the hearse containing the casketed body.

The procession is a symbol of mutual support and public honoring of the death. Mourners accompany one another to the final resting place of the person who died. Often, even strangers take pause and are respectful because they know someone in your family has died.

The Committal Service

It is a way of honoring the dead and helping them to exit this life with honor, dignity and respect. The act of watching the casket being lowered into the vault can be extremely powerful and offer additional momentum in the healing process to loved ones, relatives and friends. Some families choose to actively participate by placing earth on the vault.

Accompanying a body to its final resting place and saying a few last words brings a necessary feeling of finality to the funeral process. Even if you are having a full funeral service, you may want to consider having a short committal service at the gravesite, mausoleum, columbarium or scattering site. The committal service gives a feeling of finality to the funeral that you’ll never have otherwise.

The Casket

The casket typically becomes the visual and emotional focal point of the funeral service, and just as important, serves as the final resting place for your loved one. The casket you choose can be more than just a burial vessel – it can become a touching reminder of all that made your loved one special. When selecting a casket, the first decision is typically the casket material – wood or metal.

Burial Vault

Burial vaults enclose the casket when it is placed at the gravesite and are designed to prevent the weight of soil and heavy equipment from damaging the casket. Burial vaults are available in a variety of materials including metal, concrete and composite materials. Your local funeral professional can help you select the correct vault for your needs.

Cemetery Space

Traditionally, families have chosen to bury their loved ones in a cemetery or place the casket in an above-ground structure called a mausoleum. Often families choose a nearby cemetery because it allows them to visit the gravesite as often as they like. This helps them continue to feel close to the person who died, while still acknowledging the death. If you haven't already purchased a cemetery plot or mausoleum space, your funeral director can help you make a purchase appropriate for your needs.

Monument or Grave Marker

Also called headstones, grave markers are used in cemeteries to memorialize and identify the gravesite of the person who has died. You may want to personalize the grave marker by including a poem, a drawing or a short phrase that defines the person who died. Monuments and grave markers are available in a variety of materials, including natural stone, concrete and bronze. Styles can range from very simple to ornate, as single markers or companion monuments.

Aboveground Entombment

Aboveground structures are an alternative to traditional ground burial. Multiple options and price ranges allow families many choices. Aboveground entombment also helps to eliminate expenses for some burial items such as an outer burial container.

Private Mausoleums

Private mausoleums are lasting structures used for the entombment of family or group members. They can accommodate a variety of individual preferences including casket burial and cremation urn interment. Private mausoleums are beautifully designed to reflect a family's unique heritage and create a permanent tribute to lives well-lived.

Family Tombs

Family tombs are a popular choice for private and peaceful aboveground entombment. These crypts come in a variety of designs, materials and arrangements. Single- to six-crypt (or larger) pre-assembled private mausoleums are available for placement on your own cemetery site.

Community Mausoleums

Community mausoleums offer the dignity, permanence and beauty of aboveground burial. These structures offer entombment for many, housing individual and companion crypts and often cremation niches as well.

Chapel Mausoleums

Chapel mausoleums house a chapel in which indoor services can take place. A chapel mausoleum is another elegant, yet affordable, option for families considering this form of entombment.

Garden Mausoleums

Garden mausoleums are open-air structures that provide a lasting and beautiful remembrance option. Special landscaping features and outdoor environment make this a desirable choice for many people.

In-Ground Burial

In-ground burial provides a wide variety of choices, and it allows for personal preference by offering individual, companion or family locations within beautifully manicured gardens and special areas. Costs are flexible and there are pre-funded plans to meet most any budget. There are many personalization and memorialization selections available, allowing families to personalize loved ones' grave sites through a range of memorial options. In-ground burial often requires an outer burial container.

Private Family Estate Area

Family estate sections allow family members to be together in a shared area, often bordered by special landscaping or architectural elements. Cremated remains can also be interred here. Family estates are a wonderful way to preserve family heritage and maintain a historical resting place for future generations.

Upright Memorials

Upright memorials have long been considered a prestigious and personal form of memorialization and are a popular choice for many individuals choosing in-ground burial. These memorials come in many different materials and sizes and can be as simple or elaborate as you choose.

Lawn Crypts

Lawn crypts are preconstructed cemetery burial spaces that contain a vault that shelters a casket. Lawn crypt gardens are considered by many to be an economical and effective use of land, and with multiple installations of crypts, families have an affordable alternative for a full casket burial or cremation. Each lawn crypt is reinforced with lasting materials that provide durability and stability.

Elevated Lawn Crypt Gardens

Elevated lawn crypt gardens are specially appointed gardens that are slightly raised from ground level. These gardens blend beauty with convenience and offer a cost-efficient alternative to traditional ground burial.

The basic Military Funeral Honors (MFH) ceremony consists of the folding and presentation of the United States flag to the veterans' family and the playing of Taps. The ceremony is performed by a funeral honors detail consisting of at least two members of the Armed Forces.

You can learn more about veteran funeral services and if you are eligible here.

Having a permanent place - in a cemetery, mausoleum, or cremation garden - that can be visited regularly by family and friends is an essential part of the time following a death. 

You can learn more about memorialization options here.

Tour our facilities and meet our friendly staff.