Shop and packets · Your rights · Funeral home directory
Spend less at the funeral home by buying some things yourself
Federal law lets you buy a casket or urn from anyone and have the funeral home use it. Memorial goods and paperwork are the same story. These pages are a buying guide: established retailers for the big items, checklists for the rest, and a paid PDF binder you can print at home.
The links on this page exist to shorten your week. Every item here can be bought somewhere else, and nothing on this list requires a specialty store. But grief week is a hundred small errands, and each one you can finish right now, in this sitting, is one that stops following you around. So this page tries to be the one stop: what you need, why you need it, roughly what it costs, and a place to buy it, so that when you close this tab the shopping is done.
These retailers are here to save you money: a casket bought direct often costs hundreds to more than a thousand dollars less than the same casket in a funeral home selection room. As an Amazon Associate, MN Funeral Buddy earns from qualifying purchases made through Amazon links on these pages, and some other links may be referral links that pay this site a small commission. A referral fee never changes the price you pay, and no retailer pays to appear here or to be described a certain way. Funeral homes must accept a casket or urn you buy elsewhere under the federal Funeral Rule (16 CFR Part 453). We are not a funeral home and do not arrange funerals.
Basis: FTC Funeral Rule: caskets.
Goods
Caskets
Buy elsewhere and have it shipped to the funeral home you choose. Under the Funeral Rule, they must accept it.
Urns and cremation goods
Urns, temporary containers, and keepsakes. Same rule: the funeral home must accept an urn you provide.
Simple cremation options
When the plan is cremation without a traditional service, compare direct-cremation paths and the goods that go with them.
Flowers, guest books, memorial
Day-of and after items families often buy outside the funeral home.
Paperwork and home practicalities
Death-certificate organizers, file boxes, and small tools that show up in the first weeks.
Checklists by situation
The smaller goods, grouped by situation, so the buying takes ten minutes instead of an evening. None of these need to come from the funeral home or a specialty store: any large retailer, online or local, carries all of them. The Amazon links finish the list in one cart; the disclosure above applies to them.
Service day kit
The short list families buy for a visitation or service: guest book, photo frames, candles, a memory table cloth, and flowers. One pass, done.
- Funeral guest book
Hardcover guest books for the visitation or service.
- Memorial photo frames and displays
Frames and table displays for photos at the visitation.
- Memorial candles
Unity and memorial candle sets for services at home or church.
- Memory table runner / memorial cloth
Simple cloths and runners people use for a memory table.
- Sympathy flowers
Standing sprays, wreaths, and arrangements. Ship to the funeral home or the family.
Cremation kit
For a cremation plan: a permanent urn or a temporary container while you decide, keepsakes if the ashes will be shared, and a scattering tube if that is the plan.
- Adult cremation urn
Full-size urns (about 200 cubic inches). Metal, wood, ceramic.
Often under a few hundred online
- Temporary cremation container
Simple temporary urns and boxes used until a permanent urn is chosen.
- Keepsake urns (small)
Small shareable urns for dividing ashes among family.
- Scattering tube
Tubes designed for scattering ashes outdoors where allowed.
Paperwork and after kit
For the weeks after: one organizer for death certificates and claims, and thank-you cards for acknowledgments on your own timeline.
- Estate and document organizer
Folders and organizers for death certificates, bills, and benefit claims.
- Thank-you cards
Cards for acknowledgments after the service.
Printable packets
One-time PDF downloads. Checkout runs through Stripe and the download starts right after payment.
Still need a licensed funeral home for care of the body, paperwork, and the service itself. Start with the directory and the first-days checklist.