How to pick an urn for your loved one
When tasked with choosing a cremation urn for a loved one who has passed away, nearly everyone is a beginner. That’s perfectly fine. Choosing an urn for someone who meant so much to you is a difficult job, especially if this is your first time.
No doubt you’ll have many questions about keepsake urns. How do you choose the right funeral urn? What size of urn do you need? Is one urn material better than another? What price range should you be considering?
These are all great questions. As you begin to think about your options, here are five things to consider to help ensure you get a suitable cremation urn which acts as a fitting tribute.
5 THINGS TO CONSIDER WHEN CHOOSING A CREMATION URN
1. INTENDED USE
The first thing to consider is how and where the urn is going to be used. If you’re going to use the urn in a ground burial at a cemetery, there may be certain requirements. Find out if the cemetery only allows urns up to a specific cubic inch in volume or if it needs to be in a certain material, such as a ceramic urn.
If you plan on displaying the cremation urn in your home, you will have much more freedom to pick the size and design of the memorial. If you plan on scattering the ashes, you need to decide if you’re going to scatter them soon, or wait until the spouse passes away so you can scatter the ashes of both people together. Your decision on this will likely affect the type of urn you settle on.
Here are some of the common uses for cremation urns, and how they may influence your choice.
BURIAL
When burying an urn, you may want to go with simple, sturdy urn designs. Some burial facilities require the use of a protective urn vault to keep the ground in the cemetery from collapsing. This means you can get a small wood, metal or ceramic urn and place it inside an urn burial vault.
Another option which saves you from purchasing both the urn and a vault, is choosing a cultured marble urn. This type of urn serves as its own vault. Before you make a decision, be sure to contact the cemetery and confirm their requirements.
COLUMBARIUM NICHE
A columbarium is an above-ground structure designed for holding a selection of urns. Each niche is a small hole within the columbarium that can hold a single urn.
Columbarium niches are rather small, so you need to take this into consideration when choosing an urn. Contact the columbarium directly to find out the urn size they recommend to fit best in their niches.
SCATTERING
There are many different ways you can scatter ashes. Some people choose to scatter ashes at the funeral, while all family and friends are present. Others wait a long time, even years, until they find the perfect time and place for scattering.
If you choose to scatter right away, there are many affordable biodegradable scattering urns designed to help you easily pour or scatter the ashes. These are paper-pulp based and eco-friendly. They will certainly last for several years, but if you want something more durable you may want to consider an urn with a more solid material.
KEEP AT HOME
When keeping the urn at home, most families opt for a beautiful urn that they can keep on display. If the person you want to honor was into nature and loved being outdoors, a wooden urn might be the perfect choice.
A handmade ceramic urn can perfectly capture someone’s delicate, sensitive personality, while glass urns can be a wonderful tribute to someone creative and artistic. Sometimes an everyday household item, like a coffee tin or a tackle box, makes the most sense for someone who didn’t want a whole lot of fuss and bother.
If your loved one enjoyed gardening, hunting, fishing or another hobby, you can find a themed urn just for them. Choosing this type of urn is a very special way to remind you of the things they loved.
How you’ll use the urn will greatly influence the cremation urn you’ll choose. Now let’s look at a few additional factors to consider.
2. SIZE
One of the most important things you need to ensure is that the ashes will fit inside the urn. There’s a simple way to determine the size of the urn you’ll need.
One pound of the person’s body weight is the equivalent of one cubic inch of cremated remains. Most urn providers display the cubic inch volume of each urn, making it easy for you to determine whether it’s a suitable size.
Most standard adult urns have the capacity for 200 cubic inches. This works for nearly all adults who weighed up to 200 lbs.
There are smaller keepsake urns specially designed for when cremated remains are divided between family members, leaving each individual with a small volume of ashes. There are also larger companion urns designed to hold the cremated ashes of two adults. For further details on urns for two people, take a look at this Complete Guide to Companion Urns.
When choosing an urn, keep in mind that most adult urns have an interior capacity of about 200 cubic inches. The outside measurements are really only important for burial, placement in a niche or if you have a specific area where you’d like to display the urn.
3. MATERIAL
Cremation urns are made out of many different materials. The most common and popular materials are metal, wood, stone and ceramic.
Choosing the urn’s material is really a matter of preference as most will last for years, even generations. If you’re burying the urn in a cemetery plot, you may want to consider a stone urn such as cultured marble or granite, as the urn will then serve as its own protective vault.
There are other materials, of course, you can choose for your urn, such as paper, sand, gelatin and salt. These materials are typically biodegradable and designed to return your loved one’s remains to the earth in a natural, eco-friendly way.
4. DESIGN
Fortunately, there’s a nearly inexhaustible abundance of designs and themes available when it comes to finding a final resting place for your loved one. From urns customized with a photo to simple Christian cross urns and everything in between, you have a wide array of designs from which to choose.
Here are just a few examples:
- Angels
- Books
- Butterflies
- Dolphins
- Dragons
- Eagles
- Fishing
- Golf
- Hummingbirds
- Hunting
- Lighthouses
- Motorcycles
- Ocean/Beach
- Praying Hands
- Sailing
5. COST
Finally, you should consider the cost. Your funeral budget is important, and so is finding ways to save on funeral homes and the associated costs.
Some things are worth any price tag; for instance, turning your loved one’s remains into a beautiful heirloom diamond. The same goes for choosing the perfect cremation urn.
However, there is no need to pay more than you have to. Sometimes a cremation urn from a funeral home is several hundred dollars more than the same urn sold online. It’s always worth your time to shop around and consider an urn from a trusted online source, such as Urns Northwest.