What Flowers Are Right for a Funeral?

Funeral flower etiquette in Australia

Two things settle almost every question. First, read the notice. If it says family flowers only, or asks for donations in lieu, that is a clear instruction and it should be followed. Second, work out whether you are arranging the service or attending it, because those are different roles with different flowers.

Beyond that, Australian practice is not rigid. White is always safe. Colour is common and increasingly preferred, particularly where the family has asked for a celebration of life rather than a traditional service.

Who arranges what

One arrangement per household or group is the norm. A workplace sending twelve individual bunches creates a problem for a chapel that has room for four.

Flowers by faith and service type

Practice varies, and the family's own wishes always come before any general rule. If you are unsure, the funeral director will tell you what the family has asked for.

What the colours conventionally mean

• White, the default for Australian funerals: peace, respect and remembrance. Always correct.
• Soft pink and blush: gentleness and affection. Common for a mother, grandmother or child.
• Red: love and deep respect. Traditional for a spouse or partner.
• Yellow: friendship and warmth. Often chosen for a friend or a colleague.
• Purple: dignity and admiration, and traditional in several liturgical settings.
• Native and mixed colour: increasingly chosen where the service is a celebration of the person rather than a formal rite.

Which flowers are traditionally used, and why

There is no rule you have to follow in Australia, but the conventions exist for reasons worth knowing before you decide to ignore them.

Scent deserves a specific warning. Oriental lilies and stargazers are beautiful and overwhelming in a small chapel, and their pollen stains fabric permanently. Most florists remove the anthers. If you are sending them, it is worth asking.

What each arrangement type is for

The names get used loosely, and ordering the wrong form is the most common practical mistake.

Letter tributes are the one to think twice about. They need substantial floor space at the front of the chapel, they photograph poorly at close range, and a chapel with several of them plus a casket spray runs out of room quickly.

Looking after flowers after the service

Families are often given eight or ten arrangements at the end of a service and no idea what to do with them. A little planning removes one small burden from a difficult day.

• Decide in advance who takes them. If the answer is nobody, arrange with the funeral director to donate them. Many will take arrangements to a hospital, hospice or aged care home.
• Keep the cards. Separate them from the flowers before anything is moved. They are needed later for acknowledgements and they are easily lost.
• Take a photograph of each arrangement with its card. The simplest way to remember who sent what, and it takes two minutes.
• Cut and recut anything kept. Arrangements out of water for a service need a fresh cut and clean water to hold at home.
• Do not feel obliged to keep them. Flowers are meant to be temporary, and nobody sent them expecting them to be preserved.

If a single arrangement matters, the casket spray most often, it can be dried or pressed. That needs to happen within a day or two, so decide before the service rather than after.

Flowers for a celebration of life

More Australian families now hold a celebration of life rather than a traditional service, and the floral conventions loosen considerably when they do. What replaces them is not a free for all so much as a different question: not what is respectful, but what was true of this person.

• Colour is the default, not the exception. White still works, but there is no expectation of it.
• Arrangements can be informal. Jars, tins, bottles and mismatched vessels suit a celebration in a hall or a garden in a way they never suit a chapel.
• Guests can participate. A table of loose stems that mourners place into a shared arrangement during the service is a quiet, easy thing that people remember.
• Flowers can go home with people. Small posies for guests to take, rather than large pieces that end up discarded.
• The setting is often not a chapel. A club, a beach, a backyard or a hall each bring their own constraints, and none of them have a florist on call.

The one thing that does not change is the timing. A celebration of life held weeks later gives you far more floral choice than a service held in five days, because nothing has to be sourced at short notice.

Cultural and community practice in Australia

Australia holds a very wide range of funeral practice, and the general conventions on this page describe the most common. Where a family observes a particular tradition, that tradition takes precedence, and the funeral director will know what the family has asked for.

Three practical points cover most situations. If the notice does not mention flowers, they are almost certainly welcome. If it asks for donations in lieu or says family flowers only, do that instead. And if you are unsure whether flowers are customary for a particular service, a phone call to the funeral home is a short conversation that removes the doubt entirely.

Where flowers are not customary, the alternatives that are universally welcome are a written card, a donation to a nominated cause, food delivered to the home, or simply attending. None of them require you to guess.

How much to spend

Nobody wants to ask this and everybody wants to know. There is no obligation attached to any figure, and the family will not be comparing. These are the ranges most people land in.

A single well made arrangement is always better than two cheaper ones, and a card with something specific written in it is worth more than either.

Timing, and when things need to be ordered

Most Australian funerals are held five to ten days after the death. Flowers are usually confirmed in the last two or three days of that, which is tighter than it needs to be.

If you are outside those windows and it matters to you, ask anyway. Florists will usually find a way for a funeral where they would not for a party.

Sending flowers to the home

The most useful flowers a friend can send are often not the ones sent for the service. A vase arrangement delivered to the home three weeks after the funeral, when the visitors have stopped coming and the house is quiet, does more than a wreath in a crowded chapel.

• Send something self contained. A grieving household should not have to find a vase and cut stems to length.
• Keep it modest in scent. The house may already hold several arrangements.
• Consider a plant. An orchid or a potted plant lasts for months and does not need to be thrown out.
• Time it later rather than earlier. The week of the funeral is crowded. The month after is not.
• Write the card as though they will read it twice. They will.

What to write on the card

Short is better than eloquent. The card is read once, often aloud, sometimes by someone who is not coping well. Two lines and a name is enough.

• With deepest sympathy, from the Whitfield family
• Thinking of you all. He will be greatly missed.
• In loving memory of a wonderful friend.
• Our thoughts are with you at this difficult time.
• With love and sympathy from everyone at the Thursday bowls club.

Sign with the name the family will recognise. First names alone can leave them guessing, and a surname or the group name saves them working it out later when they write the acknowledgements.

When flowers are not the right thing

There are situations where sending flowers, however well meant, adds to the load rather than lifting it.

• The notice says family flowers only or asks for donations. That is an instruction, and it is usually there because the family has already decided the chapel will be full.
• The service follows a tradition where flowers are not customary. Jewish and Islamic funerals are the most common in Australia. A donation, a condolence visit or food is customary instead.
• It is a green or natural burial. Most burial grounds restrict flowers to fresh, unwired stems with no foam, plastic or ribbon. Confirm before ordering.
• The family is travelling or the home is empty. Flowers left at a door for three days are a sad thing to come home to. Send later, or send to the service.
• A very small private service. A chapel with twelve people and eight arrangements feels wrong. Send to the home instead.

In any of these cases, a written card still matters, and it will very likely be kept.

Sources

Practice described here reflects common Australian custom across the markets we work in. Custom varies by family, by community and by region, and the family own wishes always take precedence over any general convention on this page.

• Australian Funeral Directors Association, the national peak body for funeral directors in Australia, whose members set the chapel access and service timing conditions that determine what is practical.
• Flower Industry Australia, the national peak body for the cut flower industry, for supply and lead time context.

Where a faith or cultural practice is described, we have set out what is most commonly observed in Australia rather than a doctrinal position. If you are unsure, the funeral director will tell you what this family has asked for, and that answer is better than any guide.

Common questions

If you are the family and need the service flowers arranged, see funeral florals.