5 Things To NEVER Do When Sending Sympathy Flowers
August 16th, 2017
It’s never easy to find the right words to say to someone who is going through a personal loss.
“I’m sorry for your loss” just seems so generic, whereas “they will be missed” just doesn’t seem to convey how deep and impactful the loss is. So when death impacts someone close to us, we’re often left struggling with what we could possibly say to make things better.
Thankfully, to make a positive impact in someone’s life, you don’t always have to say words at all. You simply have to take action to show that you care. And one of our favorite ways to both express sympathy and support to a family or friend during their time of loss is with flowers.
A beautiful bouquet of someone’s favorite flowers, or a surprise home-delivered arrangement, can often say more than a card or message ever would be able to. But these beautiful bouquets don’t just bring pleasant sights and smells to a person’s life on a hard day. Flowers have been scientifically proven to have a positive impact on happiness. (Just check out our previous post → The Magic Healing Power of Sympathy Flowers and Gifts.)
But, like with any gift, the presentation of sympathy flowers is just as important as the flowers themselves. So to make sure you are delivering the most appropriate, thoughtful sympathy arrangement possible to your loved one during their time of loss, today we are going over 5 things you should avoid doing when ordering funeral flowers:
1. DON’T… Order An Inappropriate Arrangement
While many people are beginning to throw tradition to the wind when it comes to funeral service (or, more often than not, a life celebration), others are still very traditional when it comes to what you should do, say and send when it comes to a funeral. For instance, the immediate family are typically the ones to purchase the beautiful flower spray that often adorns the casket, and close family members often send larger arrangements like standing sprays.
If you are unsure of which type of arrangement is most appropriate for you to send to a funeral service, have no fear. We have created a simple infographic that will guide you through which type of flowers you should send to a funeral, based on your relationship with the loved one whose life you are celebrating.
Check out our infographic → What Type Of Flower Arrangement Should You Send To A Funeral?
2. DON’T… Forget To Leave A Card Message
As we mentioned earlier, it’s tough to know the right words to say when extending sympathy to someone going through a loss. But just because you are sending sympathy flowers doesn’t mean that you should say nothing at all… especially when it comes to the card message on your funeral flowers.
At the very minimum, you should always include a simple, yet thoughtful message of support, and the name of the family, group or individuals that are sending the arrangement. For example, “With deepest sympathy, The Smith Family.” This helps the immediate family know who to thank for the beautiful expression of support, and ensures that you are represented at the life celebration.
Struggling with what you should write on your card? Borrow one of our classic messages of support:
- “My thoughts are with you at your time of need.”
- “Our hearts go out to you in your time of sorrow.”
- “Please accept our most heartfelt sympathies for your loss…our thoughts are with you and your family during this difficult time.”
For even more touching sympathy messages, shop for your funeral arrangement through The Sympathy Store, where we offer tons of complementary gift messages — from heartfelt to classic — to finalize your beautiful arrangement.
3. DON’T… Shop From Big-Box Florists
We live in an Amazon-dominated world, where the average consumer isn’t worried about where their goods are coming from… only that they arrive as quickly and painlessly as possible. So when it comes time to purchase flowers for an urgent occasion, like a funeral service, most people look to the same place they do all of their shopping these days — online. But not all online floral delivery services are the same.
When looking for same or next-day floral delivery services, don’t make the mistake of ordering flowers shipped in a box from some generic, cold warehouse. Instead, look for websites that guarantee local florist-made, hand-delivered arrangements, like The Sympathy Store.
Not only does ordering from The Sympathy Store ensure that your arrangement is made by local florists with hometown quality and care, but we also work closely with florists that our funeral home’s know and trust. This ensures that your arrangement doesn’t get dropped off on a doorstep, but is made and hand-delivered by those who know how much your flowers mean to their neighbor in the community.
4. DON’T… Think You Can Only Send Flowers To The Funeral Service
Funerals happen on a very fast timeline… sometimes even taking place less than a week after a loved one’s passing. And unfortunately, with so much chaos around the planning process, and the speed at which events take place, it’s not unusual for some family and friends to learn about a funeral service after it has already taken place.
However, just because you might have missed the opportunity to attend a funeral service in person or send arrangements to the funeral home, that doesn’t mean you have missed your opportunity to show support all together.
It’s very common (and thoughtful) for friends and family to send sympathy flowers and gifts right to a family member’s home after the funeral service has ended. This is not only a great way to ensure that they are able to enjoy your sentiment of support in the comfort of their own home, but it’s also a welcome reminder of comfort that can come a week, a month or even a year after all of the other funeral arrangements are gone.
5. DON’T… Lose Sight Of The Loved One You’re Honoring
Last, but not least, it’s important that you keep the loved one whose life you are honoring at the forefront of every decision you make when choosing your sympathy arrangement. More often than not, when it comes time for people to choose flowers, they focus on their personal favorite colors or their favorite type of flower. But sympathy flowers are about more than that. They represent a life that is worth remembering, a story that is worth telling and many memories that will never fade. The flowers you choose should reflect that.
What were your loved one’s favorite colors? What were their favorite kind of flowers? What were some inspiring songs or quotes that made you think of them? Share these elements in the arrangement that you choose, because the family that you are sending your support to needs these reminders more than ever during this time.
If you are looking to send a beautiful expression of support to a friend or family member in their time of need, look no further than The Sympathy Store.
Click here to start shopping for locally-made, hand-delivered flower arrangements today.
Nice Blog…!
Flowers are the best medium to express feelings!! When words fall apart these blooms take their place and give a subtle meaning. Still, your tips should be kept in mind. Nice Info. Thanks and keep writing.
Thanks for these tips. It is pretty useful for me to be able to know what is the best thing to do. Because every month I give my wife a flower. Now I know what is the best thing to do.
Wonderful, thanks for sharing!
Seems that the phrase, “in lieu of flowers, please donate to…” has been distorted by your floral industry to mean, “donate to this, but ALSO send flowers.” Or, send flowers anyways even if you aren’t making a donation. No. No. No. No.
I guess I should pre-write obituaries for each of my immediate family members. What wording should I use?
“Please do NOT send flowers. In lieu of flowers, please donate to…” Ensure that “not” is all-caps and underlined. Is that wording direct enough? It sickens me all of the money spent on flowers of a family member, when none of us wanted any of them. In the weeks after, every wilting flower was a reminder of death. The charity listed in the obituary – a childhood religious education program – received zero donations from anybody outside of our immediate family, and that church is now closing due, in part, to budget constraints. Got that? Let it set in.
Also, wondering where in the hell we were supposed to put the flowers. I was technically-speaking homeless at the time – couch crashing. My fiance shared a cramped 3-bedroom apartment with four girls. Human beings sure can be stupid.
Even today, in my castle of a house, do NOT send me flowers. Open wound. Sorry.
While grateful for the flowers at my mom’s funeral on Saturday, I have two situations that complicate placing flowers around the house. I have a cat who eat plants and flowers, and we recently had a water heater burst placing the house is in a state of disarray. Some of my friends sent flowers and one relative sent a beautiful, but large, peace lily. I want to enjoy them. They’re lovely and I appreciate the love, sentiments, efforts, time and money that went into ordering them, but I where do I place them to enjoy them in the current situation and keep the cats safe? There is no place. I believe people mean well, but most likely they’re not thinking clearly, or thinking through, their floral purchase fully. I had charitable donations listed as well. It’s not known as yet if they received anything.
I like how you said no to forget to leave a card message. That makes the delivery much more personal and heartfelt. I’ll make sure I include this when I send flowers to my aunt.
Hi Tori, glad you got something out of this. It’s the little things that count, are they? Best of luck to you.
Mom’s funeral was a few days ago. We had no insurance to cover it and no one would agree to help pay for the cost except me. I’ve paid 1600 plus another $1000 was paid by a small policy she had for that amount. I paid the minister $100 for speaking. Again no one offered to help. I made all the arrangements as well. This was the day I have dreaded my whole life. As many friends as mom had, there was only a hand full because of quarantine I think. There were flowers and plants people had sent. I was with mom through her years of dementia and took over as POA when needed. I have one sibling still living and he is filthy rich. I’m unemployed and struggling. I could tell you a long story but I’ll get to my point. After the funeral, I felt like everyone was trying to ignore me and when I found out they were going out to eat and had not said a word to me about it, I opted out. Instead I went home and visited my youngest son. The funeral director approached me at the cemetery and handed me the book and thank you cards and told me I could go pick up the flowers at my convenience. I told him I would get them the next morning. My niece and my daughter in law heard this conversation. I went to pick the flowers up the next morning to find they had already been picked up. By my niece and my daughter in law. They were never asked to do this and they knew I was going to get them. After all it was my mom’s funeral and I am the only one taking care of everything. I talked to both of them the evening after the funeral and neither one of them said a word to me about taking all the flowers and plants. I called the daughter in law and she stumbled around trying to find a reason they picked them up and told me there were so many they filled both of their cars and she just took 2 of them which did not make sense since they filled her car. as she had said. She said my niece had the rest and was supposed to see which ones I wanted. When I finally got my niece on the phone she claimed she had 2 plants. I told her I knew better and it was not their place to go get all the flowers from my moms funeral. She then said she had 4 which was still a lie. Then she tells me she will give me 2 that she didn’t want but she was keeping the rest. This is a woman who does nothing to help with anything and thinks the world owes her everything. She used to steal money from mom after mom got forgetful and she stole $500 out of moms lock box. I ran her off the property a few times. She is talking to me like I’m a mutt under the table begging for scraps and then she hangs up on me. My mom was a very giving person and I am too. I would have given them some flowers and plants. They are a bunch of greedy selfish people but still family. I cried all day long over this and I cried hard. My mom was gone and these 2 females stole all the flowers and plants right out from under me and I was sitting alone in a empty house without a single flower. I never even got to see some of the plants but I know there were at least 25 of them. I never got to read a single card. Nothing! I can’t even find the words to Express how deeply I’m hurting over this and I’m furious as well. They had no right!!! And then to talk to me like that on top of it, I feel hate for them and it’s worse for the niece because she is such a selfish no good person. I feel like that was the lowest thing anyone could do to a family member under all circumstances. I feel like they don’t care a bit about my feelings and they certainly do not respect me at all. Am I overreacting?? I am having such a hard time staying calm at all. It hurts so bad I can’t breathe sometimes. I think it’s more than about the flowers though. My mom is gone and NO ONE cared enough to help at all but they had the audacity to take every plant and every flower and leave me with nothing but a giant debt. I don’t want a thing to do with them ever again. I feel like I’m alone in this world and my whole family is dead. And my niece is dead to me. I don’t ever want to see her again. I want to forget she ever existed. I almost wish it had been her instead of my mom in that coffin. No. not almost. I do wish that were the case. That’s how bad this hurts. I hate her for doing this to me. And I have not been able to calm down yet. I have never felt so betrayed and hurt in my life as I do right now. I had one mom. That’s it. She is gone and I feel like these two selfish females just stomped all over my heart while it was already broken. No words can describe how low I think they are for this. I don’t know how to calm down. I can’t. I don’t want to do anything stupid. But I’m worried I will.
Sending a bouquet of flowers to someone is a sign to show that you care … She said that she had a male colleague leave her a bouquet of flowers on he
This information has been very helpful, thank you.
Thanks Kevin!
My brother recently passed, and a couple of my coworkers sent flowers to my home. It’s just a simple arrangement, but the note said “We are thinking about you, we send you our deepest sympathy. We love you.” And that just sent me into a fit of tears. It was the most needed message at that moment. I think sometimes people forget how meaningful a simple expression can mean to someone during a time of mourning.
I want to buy flowers for someone who not yet dead
Is this possible
Of course yes you can!
Thank you for sharing this tender moment with us!
Thanks for sharing this useful information! Hope that you will continue with the kind of stuff you are doing.
Thank you we definitely will!
I have heard of a To do Check list, but a not to do? now thats is different
Hehe, yes, we figured we would share these tips!
Son unos buenos consejos para quien quiere enviar flores para un funeral, pero yo quisiera decir algo.
Las funerarias contratan con la familia un servicio con una corona de flores incluida en el precio.
Creo que la propia funeraria debería ocuparse de que ese arreglo floral sea el más especial y exclusivo, pues es de la propia familia directa.
Digo esto, porque en ocasiones los conocidos, amigos u otros familiares compran otro arreglo floral mejor y más grande y la empresa funeraria creo que debería ocuparse de aumentar el importe económico que destina a las flores para que esto no ocurra.
Thanks for the info about sympathy flowers. My friend is wanting to get flowers for a funeral. I’ll share this info about sympathy flowers with my friend.
Hey Max glad this helped! Wishing you the best.