Funeral Wishes Template: How to Write Down Your Funeral Wishes (What to Include, and Where to Keep It)

October 22, 2026 · 8 min read

Most people have an opinion about their own funeral and almost nobody has written it down. The opinion comes out sideways, at other people's funerals: "I would hate that hymn", "don't let anyone wear black for me", "just scatter me somewhere with a view". Then the day comes, the people who loved you are exhausted and grieving, a funeral director is asking forty questions in a quiet room, and nobody can remember exactly what you said about the hymn.

A funeral wishes letter fixes that. It is a short, plain document, not a legal form, that tells the people arranging your funeral what you wanted and, just as importantly, what you did not care about. This guide gives you a template you can copy, explains what each part is for, and covers the two questions people ask most: are funeral wishes legally binding, and where should the letter live so it is found in time.

What a funeral wishes letter is (and is not)

It is a statement of preference, written in your own words, for the people who will organise your funeral. It is not a will, and it should not be *in* your will, for a practical reason: wills are often read days or weeks after the funeral has already happened. A separate letter, kept where your family will look first, does the job a will cannot.

It is also not a legally binding instruction in most places. In England and Wales, funeral wishes, even ones written into a will, are guidance for the executor rather than an order; the executor (or, without a will, the next of kin) has the final say. Many US states let you name a person who has legal authority over what happens to your body, sometimes through a specific form, and a few treat written instructions as binding. The rules vary enough that, if a particular wish matters to you a great deal, it is worth ten minutes with a local solicitor or attorney. For everyone else, the practical truth is simpler: families overwhelmingly follow clearly written wishes, because the alternative is guessing.

The free funeral wishes template

Copy the headings below into a document, a notes app, or a sheet of paper. Answer the ones you have a view on and write "no preference" for the rest. "No preference" is a gift: it tells your family that whatever they choose is fine, which is often the thing they most need to hear.

1. The basics

• Full name, date of birth, and the date you wrote this. Add your usual name if it differs.
• Who should arrange the funeral. The person you want in charge of decisions, and a second name in case they cannot.
• Who should be told, and how. A list of people and groups who might otherwise be forgotten: an old friend, a former colleague, a club, a church. If you want someone *not* contacted, say so here and keep it short.
• Religious or cultural requirements. Anything that must happen, or must not, for faith or family reasons.

2. Burial, cremation, or something else

• Your choice: burial, cremation, natural or woodland burial, donation to medical science, or no preference.
• If burial: where, if you have a plot or a strong preference, and whether you want a headstone and what it should say.
• If cremation: what should happen to the ashes: scattered (where), buried, kept, divided among people, or left to the family to decide.
• Body donation or organ donation: whether you are registered, and where the paperwork is. Donation often has to be arranged within hours, so this line matters more than most.

3. The service

• Type of service: religious, humanist, civil, a simple committal with a separate memorial later, or a direct cremation with no service at all.
• Where: a place of worship, a crematorium chapel, a hall, outdoors, or no preference.
• Who leads it: a specific minister or celebrant, a friend, a family member.
• Music: two or three pieces at most, with the version you mean. Say whether you mind if they cannot be played.
• Readings, poems, prayers: what you would like read and, if it matters, by whom.
• Eulogy: who you would like to speak, or whether you would rather nobody did.
• Tone and dress: formal or informal, black or colour, flowers or donations to a named charity.
• Afterwards: a wake, a meal, a walk, a pub, nothing. Where, roughly, and who is invited.

4. Practical details

• Paying for it: whether there is a prepaid funeral plan, a life insurance policy, a savings account set aside, or nothing. Give the provider, the policy or plan number, and where the documents are. Funeral costs usually have to be paid before an estate is settled, so this is the section that prevents arguments and overdrafts.
• Funeral director: a preferred firm, if you have one, or a note that the family should get two quotes.
• Notices and obituary: whether you want a notice placed, where, and whether you have written anything yourself. If you have, say where it is; our guide on how to write your own obituary explains why doing this in advance is kinder than it sounds.
• Things to avoid: anything you actively do not want. Keep this honest and brief; a list of twenty prohibitions is harder to follow than three.

5. A few words

End with a short paragraph in your own voice: why you chose what you chose, and permission for your family to change anything that turns out to be impossible, too expensive, or just wrong on the day. Many people write a sentence like: "These are preferences, not rules. If something here is hard, do what is easiest for you; I will not mind." It is the most useful line in the whole document.

A worked example

Here is the shape of a finished letter, kept deliberately short. Yours can be longer, but it does not need to be.

• *My funeral wishes. Written 22 October 2026 by Priya Raman.*
• *Please let my brother Arun make the arrangements, with my friend Nadia if he wants help. Tell the Thursday walking group and my old team at the hospital; the contact list is in the blue folder.*
• *Cremation. Scatter the ashes at the headland near the lighthouse, or anywhere with sea if that is a nuisance.*
• *A simple non-religious service at the crematorium, led by a celebrant. One song: the live version of the track written on the back of this page. No eulogy, but if someone wants to say something, let them. Colour, not black. No flowers; donations to the hospice.*
• *There is a prepaid plan with the provider named in the folder. Nothing else needs paying for.*
• *None of this is a rule. If any of it is hard, choose the easy version.*

Where to keep your funeral wishes so they are actually found

This is where most letters fail. A beautifully written document in a locked drawer, a sealed envelope with the solicitor, or a file buried in a cloud account nobody can open is the same as no letter at all. The test is simple: in the first 24 hours after your death, will the person arranging the funeral be able to find and read this without a password, a key, or a court order?

• Tell the person in charge that it exists and where it is. This single step beats every clever storage idea.
• Keep a paper copy somewhere obvious and a digital copy somewhere shared: a family folder, a shared drive, or the home screen of a notes app your partner can open.
• Give a copy to the person you named, and another to the backup. Two copies in two houses survive most accidents.
• Do not rely on the will alone. Wills are often read after the funeral. If you also keep wishes in your will, make sure the standalone letter says the same thing.
• Consider a scheduled message. A service that sends a message to named people after you die, triggered when you stop responding to check-ins, can carry the letter to exactly the right people at exactly the right time. Our guide to ways to send messages after death compares the options, and the digital legacy planning checklist covers the rest of your paperwork.

Funeral wishes vs a letter of wishes vs a will

People use these three terms loosely, and they overlap, so here is the distinction. A will is the legal document that says who inherits and who administers your estate; it is binding and follows formal rules. A letter of wishes is a broader, non-binding note to your executors that can cover anything from how to divide the furniture to who should look after the dog; our last wishes letter template covers that format. A funeral wishes letter is the narrow, practical subset about the funeral itself, and it is the one that needs to be found fastest. You can fold funeral wishes into a letter of wishes if you prefer one document; just keep the funeral section at the top and keep a copy where it will be seen first.

Four mistakes to avoid

• Over-specifying. A rigid, minute-by-minute plan can become a source of guilt when something cannot be done. Three strong preferences and a paragraph of permission are more useful than three pages.
• Forgetting the money. The single most common funeral argument is not about hymns; it is about who pays and how much. If you have a plan or a policy, write down where it is.
• Writing it once and never again. Review it every few years or after a big change: a move, a divorce, a new faith, a death in the family. Date each version and destroy the old ones.
• Keeping it secret. Funeral wishes are the one piece of end-of-life paperwork that should be slightly over-shared. Tell two people. Show them where it is.

Writing your funeral wishes takes about twenty minutes and, for most people, produces an unexpected calm: the thing that was going to be a burden on someone you love is now a short letter with your name on it. Start with the template above, answer what you can, write "no preference" for the rest, and tell someone where you put it.