How to Send Flowers to a Funeral: A Florist's Guide

Nobody teaches you how to send flowers to a funeral. Then a loved one passes away, the funeral service is Thursday morning, and you're expected to just know. Take a breath. Once you know the pieces, sending flowers is a ten minute job: gather the service details, pick a funeral flower arrangement that fits your relationship to the family, and let a local florist handle the delivery. We've been delivering funeral flowers by hand since 1903, and the steps in this guide are the same ones we walk people through on the phone every day.

Step 1: Find the service details

Before you order flowers, you need three things: the name and address of the funeral home or church, the date and time of the funeral service, and the full name of the person who passed. The obituary usually lists all the details. No published obituary? Call the funeral home. Funeral directors coordinate flower deliveries every day, and they'll tell you exactly when floral tributes should arrive.

Write everything down before you start selecting funeral flowers. Half the stress of sending flowers comes from ordering first and scrambling for an address later.

Where to send funeral flowers

Arrangements meant for the funeral service go to the funeral home, not the family's house. The staff places floral tributes around the casket and in the viewing room before guests arrive, so every funeral arrangement is in position when the doors open. If the service is held at a church or chapel, flowers can be delivered there instead. For a graveside ceremony, they go to the cemetery, timed to the burial.

Address the delivery to the funeral itself, care of the funeral home's street address: "The funeral of Jane Smith, c/o Anytown Funeral Home." Your own name belongs on the card inside, so the bereaved family knows who sent the tribute.

If the services have already ended, or you'd rather comfort the family directly, send sympathy flowers to their home instead. A smaller arrangement from our sympathy flowers collection suits the home better than a service piece, and our sympathy flower etiquette guide covers what to send and when in more detail.

When should funeral flowers arrive?

The safe window is the day before the funeral, or at least two to three hours before the service starts. That gives the funeral home time to place every arrangement properly. If there's a wake or viewing ahead of the funeral, send flowers to the first event. The staff moves the floral tributes along with the family, from the viewing room to the service and often on to the graveside.

Missed the service completely? You're not too late, you're just sending something different. A sympathy arrangement or green plants delivered to the family's home a week or two later often mean more than one more spray at a crowded service. They arrive after the casseroles stop coming, during the quiet stretch of a difficult time, and that's frequently the gesture the family remembers.

Funeral sprays, wreaths, and funeral flower baskets

Funeral flower arrangements come in a handful of standard formats, and knowing the names makes ordering much easier.

• Standing sprays. A funeral spray is a large, flat-backed tribute displayed on an easel near the casket. It's the piece most people picture when they think of funeral flowers.
• Funeral wreaths, hearts, and crosses. Wreaths symbolize eternal life, and hearts and crosses carry their meanings on their sleeve. Like sprays, these are easel pieces meant to be seen across the room.
• Casket sprays. The casket spray (sometimes called a coffin spray) rests on the casket itself. A full coffin spray covers the closed lid; a half spray suits an open-casket funeral service.
• Funeral flower baskets. A floor basket or table-top floral basket is a generous, versatile funeral arrangement that works from almost anyone.
• Bouquets and vase arrangements. Smaller bouquets of fresh flowers suit the home, a memorial table, or a small cremation service.

Browse our funeral flowers for the service to see standing sprays, wreaths, crosses, and floor baskets side by side, or read our funeral flower arrangement ideas to compare the formats in depth before choosing.

Which funeral flower arrangements to send, by relationship

Floral tributes follow a loose hierarchy, and getting it right keeps your tribute from feeling out of place.

• Immediate family chooses the casket spray. It's the most prominent tribute in the room, so unless you're the spouse, child, parent, or sibling of the deceased, this piece isn't yours to send.
• Close family, relatives, and close friends send standing sprays, wreaths, hearts, and crosses. It's common for a group of friends or an office to go in on one funeral spray together.
• Neighbors, colleagues, and acquaintances send funeral flower baskets, table arrangements, or bouquets. These honor the loved one without competing with the family's pieces.

And if the budget is tight, don't let that stop you. Inexpensive funeral flowers arranged well read as heartfelt, not cheap. A modest basket of fresh flowers with a sincere card says everything a six foot easel piece says.

Choosing the flowers themselves

Traditional funeral flowers carry meanings that do some of the talking for you, which is why certain blooms remain the popular choices for a funeral arrangement. White lilies stand for peace and the restored innocence of the soul. Roses convey deep love and respect: white roses for reverence, red roses for love, pink roses for grace, and yellow roses for friendship. Carnations are a remembrance flower and hold up beautifully through a long service. Chrysanthemums represent mourning in many cultures, gladiolus honor strength of character, and orchids express a love that endures.

Color matters as much as the bloom. White and cream read as reverence, and soft pastels as comfort. If the person who passed loved sunflowers or wore purple every day of their life, though, different flowers that tell their story make a better tribute than the traditional ones. Our designers build that kind of personal funeral arrangement all the time.

One practical note: if a specific bloom isn't available on short notice, our designers substitute one of equal or greater value, so the arrangement never arrives looking thinner than the one you picked.

Funeral flower etiquette for the card

The enclosure card is small on purpose. One or two heartfelt lines plus your name is all it needs. "With deepest sympathy, the Millers" does the job better than a paragraph, and nobody has ever needed the perfect words, just honest ones. Sign your full name, or your family or company name, so the family can place the gesture without guessing.

If you're stuck staring at the blank line trying to find the right words, our guide on what to write on funeral flowers has dozens of card and ribbon messages grouped by relationship.

Do family members send flowers too?

Yes. Immediate family members usually provide the casket spray and the largest tributes near the coffin, while extended family send standing sprays or hearts marked with a ribbon like "Beloved Uncle." Nobody expects the grieving spouse to think about ordering flowers, though, so in many families an adult child, a sibling, or a close family friend quietly handles the florist calls for everyone. If that job just landed on you, one phone call can arrange every family member's piece at once, matched in color and style.

Should you bring flowers or have them delivered?

Have them delivered. Walking into a funeral service carrying a large arrangement puts the funeral home staff in an awkward spot, since every tribute needs water, an easel, or a stand, and placement is planned before guests arrive. Delivered flowers are unpacked, freshened, and displayed properly. You arrive with your hands free for the condolences that matter more than the flowers do. The exception is a single stem or small posy left at the graveside, which is always welcome.

Sending flowers to a funeral in another state

You don't need to be anywhere near the service to send funeral flowers to it. Order flowers online or by phone, and a local florist near the funeral home designs the arrangement fresh and delivers it by hand. The flowers are never boxed up and handed to a parcel carrier, which matters, because a funeral spray can't survive two days in a cardboard box.

This is how we handle funeral orders across the country: a local florist near the service designs the piece, confirms the service time, and coordinates directly with the funeral director so your tribute is in place before the family walks in. You get the credit on the card. The logistics stay our problem.

How late is too late? Same-day funeral flowers

Later than you'd think. Order by 2:00 PM Monday through Saturday, or 12:00 PM on Sunday, in the recipient's local time zone, and same-day flower delivery is usually possible. Two things make same day delivery go smoothly: put the exact service time in the delivery instructions, and give a phone number where you can be reached. If the timing is genuinely tight, call the funeral home first and ask whether a late funeral arrangement can still be placed. Funeral directors would much rather answer that question than turn a delivery away at the door.

When not to send funeral flowers

Sometimes the kindest move is not sending flowers at all. Real funeral flower etiquette is mostly about reading these signals.

• Jewish funerals traditionally don't include flowers at the service. A fruit basket or a meal sent to the home during shiva, or a donation made in the loved one's memory, follows custom more closely.
• Muslim funerals vary by community, and many families prefer charitable donations over floral tributes. When in doubt, ask the funeral home what the family has requested.
• "In lieu of flowers" requests mean exactly what they say. Honor the request and give to the named charity. If you still want the family to have something living, send sympathy flowers or a potted plant to the home a few weeks later. Green plants like a peace lily from our sympathy plants comfort long after cut bouquets fade; potted plants by the door in August console longer than one more arrangement at the service in July.
• Cremation services and small memorials usually welcome flowers, just on a smaller scale. One modest bouquet suits an intimate gathering better than a towering funeral spray.

One call to the funeral home settles nearly every question in this section. They'll tell you what the family has asked for, and no one has ever been offended by the person who checked first.

The short version

Get the details from the obituary. Send funeral flowers to the funeral home the day before or a few hours ahead, addressed to the funeral, care of the funeral home. Match the tribute to your relationship, keep the card to two lines, and honor any in lieu of flowers request by sending sympathy flowers to the home later instead. Do that and you've expressed what you came to express: that their loved one's life mattered to you too.

We've helped families through this difficult time since 1903, one hand-delivered tribute at a time. If you're still not sure about selecting funeral flowers, call or start a chat and a real florist will talk it through with you.