Cemetery Etiquette: How to Visit a Grave Respectfully

Most people visit a cemetery a handful of times in their lives, and nobody hands out the rules at the gate. They are mostly common sense, but a few are not obvious, and knowing them ahead of time lets you focus on the reason you came.

Before you go

• Check the hours. Most cemeteries open at dawn and close at dusk, with gates locked after. Some larger ones have posted hours and an office that closes earlier.
• Know where the grave is. Section, lot and grave, or a Find a Grave photo. Wandering a large cemetery is tiring and frustrating. Our guide to finding a grave explains the system.
• Check the decoration rules if you plan to leave anything. The sign at the entrance usually has them.

Moving through the cemetery

• Drive slowly and only on the roads. Cemetery lanes are narrow and often shared with people walking. Never drive on the grass.
• Walk on paths and between rows where you can. Walking directly over graves is considered disrespectful in most traditions. It is not always avoidable in crowded older sections; when it is not, be mindful.
• Give a service or a grieving visitor space. If a burial is underway, take a different route. If someone is sitting at a grave, leave them their privacy.
• Keep voices low. Phones on silent. Music through headphones only.

At the grave

• Touching the stone is fine. Cleaning it is fine with water and a soft brush; never with bleach, wire or a pressure washer, which damage older stone.
• Leave flowers in the vase or on the stone, not on the grass in the mower's path. A saddle or a staked vase stays put; a loose bouquet ends up on a neighboring grave after the first wind.
• Small tokens are usually welcome: a coin on a veteran's stone, a stone on a Jewish grave, a small flag, a photo in a weatherproof frame. Balloons, candles and glass are usually not.
• Do not touch what others have left on neighboring graves, even if it has fallen over. Setting it upright is the one exception most people would thank you for.

Children and pets

Children belong in cemeteries; it is how they learn that the people they hear about were real. Explain beforehand that it is a quiet place and that we do not climb on stones or run between rows. Many cemeteries allow leashed dogs on the roads and paths; some do not allow them at all. Clean up after them without exception.

Photographs

Photographing the headstone you came to see is fine and worth doing; it is how Find a Grave and family records get built. Avoid photographing other visitors, and never photograph a burial in progress. Historic cemeteries often welcome photography of old stones; a few private ones prohibit it. The sign at the gate will say.

Leaving

Take your trash, including wrappers from flowers. Leave the grave tidier than you found it: straighten a tilted vase, remove dead flowers from an earlier visit, brush leaves from the marker. Then go, and let the next visitor find it that way.