Will a Memorial Gift Arrive in Time for a Funeral This Week? What Makes It and What Does Not

The call comes on a Tuesday, the service is Saturday, and you are three states away. You want something there, and you want it to be right. Here is how to think about timing before you order anything.

What usually arrives in time

• Flowers from a florist near the funeral home. Local florists deliver to funeral homes constantly, often the same or next day. Order through a florist in that town rather than a national site, and give the funeral home's name and the service time.
• Food to the family's home. A meal from a local restaurant or grocery delivery arrives in hours and is needed most in exactly these days.
• A donation in their name. Immediate, and the obituary often names the charity the family chose.
• A card with a real memory in it. First-class mail inside the United States often arrives within a few days. If it is tight, write it anyway. Late cards are read.

What usually does not

• Personalized or engraved items. Anything made to order, such as an engraved stone, a photo book or a custom frame, has production time before it ships. Order these for after the funeral, when they will land in a quiet house.
• Memorial trees and plantings. Living gifts ship on the nursery's schedule and in the growing season, not yours.
• Standard shipping from anywhere far. If a website promises delivery in several business days and the service is in four, it is a coin toss. Do not gamble a funeral on it.

Where to send it

Flowers for the service go to the funeral home, addressed to the family of the person who died, with the date and time of the visitation or service. Call the funeral home first to confirm they accept deliveries and when. Everything else, food and cards included, goes to the home of the closest family member. Our guide to what happens to funeral flowers explains what the family does with them afterward.

When the timing is already gone

If the funeral is tomorrow and nothing will make it, that is not a failure. The days after the funeral are when the house empties out and the support thins, and a gift that arrives then is often remembered longer than one that arrived in the crowd. Our guide to sympathy gifts after the funeral covers that window.

The grave itself is another place to turn. In most cemeteries the funeral flowers are cleared within days, and the first visit to a bare grave is hard. Flowers placed there a few weeks later, with a photo sent to the family, say what you meant to say at the service. Order at least 15 business days ahead, and for Thanksgiving this year, by November 4.