When My husband died 7 years ago with cancer, I made his arrangements with a local funeral home, who had the visitation at the funeral home and we had a memorial service at our church. The director was meeting us with his body at the little country church where generations of his family are buried, including his older brother who died at 21 in Viet Nam. All went well until we arrived at the church where I was greeted with the news that the Vault had not arrived. When they called the monument company, they had no record of one being ordered. Everyone had left for the day (Sat afternoon) except this one poor guy who thank goodness offered to bring it down. It is a 1 1/2 hour drive to the cemetery. It was supposed to be a graveside service as we had already had a memorial at our church in Franklin. Luckily, his family were long time members of the church and had keys to it and the funeral director assistants had set his body in the small sanctuary of the church. Our pastor had to leave because of prior commitment so we had the "graveside" in the church. We then had to wait for the vault to arrive. People had to leave, which I can understand. So by the time the vault had arrived there were just the immediate family, a few cousins, and some wonderful friends who stayed with us. So here we are, my in-laws who have outlived both their children, my two teenage sons, and myself having to watch the vault being lifted and placed into the graveside and then the casket lowered into the vault. It was the weirdest thing I have ever experienced. The directors were in a big hurry apparently to get out of there, because they gathered us up and took the casket and had the pallbearers carry the casket to where it had to be lifted and lowered into the vault. They could have waited until everything was ready, then have us come down to the graveside. The guy with the back hoe was standing by and went right to work as soon as the lid to the vault was secured. I can just imagine how my in-laws felt- 'cause I know it was upsetting for me.
Now, I really didn't expect any type of discount from the funeral home because of this..... but a note from Anderson Funeral home apologizing sure would have been nice.