A Funeral Program Timeline for When You Only Have a Few Days

Most families do not get weeks to prepare a funeral program. The usual pattern is a phone call from the funeral home, a service date that is three or four days away, and one person in the family who quietly becomes "the one doing the program." If that person is you, this article is for you. It is a working timeline, not a theory piece. It tells you what to do on each day, what can wait, what cannot, and where people most often lose time.

The plan below assumes a standard four-page folded program – a cover, two inside pages and a back page – because that is what most services use. If you are making a flat card or a larger booklet, the same order of work still applies; only the amount of content changes.

Before you start: decide who owns what

The single most helpful thing you can do on the first day is decide who is responsible for each part of the program. Grief makes group decisions slow. When five siblings all have a say in every word, a program that should take two hours can take two days.

A simple split that works well in many families:

• One editor. One person holds the master file, makes all changes, and sends out proofs. Everyone else sends their suggestions to that person, not to each other.
• One fact-checker. Someone who knows the family history well – often an older aunt, uncle or the surviving spouse – checks names, dates and spellings.
• One liaison with the funeral home and officiant. This person confirms the order of service, the music, the readings and the times.
• One person for photos. They gather candidates, scan prints if needed, and send the editor two or three of the best options.

If you are on your own, that is fine. You can still use this split as a mental checklist: you will wear each hat in turn.

The day-by-day timeline

The timeline below counts backwards from the service. "Day 0" is the day of the service. If you have five days, follow it as written. If you have three, merge Day 4 into Day 3 and Day 2 into Day 1. If you have less than that, skip to the section near the end called "If the service is tomorrow."

Day 5 (or as soon as you can): gather the facts

Open a shared note, a document, or simply a sheet of paper, and write down the information that has to be correct. Do this before you think about design at all. Design decisions are easy to change later; a misspelled middle name that goes to print is not.

• Full legal name, plus the name people actually used (a nickname or middle name)
• Date of birth and date of death, and the places if you want to include them
• The type of service: funeral, memorial, celebration of life, funeral Mass, graveside service, home-going service
• Date, time, venue name and full address of the service
• Interment or committal details (cemetery name, whether it is private or open to all)
• Reception, repast or gathering details, if you want guests to attend
• Officiant's name and title, spelled the way they spell it
• Names of anyone with a role: readers, speakers, soloists, musicians, pallbearers, honorary pallbearers, ushers

At this stage you do not need the order of service in its final form. You just need to know who to ask about it.

Day 4: confirm the order of service

The order of service is the part families most often get wrong, simply because they write it themselves before the officiant or funeral director has confirmed it. Then the officiant adds a prayer, the soloist changes the song, and the printed program no longer matches what happens in the room.

Call or message the officiant or funeral director and ask for the order of service in writing. If they are still finalizing it, ask for a draft and a date by which it will be firm. Useful questions to ask:

• Which hymns or songs, and which verses will be sung?
• Which readings, and who is reading each one?
• Will there be a eulogy, and how many people will speak?
• Is there an open-microphone time for shared memories?
• Will there be a committal at the venue, or a separate graveside service?
• Is there anything the officiant would like printed, such as a responsive prayer or the words of the Lord's Prayer?

If you are planning a religious service, the structure will usually come from the tradition. Our articles on the Catholic funeral program and the Christian funeral order of service explain what each part is called and how it is usually printed. For a secular service, see our guide to the non-religious funeral program.

Day 4: choose the photos

Ask the photo person to send you a handful of options. A good cover photo usually has the person looking towards the camera, in focus, with their face reasonably large in the frame. A photo from the last ten or fifteen years is the most common choice, but many families choose a photo from the time of life the person seemed happiest.

Try to make the decision on Day 4 rather than Day 2. Photo choice is emotional, and it is often the one thing that holds up the whole program. If the family cannot agree, a common compromise is a recent photo on the cover and one or two earlier photos on the back page. Our article on choosing and preparing photos for a funeral program covers scanning, resolution and cropping in detail.

Day 3: draft the words

Now write, or collect, the text:

• The life story or obituary. If an obituary has already been written for the newspaper or funeral home website, you can reuse it. For a four-page booklet, aim for roughly 250 to 450 words on the inside left page. Anything longer forces the type size down. If nothing has been written yet, our obituary writer can turn a few answers into a first draft in four different tones.
• A poem, prayer or scripture for the back page. Choose something short enough to sit comfortably on the page at a readable size. Our list of funeral poems for programs and our Bible verses for funeral programs are good places to look.
• An acknowledgement. One or two sentences from the family thanking people for their support. You will find many examples in our funeral program wording ideas.

Do not try to make every sentence perfect on Day 3. The goal is a complete first draft.

Day 3: build the program

With the facts, the order of service, the photo and the words in hand, building the program itself is mostly a matter of placing things. In our funeral program maker you choose a theme, fill in one guided form, and the four pages lay themselves out as you type. If you are using a word processor instead, see our honest comparison of making a funeral program in Word, Google Docs or Canva – it explains where the time usually goes.

A typical four-page layout:

• Cover: a heading such as "In Loving Memory" or "Celebrating the Life of," the photo, the full name, the dates, and the service date, time and place.
• Inside left: the life story.
• Inside right: the order of service.
• Back: a poem or prayer, pallbearers, interment and reception details, and the family's acknowledgement.

Day 2: proof, then proof again

Send a proof to the fact-checker and to one or two other close family members. Send it as a PDF or an image, not as an editable file, so nobody makes changes directly. Ask each person to check specific things rather than "have a look": one person checks names, another checks dates and times, another reads the life story aloud.

Reading aloud is the best way to catch a missing word. Read the dates out loud as well – "March fourteenth, nineteen forty-two" – because that is how transposed numbers are caught.

Our article on common funeral program mistakes and how to proofread has a full checklist. The short version: names, dates, times, addresses, and the spelling of the officiant's name are where errors hide.

Day 2: decide how and where to print

You need to decide by Day 2 at the latest, because print shops have turnaround times and home printers run out of ink at the worst moment.

• Home or office printing works well for up to about a hundred copies if you have a reliable printer that can print on both sides. See how to print funeral programs at home.
• A local print shop or copy center is the safer choice for larger numbers, heavier paper, or full-bleed designs where the color runs right to the edge. Call ahead and ask what file format they want and how long they need. Our guide to bleed, crop marks and fold marks explains what they mean when they ask for "a print-ready PDF with bleed."
• The funeral home sometimes prints programs, often from their own template. If you want your own design, ask whether they will print a PDF you supply.

How many copies? A common rule of thumb is to estimate the number of guests and add a margin for latecomers, for keepsakes, and for family members who will want to mail copies to relatives who could not attend. If you are unsure, it is usually better to have a few left over than to run out at the door.

Day 1: final approval and printing

Make the last round of corrections, export the final file, and print. If you are using a print shop, send the file in the morning so any questions can be answered the same day. When the copies come back, check one immediately: open it, read the cover, read the date and time, and check that the pages are in the right order when folded.

Then fold. Folding a hundred programs by hand takes longer than people expect, so this is a good job to share. A bone folder or the back of a spoon gives a crisp crease. If the paper is heavy card stock, ask the print shop to score it before folding to avoid cracking along the fold.

Day 0: the day of the service

Give the programs to the funeral director, an usher, or a trusted friend who will hand them out at the door. Keep a small stack aside for the immediate family, and a few for people who will ask for one afterwards. Many families also keep the digital file so they can print more later, or share the pages as images with relatives who could not attend.

If the service is tomorrow

If you have less than a day, you can still produce something dignified. Simplify:

1. Choose a flat 5×7 card instead of a folded booklet. It has a front and a back, which is enough for the name, dates, photo, service details and a short poem or prayer.
2. Skip the long life story. A two- or three-sentence summary is enough; a full obituary can be shared online later.
3. Print at home or at a copy center that offers same-day service. Card stock in a light color is forgiving.
4. Ask one other person to proofread the names and dates before you print, even if it is only a five-minute look.

Nobody at the service will remember that the program was a single card. They will remember that it had the right name, the right photo, and the right words.

How long each step really takes

People often ask how long making a funeral program takes. The honest answer is that the design work is the shortest part. Here is a realistic breakdown for a four-page program, assuming you have the information in front of you:

• Gathering facts and confirming the order of service: often spread across a day, because you are waiting on replies
• Choosing a photo: anywhere from ten minutes to a long family conversation
• Writing or adapting the life story: about an hour for a first draft
• Building the program in a template-based maker: around twenty to forty minutes
• Proofing with family: a few hours of waiting, a few minutes of fixing
• Printing and folding a hundred copies at home: a couple of hours with a helper

The waiting is the part to plan for. That is why the timeline above puts the order-of-service call and the photo decision early.

A printable master checklist

Copy this list into your notes and tick items off as you go.

• Full name, nickname and spelling confirmed
• Birth and death dates confirmed by a second person
• Service type, date, time and full venue address confirmed
• Officiant's name and title confirmed
• Order of service received in writing from the officiant or funeral director
• Hymn and song titles, with verse numbers if needed
• Readings with reader names
• Eulogy speakers' names
• Pallbearers and honorary pallbearers
• Interment details (public or private)
• Reception or repast details
• Cover photo chosen and at good resolution
• Life story drafted, trimmed to fit
• Back-page poem, prayer or verse chosen
• Family acknowledgement written
• Proof sent to fact-checker and at least one other person
• Corrections made
• Printing method chosen and print shop contacted
• Quantity decided
• Final file exported (print-shop PDF or home-printer PDF)
• Test copy printed and checked
• Copies printed, folded and boxed
• Person assigned to hand out programs

Common time traps and how to avoid them

Waiting for the "perfect" life story

The life story is the part that matters most to the family and the part most likely to stall. A practical approach is to agree on a deadline – say, the evening of Day 3 – and go with the best version available at that point. You can publish a longer version online or in the newspaper afterwards.

Rebuilding the layout every time something changes

In a word processor, changing one line on page two can push everything on page three out of place. If you find yourself repeatedly re-aligning text boxes, switch to a tool that separates content from layout. That is the core idea behind our funeral program template: you edit the words in a form, and the pages reflow on their own.

Printing before the officiant confirms

If the service details are still changing, do not print. Print a single test copy so you can see how it looks, and wait for confirmation before printing the full run.

Underestimating folding and trimming

If your design has color running to the edge of the page, it needs to be printed on larger paper and trimmed, which is a print-shop job. If you are printing at home, a design with a white border avoids trimming altogether.

When a funeral home is involved

Many funeral homes offer to produce the program as part of their services, usually using their own templates and printing equipment. That can be a relief. It can also mean less control over the design, a fixed set of options, and a proof cycle that depends on the funeral home's schedule.

If you would like to make the program yourself, it is perfectly reasonable to say so. Ask the funeral director:

• Whether they are happy for the family to supply the program
• What size and paper they normally use, so your program matches the rest of the stationery if that matters to you
• Whether they will print a PDF you provide, and by when they need it
• Whether there is anything the officiant or venue requires on the program

Funeral directors deal with this regularly and are usually glad to help. Being clear early avoids two programs being made at once.

Looking after yourself while you do this

It is easy to overlook, but making the program is emotionally demanding work. You will be reading the dates of a life over and over, looking through photographs, and writing about someone in the past tense, often for the first time. Some practical kindnesses:

• Work in short sessions. Forty-five minutes on, a break, then back.
• Let other people check your work. Errors are normal when you are tired and grieving; a second pair of eyes is not a judgment on you.
• Accept that "good and finished" is better than "perfect and late."
• Keep the final file. In the months that follow, families often want extra copies for anniversaries, for relatives abroad, or for a memory box.

Frequently asked questions

How far in advance should funeral programs be printed?

Ideally one day before the service, after the order of service is confirmed. That leaves time to fix a printing problem without risking last-minute changes going unprinted.

Who usually makes the funeral program?

It varies. Sometimes the funeral home produces it; often a family member does, particularly when the family wants a personal design or a specific photo. Church secretaries and event coordinators also make programs for services held at their venues.

What size should a funeral program be?

The most common format in the United States is a sheet of US Letter paper folded in half to make a 5.5×8.5 inch booklet. In the UK and many other countries, an A4 sheet folded to A5 is standard. See our guide to funeral program sizes, paper and folding for the full range.

Can I make a funeral program for free?

You can build one in a word processor for free, and our maker lets you build the whole program and see a watermarked preview at no cost. The print-ready PDF without the watermark is $4.99 – see pricing for what is included.

The short version

If you remember nothing else from this page: get the facts and the order of service confirmed early, choose the photo early, let one person hold the master file, have someone else proofread the names and dates, and decide where to print by the second-to-last day. Everything else can flex.

When you are ready, you can start the program here. The form saves as you go, so you can come back to it between phone calls.