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Rebecca Carpenter
Dr. Murdock
Intermediate Composition
10 May 2013
The Differences Between Planning the Beginning of Life and Death
Weddings are the celebration of the beginning of two people’s life together. Over the
years, they have become more elaborate and spectacular than ever before. There have been
reality TV shows about brides and their journey to create a perfect night that they have always
imagined. However, with a beginning there is always an end. Funerals are perceived as a
ceremony for the end of someone’s life. Even through such a depressing time, funerals must be
arranged and made as perfect as possible for the family and friends who have lost a loved one.
Both events are greatly significant in an individual’s lifetime and there are employees whose job
is to make sure these events occur perfectly.
Wedding planners and funeral directors are both discourse communities that have the
great responsibility to make sure their events go as smooth as possible. They are in charge of all
the small details of the ceremonies to make sure the ideal ‘big picture’ is created for the bride
or family members. With both of them planning on two ends of the event spectrum, it’s hard to
believe they have such similar responsibilities. Each Discourse has different procedures and
strategies to pull off their event. This goes along with their linguistics and genre of each
Discourse community as well. Although the Discourse community of wedding planners and the
Discourse community of funeral directors have such different goals and ways to plan their
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events, they have more similarities in their genre about documents and their linguistics than
one would think.
When planning a wedding, a wedding planner must make sure the bride is satisfied
every step of the way. Weddings in our society today have become more and more extravagant
over the years. As CNN Money article states, “In 2012, newlyweds spent an average of $28,427
on weddings and related events – the highest amount since 2008, according to an annual
survey of 17,500 couples released by wedding website TheKnot.com” (Hicken 1). With all of this
money being invested into a couple’s special day, a wedding planner is usually hired to provide
organization to the chaos of planning such a huge event. The wedding planner’s job is to make
sure the bride stays within her budget and gets the best and most reliable service as possible.
Some of the aspects the wedding planner is in charge of and are included in a basic wedding
planner from Google Documents are the bridal gown, bridesmaid dresses, flowers,
entertainment, catering, tuxedoes, photographer, videographer, transportation, invitations,
and the cake. These are just a few examples and they are with the bride with every planning
and decision making moment so make sure there aren’t any conflicts that arise during the
planning process.
The average time to develop and plan a wedding has become longer as well. The
average wedding takes about a year to two years to plan. As an article in Huffington Post
shares,” 40 percent of couples wait 13 to 18 months between “Yes!” and “I do””(Hallett 1).
There is a huge difference of time between weddings and funerals. This helps wedding planners
assist their clients in finding their ideal dresses or catering needs without have to rush.
Although wedding planners do not need a college degree of any sort, wedding planning courses
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and certifications are encouraged since most wedding planners are self-employed and have to
establish themselves to get frequent jobs. Leslie Weekes, a successful wedding planner,
confirms on PayScale Career News, “The difference in a wedding consultant's salary is the
number of years they've been in the business. Good word of mouth referrals and a solid
reputation definitely helps your wedding consultant salary” (Weekes 1). This is mainly since
wedding planners are mostly self-employed and are not part of a certain company and if they
are, they make their wage based off of the commission. With all the information a wedding
planner has to keep track of, there in a need to be organized to make sure no data is lost. There
also needs to be clear communication between both parties in creating a wedding so
communication skills are greatly needed in this field of expertise.
Many wedding planners use excel spreadsheets to help keep all the information they
collect in order and easy to find. Some use online software that can help keep all of their
vendor’s information in order as well. One type of planning software is called, My Wedding
Workbook where an advice book, organization planners, inspiration boards and communication
centers. This website works for actual brides as well as wedding planners but provides the same
organization documents as actual planners would use. They also keep pictures of each item the
bride decides to get along with swatches with the fabrics of dresses or table cloths. All of these
documents are kept in a binder for each individual bride so everything is in the same place and
easy to access. The specific information on the spreadsheets is the name, contact information
and an invoice with the total cost of each vendor. All the information provided will help the
wedding planner provide accurate and specific information to the bride and make sure they
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stay within budget. This information will also clear up any conflicts that could arise whether it is
caused through miscommunication or a vendor’s mistakes.
The importance of clear communication is also a big key in wedding planning. Wedding
planners have to be cut and dry when making plans with the wedding party. They also have to
make sure to be fully understanding and listen to what the bride wants. Wedding planners
tend to be more direct with making plans for the wedding and not shine light on conflicts that
may arise. As a wedding planner shares in Reader’s Digest, “We’ll do our best to fix mistakes
without you knowing and bill you later at our discretion” (Zerello 20). With conflicts that can
interfere with the wedding, planners must be able to adjust and provide services that aren’t
always included with wedding costs like solving family conflicts and last minute vendor
mistakes. While wedding planners provide many different roles to complete such an
extravagant wedding, funeral directors do even more.
Funerals in our society are typically scheduled and planned within 4-5 days once the
death of an individual occurs. This is mostly caused from our culture whereas in Europe,
funerals usually occur a couple weeks after a person has passed away. Which such little time to
plan an event, funeral directors must work quickly and not make any mistakes since there will
be little to no time to correct them. Jack Mueller from Mueller Parker Funeral Home explained
how funerals take on average 80-100 hours of work from the beginning with embalming and
preparation to the burial of the loved one. Since there’s such little amount of time, conflicts
must be shortly resolved and decisions must be made. If the deceased did not preplan their
funeral, the families are involved in the funeral decision making which could cause conflicts and
add time contributed into planning the funeral ceremony.
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Because of all the procedures it takes to plan and develop a perfect funeral, a funeral
director’s job responsibilities require a great amount of education. As Jack Mueller also informs,
“You need a 4-year degree, along with a 12 month mortuary science course. After that you take
a National board exam following a 1-year long apprenticeship, and then a state board exam in
the state you plan on working in” (Personal Interview). This is because funeral directors must be
able to correctly prepare and bury the body within the laws of the country and state it takes
place. With all of the professional services that occur along with excellent customer service,
funerals are typically under $10,000. The National Funeral Directors Association states that in
2009, the average cost of a funeral was $6,560. However, these prices continue to increase like
most products and services in our economy. Funeral directors tend to work at one specific
funeral home where most of the items needed for the funeral are provided in-house. This
makes the funeral directors retailers as well as event planners.
Since most of the products needed for the funeral are provided at the funeral home,
most funeral directors do not need to branch out and find certain vendors for their burial items.
They guide the clients through purchasing all of the funeral arrangements from caskets, music,
to obituaries from their own office. Letting the friends and family members who have lost loved
ones arrange the funeral from one place is an advantage in their job. They can make sure the
clients are as comfortable as possible in their time of despair and not stressing out about what
type of flowers should be displayed.
Dealing with customers that are in a fragile state, funeral directors must be careful with
wording choice and make sure they are comforting towards the family members. They tend to
start by softening the aspect of death so they are able to make the topic more talk able and
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easier to communicate about. With conflicting family members, they act as mediators to
quickly resolve problems in a way that doesn’t offend either party. Jack Mueller recommends
picking 1 or 2 spokespersons from the family to help decrease more arguments from multiple
different opinions. Funeral directors must be careful to not pick sides of parties and collaborate
ideas to make sure everyone feels heard and understood.
Along with the customer service, there are multiple forms families are provided with to
inform them about all of the costs for the funeral. John from Hodapp Funeral Homes provided
forms that a person would typically receive when arranging a funeral. The forms are straight
forward and provide costs of all professional services like embalming as well as cash
disbursements like flowers and transportation. There are also price lists as well as samples of
vaults, coffins, and urns that the customers can pick from for their particular funeral. All of
these forms tend to be detailed but not personal so customers know what quality they are
buying with little relation to the actual deceased. These price lists are spelled out as clear as
possible and are all provided at the funeral home so they do not have to travel for deciding
items and make the whole process as easy as it can be for the friends and families who have
lost loved ones.
This is one of the things that set funeral directors apart from wedding planners. They
actually sell items that people need for their ceremony and they use their actual office or
home. They provide a retailing side for products while most event planners don’t. Wedding
planners actually only use different vendors and venues for every wedding and rely on those
vendors to follow through with what was planned. Funeral homes also have in-house services
that are sold to their clients. Wedding planners usually don’t have services they offer to their
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brides and solely charge their clients a percentage of the cost of their wedding. Their prices for
the event are almost triple the amount of a funeral. Weddings tend to me more expensive than
funerals and also provide a lot more details and products than a funeral. Along with a weddings
price, it is also a longer process to plan a wedding than it is to plan a funeral. This is because a
lot more details go into planning for a wedding and in our society; funerals are planned quickly
and occur as soon as possible.
Education is also a big difference in the careers. Wedding planners don’t have any
specific requirements and establish themselves through word-of-mouth. However, they can
take planning courses to help certify them as wedding professionals. As Education Portal
shares,” Prerequisites take 35-40 hours to complete, and classes last 4-5 days. A home-study
option allows candidates to take up to three months to complete the same coursework through
a video series” (Wedding Planner 1). This confirms that the education requirements for
wedding planners are not nearly as extensive as funeral directors. Funeral directors, however,
need a great amount of schooling as well as certifications and an apprenticeship to make them
an adequate funeral director. Because of their job responsibilities, they need to learn a greater
amount of health and body material as well as knowledge about chemicals and laws that affect
the process of embalming and burying. As the Bureau of Labor Statistics educates,” All states
require funeral directors to be licensed. Licensing laws vary by state, but most applicants
should: Be 21 years old, Complete 2 years in an AFSBE mortuary science program, and Serve an
apprenticeship lasting 1 to 3 years” (Funeral Directors 4). Their extensive education and training
is much greater than wedding planners and requires a lot more discipline and hard-work. The
difference in the amount of education and training required for each discourse community
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really sets themselves apart from each other. This is relatable with a lot of aspects in the
Discourse of wedding planners and funeral directors. With such different steps involving the
events, it is amazing how similar each Discourse’s language is.
Both event planners have the need to provide excellent customer service. Both planners
provide a service and it is their job to make sure their clients are happy. However, funeral
directors tend to have the need to put a little more effort into satisfying their customers. In the
event the deceased did not have a pre-planned funeral, the family is left to decide upon what
will happen to the body and the funeral arrangements. This usually causes conflicts to develop
between the family and friend because of their differences of opinion. The funeral directors
have to become mediators for each party and negotiate with them until a solution is met and
everyone is happy with the decision. They also have to be sensitive towards their clients and be
careful of their wording based on the situation the families are in. They don’t want to offend or
upset any friends or family members by using terms that could remind them of how or why
their loved one died. They need to be comforting in their customer’s time of need and be
willing to be supportive throughout the whole planning process. As Nicole Wiedeman from
Funeral Business Advisor states,” For example, funeral directors will provide the utmost care,
attention to detail and personalization to the families they are serving” (1). Their kindness and
patience is much greater than one of a wedding planner. They have a perspective that is more
business oriented and tend to not be as personal. The atmosphere they work in is much more
upbeat than funeral directors and their clients are not in such a fragile state. This lets them be
more focused on the event and scheduling vendors rather than juggling planning and consoling
as well. Wedding planners do not have to solve problems of conflicting opinions since the
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bride’s say is the final say that decides the plans for the wedding. Since the person is present to
plan the main event, wedding planners have an easier time making decisions. This is ironic in a
way since they have so much more time to plan their event. Their language differs in terms of
customer service but the official forms they fill out are very similar.
For each event, clients must fill out contracts and forms that state what they are
essentially paying for. Overall, these forms are very similar with the organization and design of
their documents. For the initial planning both brides and individuals who pre-planned their
funerals, they both have excel sheets about what they want and how much it will be. These
documents only truly differ when it displays what items will be included in the event. It is
common knowledge that funerals will include products like caskets and hearses while on the
wedding documents, DJ price lists and seating charts will be included. If an individual passed
away without a plan already arranged, the funeral directors will use a similar spreadsheet as
well to keep the details of the event organized. This follows the contracts that are produced
before any planning of an event is planned.
Wedding planners usually also provide a type of contract that outlines the amount of
hours they put towards the wedding and what all they are responsible for scheduling and
arranging for the price they are being paid. Planner’s Lounge interviewed an attorney who
specialized with wedding planning. She stated that the most important advice she had was to
make sure all parties of the wedding planning signed the contract for their own responsibility.
This would help prevent a breach in contract if the wedding planner followed a mother’s
opinion rather than the bride who was not footing the bill. These contracts protect the wedding
planner against being sued for conflicts of interest from the wedding parties. Funeral homes
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normally have contracts but they are typically legal releases for permission to seize the body
and be able to prepare the body for burial. Their contracts are more based off of the state laws
and regulations as well as avoid future lawsuits like a wedding planning contract. These laws
are set in place to protect the families more than the funeral directors. As the Funeral
Consumers Alliance confirms,” Grieving families who don't know their legal rights are
vulnerable to sales pressure, manipulation, and overspending when it comes time to plan a
funeral” (Why the Law Matters 1). These contracts help make sure the families have been
informed of all the information they are entitled to and also make sure funeral homes aren’t
sued for malpractice. As well as providing more contracts and release forms, funeral homes also
provide a few more documents than wedding planners do.
Since they sell their own materials and do the arrangements of the funeral themselves,
they provide samples of the caskets with pricelists attached as well as booklets with
assortments of flowers and catering that they can get and arrange for the client. These include
pictures or even small tactile samples of wood or types of urns so their customers can get a full
idea of what they are purchasing without having to picture their loved one while making the
plans. Wedding planners don’t have such documents and booklets since they take their brides
to multiple vendors and purchase their materials and services through them. There are few
wedding planners that do additional wedding services. The owner and workers from Say I Do
Weddings, are also florists that cater to weddings. He provides flowers for the event as well as
planning and executing the ceremony. He has similar forms like the funeral homes that include
pictures and price lists of the flower arrangements and bouquets he can provide. Aside from
exceptions like Say I Do, most wedding planners just carry receipts or notes about what they
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have decided to order, from whom, and how much. So even though they work in two
completely different work environments, their Discourses are more similar than one would
think.
Altogether, I think that the discourse community of funeral directors might even be
more complex than the discourse community of a wedding planner. Funeral directors must
have a greater amount education and have a lot more knowledge about the preparation of a
burial in addition to the common things wedding planners already know how to do like
schedule vendors and make arrangements for their clients. I also think funeral directors have a
more important job. In our society today, weddings aren’t taken as seriously as they were in the
past, while funerals are just as serious. Weddings tend to be about the parties and dresses and
people tend to focus on the food so wedding planners tend to put priority in vendors rather
than their actual customers. Funeral directors, however, have to provide the utmost care to
each of their clients and their events are solely focused on the one person the funeral is about.
There is not much importance in the details of a funeral because the people grieving tend to
focus on the ones they love rather than the superficial details around them. Each discourse
community has completely different variables and priorities as part of their job responsibilities
and it is reflected through the actual event. The process of developing and making the event is
actually more similar than the event itself.
Although they have different aspects, both discourse communities provide very similar
documents with the same genre. While collecting information, both the wedding planners and
funeral directors use the same strategy of the spreadsheet to hold all their information. I think
this is because their events both include a great amount of details that can easily be lost if not
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properly organized. This shows the similarities of the discourse communities and proves how
events, no matter what kind, have the same structure. They also have contracts that must be
established before any planning must be made. This is to protect both them and their clients
from future conflicts or even lawsuits. I’m sure most services that produce that much profit has
produced contracts as well. Overall, my research concludes that even though the wedding
planner community and discourse community have branched out into two completely separate
types of events, their roots are the same and almost interchangeable.
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Works Cited
Debbie. "Wedding Planner Contracts & Legal Advice." The Planners Lounge: Resources for
Wedding Event Planners. Planners Lounge, 12 Dec. 2012. Web. 11 Apr. 2013.
"Funeral Directors." U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. United States Department of Labor, 29 Mar.
2012. Web. 12 Mar. 2013.
"Funeral Planning--The Online Consumer Guide." Funeral Planning--The Free Online Consumer
Guide to Planning Funerals and Memorials. Aurora Casket Company, 2003. Web. 12
Mar. 2013.
Green, Jeffery. "{say I Do} Weddings & Events." Sayidoweddings-events. Say I Do, n.d. Web. 12
Mar. 2013.
Hallett, Stephanie. "Average Engagement Length, And Other Wedding Planning Statistics
(INFOGRAPHIC)." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 04 Jan. 2013. Web. 11
Apr. 2013.
Hodapp, John. Personal Interview. 3 April 2013
Mueller, Jack. Personal Interview. 1 April 2013
“Wedding Planner”. Google Templates. Google, n.d. Web. 26 March 2013.
"Wedding Planner: Occupational Outlook and Career Profile." Careers and Occupations.
Education Portal, n.d. Web. 11 Apr. 2013.
Weekes, Leslie. "How to Become a Wedding Planner." Salary Stories. PayScale, 28 Apr. 2007.
Web. 12 Mar. 2013.
Wiedeman, Nichole. "Top Notch Funeral Home Customer Service: You Must Go Above and
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Beyond." Funeral Business Advisor RSS. Funeral Business Advisor, 21 Sept. 2012. Web.
11 Apr. 2013.
"Why the Law Matters- What Every Funeral Consumer Needs to Know." Funeral Consumers
Alliance. Funeral Consumers Alliance, 21 Jan. 2009. Web. 11 Apr. 2013.
"Your Secret Weapon in Planning Your Dream Wedding." My Wedding Workbook: Online
Wedding Planner. My Wedding Workbook, 2013. Web. 11 Apr. 2013.
Zerello, Amy. "13 Things Your Wedding Planner Won’t Tell You." Reader's Digest. The Reader's
Digest Association, Inc., 2013. Web. 11 Apr. 2013.
"2009 Funeral Costs." Statistics. National Funeral Directors Association, 2010. Web. 26 Mar.
2013.
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Annotated Bibliography
Debbie. "Wedding Planner Contracts & Legal Advice." The Planners Lounge: Resources for
Wedding Event Planners. Planners Lounge, 12 Dec. 2012. Web. 11 Apr. 2013.
This website is for wedding planners and provides articles about advice and experience to share
and learn from. The particular article I found was an interview with an attorney who gave
advice on what to include and make sure you follow within a wedding contract. I think this will
be useful to me when I describe documents and what exactly goes on a contract wedding
planners may produce and how they are set up.
Green, Jeffery. "{say I Do} Weddings & Events." Sayidoweddings-events. Say I Do, n.d. Web. 12
Mar. 2013.
This website is a wedding planner/florist’s website that shows their past work and what
they are able to do for weddings and other events. I know the owner of this business and will
interview him to learn more about the wedding side of event planning. This website will help
provide insight about what the difference is between the items at a wedding versus a funeral
and show a bit of what all weddings entail.
Weekes, Leslie. "How to Become a Wedding Planner." Salary Stories. PayScale, 28 Apr. 2007.
Web. 12 Mar. 2013.
This website articles includes information from an actual wedding planner about how to
become one yourself. It informs readers about the best strategies and things you need to know
to become a planner as well as the salary you could potentially make. It also provides links to
other places where you can gain experience to be a wedding planner. I think this article will
help me with the job responsibilities of a wedding planner and the salary range they have. It
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will also help provide me with more resources about the bridal business and more information
about becoming a certified wedding planner.
Hodapp, John. Personal Interview. 3 April 2013
Although I don’t know which funeral director I am interviewing yet, I’m hoping this
interview can help me learn more about the job in general. I know very little about this
discourse so I hope they can answer questions about the funeral process so when I do ask
about their genre and language, I won’t struggle to understand the documents as much. I am
also hoping to get forms that families get when planning a funeral.
Mueller, Jack. Personal Interview. 1 April 2013.
I think I am interviewing a director named Kathy, but it’s not confirmed as well. This
interview is to just confirm the data I have taken from Hodapp’s funeral home and hopefully
gather more documents that I can cross reference with the other documents to see the
similarities. With this information, I hope to be able to better analyze this discourse community.
“Wedding Planner”. Google Templates. Google, n.d. Web. 26 March 2013.
I’m not sure how to cite a template off of Google or whether it is authentic enough to
be a actual source for my research. This showed me a template about all of the information a
wedding planner would use and how it might be formatted like their documents. This template
I can use to cross reference with the actual documents that I will try to collect and be a good
starting point for the wedding planning community.
"Funeral Directors." U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. United States Department of Labor, 29 Mar.
2012. Web. 12 Mar. 2013.
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This website provides all the basics of funeral directors and the job they have. It shows
their salary, education, and other things such as job outlook or how to even become a funeral
director. It also shares all the responsibilities a funeral home director would have for his job,
additional resources for information, and similar jobs. This article will be very useful for my
project by informing the basics of funeral home directing and also additional resources to use.
"Funeral Planning--The Online Consumer Guide." Funeral Planning--The Free Online Consumer
Guide to Planning Funerals and Memorials. Aurora Casket Company, 2003. Web. 12
Mar. 2013.
This website is for people who has lost loved ones and need a guide to plan their
funeral. It provides every detail that is included in a funeral or memorial service. It also gives
information about finances, types of burials, and grief support. It also includes many other
kinds of consumer reports about caskets and other funeral things as well. I think this article will
help me provide details about what exactly funeral home directors take care of or help the
families deal and decide with funeral arrangements.
"Your Secret Weapon in Planning Your Dream Wedding." My Wedding Workbook: Online
Wedding Planner. My Wedding Workbook, 2013. Web. 11 Apr. 2013.
This website is a website for a software that wedding planners or brides can buy to help
organize and plan a wedding. It includes all sorts of details and documents to help a planner
develop the ideal wedding the bride had in mind. I can use this website to look at the
documents and see how they are designed and what language they use. I can also see what all
goes into planning and wedding and how professional wedding planners can organize and
schedule all the aspects of a wedding.
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Zerello, Amy. "13 Things Your Wedding Planner Won’t Tell You." Reader's Digest. The Reader's
Digest Association, Inc., 2013. Web. 11 Apr. 2013.
This Reader’s Digest article was written by a well-established wedding planner and
provided internal information about what goes on in a wedding planner’s job. She provided real
life examples and advice for brides so when they decide to plan their own wedding or use a
wedding planner, they understand the job responsibilities and pressures they will undergo
themselves or their planners will experience. I think this article will help confirm data that I
have gathered about wedding planners and their degree of customer service and job
responsibilities they have.
"Why the Law Matters- What Every Funeral Consumer Needs to Know." Funeral Consumers
Alliance. Funeral Consumers Alliance, 21 Jan. 2009. Web. 11 Apr. 2013.
This website shares the importance of the laws that were made for funerals and why
each state differs from one another. It also provides information about other states and why it
is important to know about these laws in case you decide to plan a funeral yourself. I think this
article can help me provide information about rules and regulations of funerals. It can also help
me provide supporting details about why these laws exist.
"2009 Funeral Costs." Statistics. National Funeral Directors Association, 2010. Web. 26 Mar.
2013.
This website provided all the necessary statistics that were necessary for my funeral
costs. It gave me average costs of all funeral details over the past 40 years as well at the death
rate and the amount of cremation and burials that occurred out of those deaths. I think this
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article can help provide helpful information about funeral costs and the average procedure a
funeral might go through.
Hallett, Stephanie. "Average Engagement Length, And Other Wedding Planning Statistics
(INFOGRAPHIC)." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 04 Jan. 2013. Web. 11
Apr. 2013.
This article shows the statistics of an average wedding in today’s society. This includes
prices, the amount of time it takes to plan, color schemes, and much more. This can help me
with supporting evidence in my paper about the details of a wedding and how that intertwines
with a wedding planner’s job responsibilities.
Wiedeman, Nichole. "Top Notch Funeral Home Customer Service: You Must Go Above and
Beyond." Funeral Business Advisor RSS. Funeral Business Advisor, 21 Sept. 2012. Web.
11 Apr. 2013.
This article shares how great customer service is with funeral home directors but also
how it needs to improve in today’s society. It shares how the whole funeral home needs to
provide great customer care and not just the directors working with the families. I think I can
use the articles information about the funeral directors to support the fact they provide stellar
customer service at all times.
"Wedding Planner: Occupational Outlook and Career Profile." Careers and Occupations.
Education Portal, n.d. Web. 11 Apr. 2013.
This article shares and outlook and profile to become a wedding planner and the steps
you need to take to become one. This can help me support the education and requirements
needed to become a wedding planner in my paper.