A funeral program has a job most families do not realise until afterwards. On the day it tells people what is happening and when to stand. For years after, it is the thing that ends up on a refrigerator, inside a Bible, in a drawer that gets opened once a year. It is worth twenty extra minutes.
Every program, in every faith and every format, is built from the same six pieces. What changes is how many of them fit.
1. The cover
Four things, and resisting the urge to add a fifth is most of the work:
- A photograph — one, large, and the one that looks like them rather than the most recent.
- Their full name, including a nickname if that is what people called them.
- Birth and death dates.
- Service date, time and place.
A line such as "In Loving Memory" or "Celebrating the Life Of" sits above the name. That is the whole cover. Anything else belongs inside.
On the photograph: pick for the face, not the occasion. A slightly grainy snapshot where someone is laughing prints better than a formal portrait where they look like a stranger. Scanned prints want 300 dpi or better — a phone photograph of a photograph rarely holds up at cover size.
2. The order of service
The running order of the service itself: processional, prayers, readings, music, the eulogy, the recessional. Each line gets a title and, where it helps, a detail — the hymn, the reader, the scripture reference.
Set it as a title on the left, the detail on the right, and a dotted leader between them. That is not decoration; it is what lets someone find their place from three rows back.
Scripture Reading ······································ Psalm 23
Where a family gets stuck is length. A full Catholic Mass runs to thirteen entries; a graveside committal is six. Both are correct. Write the service you are actually holding rather than the one the template suggests.
Military honours
If honours are being rendered, they are part of the order rather than an appendix — colours, the anthem, the reading of the service record, the rifle volley, Taps, the folding and presentation of the flag. They sit before the recessional, because the recessional stays the last word of the service. Set two-up in columns, they cost about four lines instead of seven.
3. The obituary
The printed obituary is usually shorter than the newspaper version, because it shares the page with photographs. Two to four paragraphs is normal. If you have already written a longer one, cut rather than rewrite — the long version is worth keeping for the family regardless of what fits here.
We have a full walkthrough of the writing itself in how to write an obituary, including structure, length by destination, and the survivor-list conventions that cause the most upset.
4. Photographs
The interior photographs are the part people linger on. A spread of six ordinary pictures beats one formal portrait every time — the kitchen, the boat, the bad haircut in 1987.
How many you can use is set by the format, and it is worth knowing before you start scanning:
- 1-Page — 3 to 6 photographs
- Bi-Fold — 4 to 8
- Tri-Fold — 8 to 15
- 8-Page Booklet — 15 to 24
5. A poem, a scripture, or a reading
One. Two at the absolute most. This is the panel families most often overfill, and a page with three poems on it reads as a page with no poem on it.
Public-domain verse and scripture are safe to reproduce. Anything written in the last century probably is not — a hymn text or a modern poem can carry a live copyright, and printing two hundred copies is publishing.
6. The family's acknowledgment
Three or four sentences from the family thanking people for coming, for the food, for the hospital staff, for the phone calls. It goes on the back, usually above or below the final photographs. It is the last thing anyone reads and the easiest to write badly, so write it the way you would say it out loud.
If there is a repast or reception afterwards, the details go here too — venue, address, and whether everyone is welcome or it is family only. People will look for this and nowhere else.
How much actually fits
This is where most families are surprised. A program is a fixed physical object, and the four formats hold genuinely different amounts:
- 1-Page (letter, 8.5 × 11) — about 220 words of obituary, 3 to 6 photographs, and up to 8 lines of order of service. One sheet, printed both sides.
- Bi-Fold (legal, folded once) — about 460 words, 4 to 8 photographs, up to 10 lines of order of service. The most common choice.
- Tri-Fold (legal, folded twice) — about 600 words, 8 to 15 photographs, and the order of service uncapped. Room for a repast panel.
- 8-Page Booklet — about 1,050 words, 15 to 24 photographs, uncapped order of service, plus room for written tributes from family and friends.
Those word counts are the obituary allowance, not the whole program. If the order of service is long, the obituary gets shorter — the page does not grow. Deciding the format before you write saves the rewrite.
Printing it
Two decisions, and they are independent of each other.
Paper. Ordinary copier paper feels like a handout. Something around 32 lb text or a light cardstock feels like a keepsake, costs a few dollars more across the whole run, and is the single cheapest upgrade available to you.
Where. A print shop gives a cleaner fold and heavier stock; a home printer gives you copies at eleven at night when you realise forty is not enough. If you print at home, choose Actual Size rather than Fit to Page — "fit" adds its own margin and shrinks the whole design a few percent, which is exactly enough to look wrong.
Print more than you think. The usual advice is one per two attendees; the usual regret is running out. They cost pennies each and people take them home.
Build the program without the layout
Answer the questions once and we lay out the cover, the order of service, the obituary and the photographs to the format you choose — then hand you a print-ready PDF.
Start their tribute