🕊️Funeral and sympathy flowers

First: check what the family asked for

A death notice or an announcement often says what the family wants, and it is worth reading twice before ordering anything.

• "Family flowers only" — only the immediate family is sending flowers to the service. Don't send to the funeral. A bouquet to the house weeks later is a different gesture and is generally welcome.
• "Donations in lieu of flowers" — the family named a charity because that is what they want. Give to it. If you also want to send flowers later, give first.
• Religious custom. Flowers are not part of a traditional Jewish funeral — food to the shiva house, or a donation, is the customary gesture. Practice varies widely in Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist communities. If you are not sure, ask someone closer to the family rather than guessing with a delivery.

Send to the house, not the service

Flowers at a funeral are logistics: the funeral director collects them, they stand for an hour, and someone has to decide what happens to them afterwards. Flowers at the front door are the opposite — they arrive into an empty week, into a house where the cards have stopped, and they are for the living.

If the family has asked for flowers at the service, that arrangement is normally ordered through the funeral director, who knows the timing and what the venue takes. That is not what Preznt does.

Why later is better

For the first week, a bereaved family is not short of company. There are arrangements to make, people in the kitchen, a service to get through. The hard part starts after: the visitors go home, the post turns back into bills, and everyone else's life resumes.

Flowers two or three weeks out land in that silence. They are also, practically, the ones that get a vase and a table rather than a queue behind eleven others.

If you need flowers before the funeral

Be told plainly: Preznt cannot do same-day or next-day delivery. Every order needs at least three business days, because a person places it with a florist by hand, and weekends and public holidays don't count towards the three. A funeral on Thursday is not something we can reach if you are reading this on Tuesday.

Call a florist near the family and speak to them. Then, if you want to, send something from us for the week after — that is the gap most people leave open anyway.

What to write

You have 255 characters on the florist's card, which is enough for the two sentences that matter. The rule that never fails: name the person who died, and say one specific true thing. Specific beats profound.

"Thinking of you all. Your mother taught me to drive and never once raised her voice. I am so sorry. — Tom Ellis"

"There is no version of the Tuesday football team without Dave in it. We are all so sorry, Ruth. — The Thursday Lot"

"No words, just love, and a lot of it. Thinking of you and the boys this month and next. — Priya"

Things that reliably land badly, however well meant:

• Explaining the death — "at least it was quick", "she is at peace now".
• Silver linings, and any sentence beginning "at least".
• "Let me know if you need anything." It moves the work to the person with the least capacity to do it. Say what you will do instead, and then do it.

Sending from another country

Distance is the usual reason people send flowers after a death: you found out by phone, the funeral is 3,000 km away, and there is no flight that makes sense. Preznt delivers to any street address in the USA, the UK, Germany, Switzerland and Italy, and you can pay from anywhere. It is not the same as being there — nothing is — but the door still opens on something.

One practical note

Pick a weekday you are reasonably sure someone is home. A funeral week is the one week the house is either full or empty, with little in between, and a delivery to an empty house is worse than a delivery a week later.

claude mcp add --scope user --transport http preznt https://api.preznt.net/mcp

Send flowers to Margaret Hill at 42 Ashgrove Road, Bristol BS6 6LY, United Kingdom.
Her husband died last month — deliver on a weekday about two weeks from now.
Card: "Thinking of you, Margaret. John made every one of us feel like the
most interesting person in the room. We miss him. — Sarah and Dan"
My email is you@example.com.