Floral tributes at funerals.

If you don’t collect wreaths or flowers quite swiftly from our local crematorium, they get thrown out virtually the day after the funeral, as they just can’t accommodate the large numbers otherwise.

So some people take them home and place on family graves or similar.

So much better to have one main wreath and then donations IMHO.

But good for the florists, all helps local businesses.

Leaving or throwing flowers does seem to be an ancient tradition. I'm not entering into the rights & wrongs of the current situation!
I agree in principle about flowers at funerals - but I recall, as a student nurse, seeing at Piccadilly Circus, what must have been one of the last funerals for one of the flower sellers. The hearse and following cars were amazing. I would not want to criticise something so heartfelt and appropriate.
When one of my cousins died young, we were asked to bring garden flowers, and that was lovely.

I'm sorry but I can't help thinking about the amount of money that has been spent on those flowers. Throughout the country it must amount to tens of thousands which could be better spent elsewhere.

It’s good thst people are removing the cellophane wrappers. The flowers will make good compost.
My mother wanted floral tributes for dad’s funeral and for hers. I.m hoping to have rooted floral tributes in soil, on my coffin. Loved ones can dig out their chosen flower/small shrub for their own garden - and my chosen charity

My daughter had a thing about flowers, she didn’t like them because they always died!!! So I had a problem about what to do when her ashes were buried, I knew she would hate flowers so I dried the petals of roses that I was given and scattered them on her ashes. Now I have the problem of what to do when I visit her grave.

Charity donations would have been much better.
I agree flowers for the living are wonderful- pointless for the dead & a complete waste of money.

Teddy bears left - also silly- toys for a hospital or children’s home much better. Why would anyone leave a marmalade sandwich in the street or park? Obviously going to feed the rats

We loved the Paddington clip but common sense should prevail.

We were chatting earlier about how lovely the simple flower wreaths on Her Late Majesty's coffin have been: carefully chosen and understated. For me, there is something timeless and comforting about honouring the dead this way. When my Mum died, I was so very fortunate that the local florist completely 'got' what I wanted for the wicker coffin - something soft and floral and fragrant. When the flowers arrived, they exceeded all expectation and my darling Mum would have simply loved them. They came to the 'do' afterwards and then sat on my dining table for a week afterwards, I have a photo of them on my FB profile.
But I agree with other posters about the excesses of plastic wrapped bunches in St James's park. The resulting compost must be some of the most expensive on the planet.

If people want to lay flowers that's fine by me.

I also think a donation to a charity would help far more .
The piles of flowers seem ridiculous to me, half of them cannot be seen due to the ones on top and a lot of work is caused in having to clear them.

I've always thought flowers to be a real waste at funerals. Surely, as someone else has already said, a wreath or arrangement on the coffin itself should suffice - and anyone else who wants to remember the deceased person in some way could make some form of donation to charity in their memory instead?

I remember the funeral of a keen gardener in our church. It was summer and the Sunday School children and some adults went (on instructions that she had left) and picked flowers from her garden, then tied them in bunches and put them on the pews. At the end of the funeral we were all asked to take a bunch home. I thought it was a lovely idea. And not a plastic wrapping in sight!

I so agree with your dad Witzend such a waste and actually inappropriate flowers in plastic wrappers.
Couldn't money have been raised towards the flood damage in Pakistan or a cancer charity.

I was only 16 when my mother died and saw the world in a very black and white way. I can still remember how angry I was at the wreaths when none of the senders had ever bought her flowers when she was alive and would so have appreciated them. I buy flowers for people at any excuse on the grounds that they are important to the living, not the dead. DH’s coffin just carried a bunch of white roses (for a Yorkshire man) and friends and family donated to a cause close to his heart.

Please do not leave marmalade sandwiches; think of the rats at night.

My beloved auntie died earlier this year and it was agreed that one wreath of family flowers would sit on the coffin and we all made donations to Cancer Research.

Paddington Bears due to the Platinum Jubilee sketch.

People have been asked not to bring Paddington Bears and marmalade sandwiches.
I don't like to see bedraggled flowers abandoned either.
There has to be a better way of paying respects.

Personally I think family flowers ? if they would like to, but having donations to a charity is much better , more people can benefit this way, whatever the charity may be ...

oops wreaths, sorry.

Alll that plastic is just obscene. Floral reefs are all pinned onto polystirene these days and an environmental nonsense- which is why they are not allowed at Natural Burial sites.

My grandmother said she wanted her flowers while she was still alive. Very sensible.

I recall that when my grandfather died my grandmother requested bunches of cut flowers rather than wreaths. They were collected from the church and taken to a local retirement home, and to the hospital where he died. She made the request at the hospital that these should be distributed to those patients who didn’t have any by their bedside. This was regarded as decidedly odd at the time but charity donations became popular much later.

It’s often not possible to buy a single flower. I agree about teddy bears and suchlike and always dislike seeing them left in this way.

If everyone left just one flower at a palace, that would be more than enough. The teddy bears etc are an abomination.
The donation to charity is a good idea.

My father always said he’d come back and haunt anyone who wasted money on flowers for his funeral. So my mother did put a small bunch on his coffin - because she wanted him to!
Alas it didn’t work.