A headstone is the one thing families abroad most want to arrange and most fear arranging remotely, because you cannot see the stone, the ground or the workshop. Here is how it actually works, and what you can control from a distance.
Why the stone waits about a year
A fresh grave settles, and it settles most during the first winter and the first spring, when the ground freezes and thaws. A heavy granite monument placed on ground that has not settled will tilt.
So the usual sequence is this. In the first year the grave is tidied and a temporary cross stands. After a year the headstone is installed. Many families time the installation to the first anniversary, which is also when relatives try to come.
If the funeral was recent, what makes sense before winter is topping up the soil where it has sunk, treating the wooden cross so it survives, and clearing the plot. Paving and fencing are better left until after the stone, because the installation disturbs them anyway.
The season matters more than the calendar
Every headstone stands on a concrete foundation, and concrete needs temperatures above about five degrees to cure properly.
In our region that means September and October are unproblematic, the first half of November is usually still possible, and after that installation waits for spring. Winter is the season for ordering and manufacturing, not for setting stone.
Autumn has a practical advantage that surprises people: workshops are far less busy than in spring, when everyone wants the work finished before the Provody memorial Sunday. Prices and waiting times are better.
Choosing the stone without seeing it
The main choice is between dark granite, usually gabbro, and lighter or cheaper materials.
Dark granite is the only material on which a portrait engraving works properly, and it lasts for decades in our climate. Lighter granites cost less and are excellent for borders and paving. Concrete with marble chip is the affordable option and realistically lasts ten to fifteen years before the surface begins to suffer, longer if it is treated.
One piece of advice we give everyone: thickness matters more than height. A tall thin stone photographs well in a catalogue and behaves worse on settled ground.
How the remote process runs
Step by step it looks like this. We visit the grave, measure and send you photographs of the plot as it is now. You choose a shape and material from photographs with prices. We send a full size proof of the inscription and the portrait for your approval.
Nothing is cut into stone until you have approved that proof in writing, by message. This is the point where mistakes are caught, so read the dates twice and show the portrait to someone who remembers the face well.
On installation day we photograph the work in progress and the finished grave, and send everything to you the same day.
About the portrait photograph
Send the sharpest photograph you have, not the newest. An old studio print scanned at high resolution usually produces a better engraving than a recent phone picture taken from across a room.
A face cut from a group photograph works well if the face is large enough in the original. Clothing is redrawn as a matter of course, so a holiday snapshot is perfectly usable.
Send it to us on Viber or WhatsApp before ordering and we will tell you honestly whether it will make a good portrait.
Tell us the cemetery and roughly when the funeral was, and we will say whether the stone should go up this season or wait, with photographs of the grave as it stands today.