Cemetery and Monument Services Editing and Proofreading Services

A family orders a headstone with a photograph etched into it and their mother's favourite line of poetry. Eleven weeks later the memorial is refused, because this cemetery does not permit photographic etching and the inscription exceeds the permitted number of characters. Nobody was careless. The rules exist, they are published, and they were published in a document written for masons rather than for a family who have never done this before.

We edit what cemeteries, burial authorities and memorial masons produce — memorial regulations and permitted design documentation, family-facing guides to what may be placed on a grave, grave lease and exclusive right of burial explanations, memorial application and approval processes, inscription and additional inscription information, maintenance, safety and memorial inspection communications, exhumation and transfer information, fee schedules and their structure, cremated remains interment options, and communications about memorial removal or repair. Our editors work on the rules a family reads before they order a stone.

The memorial regulations are where a cemetery either helps a family or refuses one, and their failure is a document written for the trade. A family choosing a memorial is making a permanent decision in the worst month of their life and needs to know what is possible before they fall in love with something that is not. We write these so the permitted and prohibited are stated as a family would think of them — the shapes, the materials, the colours, the finishes, whether a photograph is allowed, whether glass, metal, kerbs, chippings, vases, solar lights and toys are permitted — since the refusals almost always concern the small personal additions rather than the stone; so the size limits are given with a diagram and an example rather than as dimensions alone; so the inscription rules state the character limit and what counts towards it, given that families do not know whether spaces and punctuation count and their poem may not fit; so the approval sequence is described with who applies, how long it takes and at what point the family may safely place an order, because an order placed before approval is how eleven weeks are lost; so the grave's tenure is explained plainly — what a lease is, how long it runs, what happens at the end and who may be buried there — as this is the single most misunderstood fact in the sector; so the maintenance and safety inspection regime is explained, including what happens if a memorial is found unsafe; and so the fees are set out with what is and is not included. Regulations written this way prevent the refusal.

Everything you send is treated in confidence, including regulations, family correspondence and records. We are editors rather than cemetery managers or legal advisers, and we offer no view on regulations, tenure or memorial safety. What we can do is write the rules for the family rather than the mason.