My 98-year-old grandmother was in a non-responsive coma at Haven Hospice with stage 3 lung cancer…read more She had days to live, and adding to our difficulties, my husband and I needed to be out of the country in just a few days, and would probably not be back before she died. Choosing a funeral home to collect her body, embalm her, and hold her until we came back was very important to us. We researched and contacted Chestnut, Forest Meadows, and William Thomas. Forrest Meadows Funeral Home was the last funeral home we contacted and the funeral home we ended up contracting to handle Gram's funeral.
Initially, we only wanted her body collected from hospice, embalmed and held until we returned, then shipped to Mississippi for burial. We ended up contracting Forest Meadows to do the whole thing, burying her in Gainesville at Forest Meadows Cemetery.
You are at a huge disadvantage when you go to purchase a plot and plan a funeral. You are torn between love and guilt and lose, and so many other emotions. We were not quite as compromised as most people in this situation; my husband has known a lot of death in his lifetime, and I am an in-law granddaughter. We were not emotionally leveraged, but we still had time constraints, unlike buying a car, if you get disgusted with the sales game, you cannot put it off and come at it fresh in a few months, and also unlike buying a car there are not a lot of dealer choices. It really came down to just these two funeral homes in Gainesville. Other than that, it was just like buying a car: over priced options that are really not options, for example dressing the body for $450 - it is not like we could let her go to her funeral nekked. Overall, the whole situation is a bit unsavory, and not something you should do if you are emotionally overwhelmed, or compromised.
Overall, I felt David, the sales guy, did a good job for us. He understood my husband wanted the bare basics, no up charges, and a rock bottom figure. My husband was not emotionally compromised. I believe David worked hard to deliver the lowest number he could deliver. My husband will negotiate ANYTHING, but he went kind of easy on them, at least at first. He chipped a little here and there, but he did not deal aggressively. But then, something happened that set off my husband's car dealer paranoia; they did not include the grave plaque in the final price. They were thinking originally that we were shipping her to Mississippi. When they reworked numbers for a full funeral and burial, they overlooked the plaque on the stone. My husband had told me hours earlier to look for some kind of last minute upcharge, and it happened. My husband went into aggression mode, and the sales manager came in, and they put their boy things down. My husband went to battle, eventually bringing the final number back to the number the agreed on in the first place. My husband will walk on any deal, but here is the thing, they worked with him to make it right. But it should not have happened and if they do make an error, they need to fix it without fighting the family member. Unless we deal with them again, or someone else has this experience, we will never know if this was an honest mistake.
Moving on. Bruce, the Funeral Director, was super. The weather was iffy at the time of the funeral, and he moved the graveside service into the mausoleum. He did this without prompting or extra charges. Bruce rocks. The mausoleum itself has very good energy. There is love in the mausoleum that you can feel in your heart. It was all very good.
I would like to give Forrest Meadows 5 stars, but when families are in grief, and emotions are running that high, everything should be flawless. No mistakes. Mistakes were made, and we can never know if they were honest mistakes or exploitation. And some of the options that seemed to have crazy pricing make you suspicious of the other items. They have 3 levels of vaults. Why would you buy any vault other than the least expensive? And the difference between each level was about one thousand dollars. Why are you buying a $3700-dollar super vault when the $1400-dollar vault does the same thing? And seriously? $1400 dollars for a concrete tub with a lid? The 3700 dollar one will resist nuclear fall out, so I understand the pricing on that one; you do not want your loved ones to be irradiated after a nuclear holocaust.
I got off track. I want to give Forest Meadows 5 stars, but I just do not have enough information. My experience was not without suspicions, but overall I am very pleased with the outcome. The rock bottom price to bury someone at Forest Meadows in our experience is about $10,000. I recommend Forest Meadows - the funeral, the mausoleum, the Funeral Director, all of it - but keep your eyes open when negotiating on a final number with the sales guy, and do not let them talk/guilt you into a lot of unnecessary expense.
