In several ways, Angel's gets a 4 or a 5. Their prices are much less expensive than the large…read moremortuaries, even less than half of our local mortuary. My Mom's death caught us by surprise and a family member recommended Angel's.
I would use Angel's again for the cremation. They didn't try to sell me on anything, and because of that, I was so touched that they made no attempt to take advantage of me in a time of sadness and vulnerability, so to show my support, I wanted to give them as much of the related-details business as possible, even though they were long distance from my home. The urn is from Angel's, and a soft, exquisite set of blank memorial cards that includes guest book and thank you cards was purchased from them as well.
Everything was fine until they printed the cards, and there were a good number of deficiencies. For the printed memorial cards, they get 1 or 2 stars maximum. If I were to really go into detail, picky point by picky point, it would be lengthy, so I will limit my dissatisfaction to a few highlights, starting with Angel's reaction about errors that were beyond question, such as an entire line missing on the inner-left top on 50 of the 100 cards. Their response was that it was unfortunate but there was nothing they could do about it! When I held them to account, I was further told that I was the only person who had ever complained. Initially, before the cards were ever printed, I "complained" about Angel's name and address being on the bottom of the back page of the proof. They said that was normal and that no one else had ever complained about it. When they sent a revised proof, their name and address was still there, so I explicitly said that if they insisted on it being there, the lettering needed to be very tiny. On the finished, printed card, they had neither removed it nor decreased the font size as i requested. It is an eyesore and needlessly interferes with the back of the card. It is visually offensive. The quality of the ink was also low saturation. It doesn't even look to be medium, probably to save on ink. Much of the spacing on the card was poor, both top and bottom and in-between. This was quite simply the poorest important print job I have ever seen (so you see, I talk in superlatives, too). And, of course, according to them, I will have been the only person to express this sentiment in all of their years of business; translation: the problem was me. I could be very specific about the memorial cards in other ways. By my definition and expectations, the printed cards were not only a disappointment, they were a train wreck.
However, everything else about dealing with Angel's was good, better than good, and except for the memorial cards (that I recommend be printed elsewhere, if you are visually exacting about spacing and details, ink density, etc., as I am, without apology btw), Angel's was an awesome place that showed compassion and dependability. Memorial cards are a comparatively small thing, especially when taking into account the amount I saved up front on the cremation. I am already meeting with the local newspaper and will have new memorial cards printed professionally by them, and they WILL be beautifully done, because nothing less will be acceptable. I happen to have a lot of time to get this done because my Mom died when the coronavirus was ramping up, so we had to postpone everything. People don't usually have time to be picky and must hope for/assume a satisfactory initial outcome, so choose carefully.
In the past, I have tended toward deleting critical reviews later, and may do so here as well. I mean, how important IS a memorial card, the way it turns out? Right now, it seems extraordinarily important to me, maybe because we never got to have a gathering to officially say goodbye. Updatr: it is three days later and my saw the cards. we are making memorial packets to send out to family members. he agreed that the cards are in poor taste generally, and the advertising on the back-bottom, espeically since we used the back bottom for Mom, is tasteless, and we cannot use these cards, will have new, tasteful ones printed to send with the packets. my son is considerably easier to please than i am. i could include a picture of the card, and their advertising, and how terrible it looks, which was only one of the problems with the cards, but i won't do because of the situation.
