Finding the Right Obituary Format at Plaisier
Most people don't realize that funeral home obituaries have a standard structure most places follow. Plaisier operates out of Michigan and has been doing this for a long time. The obituaries they publish run a few different ways depending on whether you want newspaper placement, their website listing, or a printed program insert. Each has different requirements and pricing. I ran into a specific issue last year that most families never see coming. A client wanted to include military honors information in the obituary—specifically, the veteran's discharge papers and unit assignments. Plaisier's submission process doesn't have a dedicated field for military details in their online form. The text box for the biography section cuts off after a certain character count, and anything related to branch of service gets compressed or dropped. The workaround was straightforward: I wrote the military information as a separate paragraph and attached it as a PDF note to the email submission instead of relying on the web form. They accepted it without comment. Just something to keep in mind if you're dealing with a veteran's obituary.
Plaisier Funeral Home Obituaries Honoring Local Legacies Through Community Memorials
The process starts with deciding where the obituary lives. Plaisier maintains an online memorial page on their website where they post obituaries within 24 to 48 hours after the family provides the necessary details. They also work with several local newspapers including the Detroit Free Press and various county publications. Newspaper rates vary but typically run between $150 and $400 depending on length and placement. The website listing is usually included in their basic services package. Here is what you need to gather before starting. You will need the full legal name of the deceased, date of birth, date of death, and the name of the surviving family members. Most people skip the surviving family detail and that is a mistake because it affects how the obituary reads. Including parents, spouses, children, and grandchildren by name takes about five minutes and makes the final product substantially more complete. If someone is estranged from the family, you can omit them. Plaisier does not require a complete family roster. Writing the actual content follows a pattern. Start with the announcement sentence—name, age, city of residence, and date of passing. Then move to biographical information covering education, career, military service if applicable, and hobbies or community involvement. End with service details and surviving family members. The typical obituary runs between 200 and 400 words. Anything longer than that usually gets edited down by the newspaper anyway.
One counter-intuitive thing about these obituaries: the order of surviving family members matters more than most people think. Listing children before parents signals something about family dynamics that readers pick up on immediately, even if unintentionally. In my experience, the standard convention is spouse first, then children in age order, then parents, then siblings. Stick to that unless there is a specific reason not to. Another detail people miss is the photo requirement. Plaisier's website supports JPEG or PNG files up to 5 megabytes. The image needs to be at least 600 by 800 pixels for decent display quality on both desktop and mobile. I have seen families send phone camera photos that are too small or compressed, which forces a back-and-forth delay. Take the photo before you start the submission. That saves about 30 minutes of waiting around. The timing question comes up a lot. If you publish through a newspaper, the deadline is usually the night before the paper goes to print. For a Wednesday publication, you need the obituary submitted by Tuesday evening. Plaisier's online posting is more flexible but still operates on a same-day basis if you submit before 3 PM. After that, it queues for the next business day. Factor in your service dates when deciding when to submit. Most families want the obituary live before the visitation begins so people can find the details.
Get the Full Details
There are limitations to be aware of. Plaisier does not offer real-time editing once the obituary is published. If you catch a typo after submission, you have to call and request a correction, which may not be processed until the next update cycle. This is true for both their website and newspaper placements. Get it right the first time. Proofread it twice. Have someone who was not involved in writing it read through it—one set of eyes almost always catches something the writer missed. If you need the obituary in a format other than standard prose, like a poem or a religious text, Plaisier can accommodate that. They have worked with various denominational requirements over the years. Just flag it early in the conversation so they can reserve space for it in the layout. The total cost breakdown looks like this: basic online obituary inclusion is typically part of a funeral package ranging from $2,000 to $5,000 depending on the service level chosen. Adding a newspaper listing runs $150 to $400 extra. Rush processing, if available, may add another $50 to $100. These are approximate figures and subject to change, so calling their office directly for current pricing is the safest move.
I have noticed that some families treat the obituary as an afterthought and rush through it on the same day as the death. That is understandable given the circumstances, but it usually results in errors that require correction later. Taking a few hours to write a clean draft before submitting it saves everyone frustration. The staff at Plaisier are patient about this, but they cannot fix things that were never written clearly in the first place. For the actual submission, you can fill out their online form on the Plaisier website or call their office directly. Phone submissions work fine and sometimes move faster because you get immediate confirmation that everything was received. The online form gives you a reference number you can use to track the status. Either method produces the same result. If you need a copy of a published obituary for your records, Plaisier will provide one. They keep digital copies on file for at least five years. Some families ask for these when writing memorial articles or genealogy records later on. The request can be made by phone or email and is usually fulfilled within a couple of business days.
