As a result of the soaring costs of burial and quickly decreasing cemetery space, the alternatives in materials, styles and arrangement of cremation urns have increased, with cremation becoming a more accepted and conventional choice. Cremation has been practiced for thousands of years and urns have been in use just as long. Today's urns vary from the very conventional to the completely custom-made. We propose that if you do not intend to scatter the “ashes,” you will most likely want to keep them in an exceptional container. The process of placing cremated remains (cremains) in an urn or other vessel is called inurnment.

Increasingly, families are dividing the cremains amongst family members who each wish to keep a portion. In these cases, smaller urns can be purchased. For these purposes, some are even buying specialized urns or containers that can be worn as jewelry. Like caskets, urns can vary widely in price. The cost of the urn depends on a lot of different things including the urn's material, size and the amount of custom personalization. At its most basic, an urn can be purchased for as little as US$35.

Before choosing an urn, think about how and where it will be kept or displayed. Once you've decided that, you'll be able to better decide what sort of style or material you'll want for your urn. An urn can be made of many different materials. Your choice of material depends on the place in which you will display the urn.

Some types of urns that you may choose from are:

• Hand made urns
• Wood
• Glass
• Ceramic
• Marble or Granite
• Various Metals
• Gold
• Biodegradable
• Keepsake boxes
• A fountain

Why personalize the urn? You would do it for the same reason that we put a marker on a grave. The most important reason is because it's a benefit to the family grieving the loss of a loved one. Personalizing offers a visual record of a life lived. In addition to names, birth dates, and death dates, a favorite activity, sport, or hobby, fraternal organization, or military emblem can also be engraved on the cremation urn.

We believe that until the urn is personalized, it's just a container. After it's personalized, it serves as a permanent memorial—a lasting tribute to the life that was lived.

The ways in which you can personalize an urn are endless. What's important is that the way in which it's accomplished fits the mood and memory of the person whose remains the container holds.

Our cremation portal will assist you in finding exactly what you are looking for, whether it is an economical cremation provider, a specialty urn company, an exclusive scattering service, an on-line obituary site or just general information about cremation.