You are being asked to sum up a person in about twelve words, permanently, in metal or stone, while grieving. It is one of the strangest tasks bereavement hands you, and almost nobody feels equal to it.
Two things make it easier. The first is knowing the conventional structure, because a structure removes most of the decisions. The second is knowing that shorter is almost always better, and that the pressure you feel to say everything is the main thing making this hard.
The practical limits first
Before wording, know your space. It saves writing something beautiful that will not fit.
A small plaque of around 50mm carries a name and two years, and little else. Around 80mm to 100mm allows a name, full dates and a short line. A bench plaque, typically 150mm by 50mm or larger, comfortably takes three or four lines. A full headstone takes considerably more, but even there, restraint reads better than density.
Engraving is usually priced per character or per line, so length has a cost as well as an aesthetic consequence. Our name and dates engraving is a flat £14.99.
A rule that has never once failed: write it, then cut a third of it, and it will be better.
The standard structure
Nearly every memorial inscription is four parts, and you can leave out any of them.
- An opening. "In loving memory of"
- The name. How they were actually called, not necessarily what is on their birth certificate
- The dates. Years, or full dates
- A closing line. A relationship, a phrase, a quotation, or nothing at all
Openings
- In loving memory of
- In memory of
- Treasured memories of
- Remembering
- In celebration of the life of
- Forever in our hearts
- Beloved
- For
"For" is underused and quietly the best of them on a small plaque. "For Margaret, 1938 to 2024" says everything the longer versions say, and it does not sound like a form.
The name
Use the name people used. A woman christened Elizabeth who was Betty to everyone who loved her should probably be Betty, or Elizabeth "Betty" if the family wants both. Formality on a memorial can make a person sound like a stranger, which is precisely the opposite of the point.
Where a nickname genuinely was the name, some families put it in quotation marks, and some put it on its own line underneath. Both look fine.
Closing lines by relationship
A parent
- A wonderful mother, grandmother and great-grandmother
- Dad. Always there. Always will be.
- Loved beyond measure
- Our beginning
- She made everyone welcome
- He built most of what we have
- Thank you for everything
A partner
- Married 54 years. Not long enough.
- My love, my friend, my luck
- Until I see you again
- Half of everything I know
- He waited for her. She came.
- Together again
A grandparent
- Nan, who kept the biscuits in the good tin
- Grandad. Chief mender of things.
- The best of us
- Twelve grandchildren, all of them favourites
A child
- Small and completely ours
- Loved every single day
- Our brave girl
- Here for a short time. Loved for all of it.
- We carry you
A friend
- Who made everything more fun
- A good friend to many
- Reserved seat
- Still the funniest person we knew
Short epitaphs that work on their own
These need no opening and no relationship. On a small plaque they are often the strongest option available.
- Much loved
- Well lived
- At rest
- Home
- Loved, and knew it
- He was kind to everyone
- She never once made a fuss
- A good life, well used
- Gone ahead
- Sadly missed, gladly remembered
- Nothing wasted
- Rest now
Quotations
Use these freely. They are long out of copyright.
- "Good night, sweet prince, and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest." Shakespeare
- "Sunset and evening star, and one clear call for me." Tennyson
- "Home is the sailor, home from sea, and the hunter home from the hill." Robert Louis Stevenson
- "Better by far you should forget and smile than that you should remember and be sad." Christina Rossetti
- "Death is nothing at all. I have only slipped away into the next room." Henry Scott Holland
- "To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die." Thomas Campbell
- "After life's fitful fever he sleeps well." Shakespeare
Religious inscriptions remain the most common on UK memorials: "Rest in peace", "Requiescat in pace", "At peace with the Lord", "The Lord is my shepherd", "Until we meet again", "Safe in God's hands".
A copyright warning that catches people out. Song lyrics and modern poems are protected, and a great many masons will decline to engrave them or will ask you to confirm you have permission. Popular funeral poems by twentieth-century writers are frequently still in copyright. If your heart is set on a modern line, ask the mason before you finalise the design rather than after.
Dates
Three conventions, all correct:
- Years only: 1941 to 2025. Clean, and best on small plaques.
- Full dates: 3rd March 1941 to 12th January 2025.
- Narrative: Born 3rd March 1941, died 12th January 2025.
Some families use a dash between the years rather than the word "to", which is fine, though on very small plaques a dash can read as a smudge from a distance.
Mistakes that cannot be undone
Proofread it, then have someone outside the family proofread it. Grief makes you read what you meant rather than what is written. Engraving errors are permanent and expensive, and a misspelled name on a memorial is a wound that reopens every visit.
Check the dates against the death certificate. Not against memory. Families routinely misremember by a day, and occasionally by a year.
Check the regulations before the wording. Some churchyards require inscriptions to be approved in advance and restrict informal language. Writing something perfect and then being refused is avoidable. See the churchyard regulations guide.
Think about who else will go there. If a spouse may later share the memorial, leave room. Masons will plan for this if you ask, and it costs nothing at the design stage and a great deal later.
Do not try to say everything. This is the real one. The impulse is to fit a whole person onto a piece of metal, and it cannot be done, and attempting it produces inscriptions that are crowded and oddly impersonal. Choose one true thing.
If one line is not enough
It usually is not, and that is the honest problem with the whole tradition. A person is not twelve words.
This is exactly what a memorial plaque with a memory page is for. The engraved line stays short and dignified, in the way memorials are meant to be, and everything that would not fit lives behind the code: the photographs, the stories, the recording of their voice, the things forty other people remember that you never knew.
The stone says "much loved". The page says why.