A Guide to Writing Meaningful Funeral Tribute Speeches

Funeral tribute speeches, or eulogies, are some of the many ways you can honor the memory of a loved one after their passing.

However, writing a eulogy can be a very challenging task.

You’ll be summarizing a lifetime of beautiful memories and experiences in just a few minutes with your speech, and this can feel overwhelming, especially with the influx of emotions you’ll be dealing with after losing someone close to you.

If you’ve been tasked with writing and delivering a meaningful eulogy in memory of your loved one, you will need to make the speech sound like a sampling of the many life experiences of your loved one, their best qualities, and their achievements.

Here’s a comprehensive guide to funeral tribute speeches to help you on your way toward writing the perfect eulogy for your loved one.

1. Decide the length of the eulogy

Usually, eulogies tend to be about 3 to 5 minutes long, but you may have eulogies close to 10 minutes long. By choosing to give a longer speech, you can include the most important aspects of your loved one’s life and make the speech more insightful for the attendees.

If you’re not confident about giving a long speech, there’s no shame in keeping it short, especially in the midst of your grief. All that matters is that your words honor the memory of your loved one and you convey how you felt about them in life.

2. Add some lighthearted stories

A eulogy is more than just a summary of a loved one’s achievements and qualities—it’s also an opportunity to reflect on the good times you had with them. By including some happy or even funny stories about your loved one, you can offer some relief to those grieving your loved one.

In addition, by telling these stories, you may feel more at ease while delivering your speech. Before including any happy stories in your speech, have a talk with the rest of the family to see if they’re fine with you including these stories about your loved one. This may also be a good opportunity for you to learn some interesting facts about your loved one as well which you can include in the speech.

3. Keep the audience in mind

While writing your speech, you should keep your audience in mind. There may be some things in your speech that may not go over well with some attendees. For example, if you want to include jokes in your speech, make sure to keep them simple and ponder whether your loved one would mind you sharing the joke with their loved ones.

If you’re not sure if something in your speech is appropriate or not, speak and have a family member go through it first.

4. Make sure the language is simple

The eulogy must be easy for the attendees to understand, so consider keeping the language as simple as you can.

If your loved one was a veteran, you can include some military jargon in their honor, but it’s best to keep these to a minimum.

5. Write the way you speak

Funeral tribute speeches don’t always have to sound professional. If you want the eulogy to sound like it came straight from your heart, you should write the speech with the same tone that you use in your everyday life.

By writing the eulogy the way you normally speak, it’ll be easier for you to convey your emotions more naturally and in a way that the attendees can understand and relate to.

6. Have a friend or family member review your speech

After you’ve written the eulogy, you should ask someone like a close friend to give it a quick read-through. If you want to make sure you got all the facts about your loved one right, ask someone who was very close to them to do a fact check.

Don’t be afraid to ask people about how you can improve the content of the speech—this is all a part of the process of writing a meaningful speech in memory of someone who was dear to you.

You don’t have to prepare funeral tribute speeches alone

Preparing a eulogy for a loved one can feel like the hardest thing in the world. You’re going through a whirlwind of emotions and it can be difficult to think straight. But remember, you can always ask someone for help.

By turning to your loved ones or professional funeral services, you can write a memorable speech that will reflect the life of your loved one and allow you to show everyone how you truly felt about them.