General conduct
All visitors to the cemetery grounds are expected to conduct themselves in a respectful and considerate manner. This means engaging only in orderly, quiet, and courteous behaviors and appropriately using designated roadways and walkways (whether by motor vehicle or on foot). Any individual failing to observe this general rule may be refused entry or asked to leave.
Specifically prohibited conduct
In order to preserve and enhance the visitor experience, we do not allow certain behaviors on park grounds. If you observe anyone engaging in the following behaviors, please alert a team member:
• Smoking in prohibited areas
• Dumping of trash
• Having pets which are not under appropriate control
• Inappropriately supervised minors
• Collecting flowers or plants; hunting or fishing
• Swimming, skating, or sledding
• Using park grounds for advertising or solicitation
• Possessing firearms
• Possessing or using illegal substances
• Blocking access to graves or other park locations
Funerals
While special circumstances may sometimes exist, funeral arrangements generally should be made at least 24 hours in advance of the desired time for services (and at least 48 hours during inclement weather). If less than 24 hours is being provided (due to religious considerations, for example), please work with cemetery team members to see if exceptions are possible.
Please be mindful that funeral services may be restricted on certain days of the week, times of the day, during certain weather-related events, and on holidays. Upon request, cemetery team members may provide more detailed information to you.
Interments, entombments & inurnments
All rights granted in a cemetery contract (which are not property rights) belong to the owner. If these rights later are shared, transferred, sold, or otherwise granted or designated to another person, please notify cemetery staff so that they may update park records. Failure to do so may result in complications or delays when services are requested.
Once requested in writing and in person by an Owner or the Owner’s appropriate designee, only Cemetery staff or an approved and qualified Burial Service Contractor may open cemetery spaces for interments, entombments, or inurnments, lower bodies into gravesites, or fill graves. Please check with cemetery team members for a detailed list of information required to commence interments, entombments, or inurnments, as well as the required specifications for burial containers or containers used for cremated remains. Cemetery staff have full discretion to accept or deny proposed plans by third parties.
Please note that cremated remains must be received in an acceptable urn or other container on the scheduled date of service, together with proper permitting documents. The cemetery cannot store cremated remains in advance of the scheduled service and cannot transfer cremated remains from one container to another.
Interments may require temporary displacement of existing memorials and foundations, depending on site configuration and conditions.
Park maintenance, memorial beautification & flowers
We take great pride in our serene cemetery grounds, which are maintained by our Park Services team via plantings, landscaping, grading, and other improvements. This perpetual care is funded to the extent of the perpetual care trust, as explained in the cemetery contract. Team members may remove weeds, flowers, trees, shrubs, or other plants if they become unsightly, diseased, otherwise negatively impact the grounds, or if their removal is deemed necessary.
With regard to beautification of specific memorial sites, and in order to ensure that the grounds honor and beautify the resting place for all loved ones, we have created the following guidelines:
• Unless previously approved, no plantings, fencing, mulching, or placement of stone is allowed.
• Markers, monuments, benches, and all other memorial tributes should remain free of photographs, toys, ornaments, chairs, breakable items, and other objects that may interfere with groundskeeping.
• Vases are permitted if they are of approved material set either in a permanent foundation or in a separate granite or concrete base.
• All memorial adornments, urns, affixed cameos, and inscriptions must be approved by Park Services.
• Bronze markers are subject to separate rules and regulations (please ask a team member for information).
• Decorations should be checked periodically to ensure that they have not become faded, damaged, or deteriorated.
• Please check with Park Services for winter grave decoration guidance.
• Application of fertilizers or other chemicals on cemetery grounds is not permitted.
Improvements that do not adhere to these guidelines and cemetery instructions shall be removed or modified by Park Services at the plot owner’s expense.
Fresh or artificial flowers (in a naturally occurring color palette) can be a wonderful way to honor a loved one. If you add flowers to a marker, monument, or other tribute, please note that they must be placed in an approved vase. Glass and ceramic vases are not allowed as they may easily break. If the flowers are fresh-cut, you may choose to either remove flowers before they become uninviting or unsightly or allow the Park Services team to do so. For indoor mausoleums and niche buildings, please use only artificial arrangements of a natural hue.
The Park Services team shall perform park-wide cleanups twice per year, generally in spring and fall. Ask a team member or your Family Service Counselor for your cemetery’s specific cleanup dates. During the cleanup period, please refrain from adding new beautification items and remove any desired items in advance.
Memorial installation & maintenance
All markers, monuments, other tributes, and mausoleums/foundations shall be purchased from and installed by either the cemetery or an approved and qualified contractor, based on written instructions and sketches provided by the owner and approved by the cemetery. Should requested design not align with cemetery standards (due to size, thickness, design, or suitability), the cemetery’s Park Services team shall work with the owner and contractor to adjust the design. Cemetery team members must approve all markers, monuments, tributes, and mausoleums, including those supplied by outside vendors.
Markers, monuments, and other tributes remain the property of the purchaser. While the cemetery retains rights of ingress and egress throughout cemetery grounds, it does not ever own or insure tributes. Cemetery grounds may limit locations for monuments, bronze markers, or other types.
Should any markers, monuments, other tributes, or mausoleum become damaged or in disrepair for any reason, Park Services shall notify the plot owner, who should direct repairs as soon as practicable. If the plot owner chooses to not make needed repairs, Park Services may arrange for repairs at the owner’s expense.
Alterations & corrective actions
In order to preserve and enhance the serene and peaceful nature of the cemetery and also expand its offerings, the Park Services team may from time to time alter cemetery borders (enlarging or diminishing), adjust roadways or walkways, add or remove features, buildings, or landscaping, or add or eliminate sprinkler systems, drainage systems, communication lines, and the like. These and similar actions may require cemetery team members and vendors to travel (perhaps with equipment) over or near exiting plots, graves, crypts, or other markers, and nothing in the contract interferes with or diminishes the cemetery’s right of ingress and egress.
The Park Services team will take necessary precautions when engaging in any such actions and endeavor to keep disruption to a minimum when possible.
Further, while cemetery team members take great care in performance of their obligations, if errors of consequence are discovered – whether in interments, disinterments, burial containers, memorial inscriptions, granite placement, or sale of interment services or spaces – that either require your input to correct or are required to be communicated under applicable law, cemetery team members will contact you. Any corrective actions shall be within the cemetery’s sole discretion. If you discover any such errors, please alert a team member right away.