Do you need someone to create a headstone for you? Here are some tips to follow if you need to hire a monumental mason for the job. 

1. Seek out a recommendation from the funeral home that handled the deceased's funeral

It's sensible to turn to the funeral home staff who handled the funeral of the person for whom you are having this headstone made. The funeral home will be familiar with all of the monumental masons who work in the local area. So, if you give them some information regarding the headstone style you want and your ideal budget, they should be able to direct you to someone suitable for your project.   

Contacting the funeral home first will mean you won't have to waste time calling up masons who you later discover are booked up for the next few months or book consultations with services that don't align with your budget. Even if you find a mason who can begin designing the headstone immediately after your first consultation, it may still take a few weeks or months to make. As such, it's sensible to get a recommendation from a funeral home so you can start the process right away. 

2. Understand the impact the design could have on the time it takes the mason to make the headstone

As mentioned, headstones can take weeks or months for a mason to make. It's important to consider the complexity of the design you want the mason to use and to then be realistic about when they will be able to finish it if the design is complicated.

For example, if you want a bespoke headstone with imagery that is incredibly unusual and ornate (i.e. imagery that the mason is unlikely to have a template for and would need to design from scratch), or if you want it made from Italian marble that they need to order specifically for this project, then you may need to wait a month or two longer than you would if you had requested a simpler design and a common, easy-to-access headstone material.

If you would like the headstone to be produced at a faster rate, then it might be necessary to make some small compromises that will enable the mason to make it faster. You might, for example, want to stick with the same ornate design but downsize your original headstone dimensions. Or, you might want to order readily available marble, rather than Italian marble that the mason would have to order from abroad.