Sunday, May. 31, 2009

Cemetery marriage? Some love the idea

BROOKFIELD, Wis. -- At the top of the staircase, Sheryl Jesswein glanced in a large mirror to make sure her wedding dress and veil were in place.

Before descending the steps to the chapel, she had one last thing to do.

She placed her hand on a mausoleum niche, touching the name of her late father.

"It was like he was giving me away," Jesswein said.

Cemetery weddings are rare, eyebrow-raising affairs, evoking goth images of black bridal dresses and gloomy grave-site gatherings.

But Sheryl and Kurt Jesswein, who got married in 1990, are among a small number of couples who have held very traditional weddings in past decades at Wisconsin Memorial Park.

A cemetery employee recently married there, and in 2007, a bride tied the knot near her buried grandmother. She wore her grandmother's wedding dress.

Now cemetery officials want to rent their five chapels and reception hall with kitchen for not only wedding ceremonies but also wedding receptions, baptisms, bar mitzvahs, private parties, business events and training seminars.

They also want to be able to serve alcohol at the reception hall upon request.

The rentals mirror a growing national trend of funeral homes and cemeteries converting spaces into multipurpose community facilities, industry officials say.

"It's something that more and more funeral homes are looking at, whether they're remodeling existing facilities or building new additions," said Jessica Koth, spokeswoman for the National Funeral Directors Association, also in Brookfield.

"Funerals are becoming much more a celebration of life than a dark event, so why not have your wedding at a funeral home?" said Denise Westerfield, spokeswoman for Stewart Enterprises Inc., which operates Wisconsin Memorial Park and about 360 funeral homes and cemeteries across the nation.

Rentals produce new revenue that can offset money lost as families are turning to cheaper, greener funerals, caskets and cremations, Koth said. It also helps draw people into cemeteries in a more relaxed environment, which might spur them to make plans for their own or others' final resting places.

"Death is such a taboo subject in our society," said Jeff Musgrove, co-owner of West Lawn Memorial Funeral Home in Eugene, Ore.

"This is a nondramatic way to get people into a funeral home and say, 'Wow, this is actually a nice place.' "

But weddings? Count Musgrove among the skeptics. "We haven't had any weddings in our chapels," he said. "I think it's still unusual."

The Lippert-Olson Funeral Home in Sheboygan also hasn't held weddings. But it has hosted events from a local sailing club's board meetings to charity dinners, holiday parties and even a murder-mystery dinner.

Weddings and other events have been held at other Stewart Enterprises properties, Westerfield said.

Metrocrest Funeral Home in Carrollton, Texas, donated the use of its facility for a 35-year high school class reunion, she said. The alumni played up the spooky setting, raffling off an urn using toe tags as raffle tickets. Their party favors were casket-shaped whistles. The invitation read, "We are dying to see you." Nearly 200 people attended, including 71 actual alumni, who invited curious friends.

"I personally would not have allowed that," said Kelly Coleman-Kohorn, director of operations at Wisconsin Memorial Park.

"Would I endorse, say, a Halloween party with costumes? Probably not," she said. "You want to be very tasteful (and) very, very sensitive."

Wisconsin Memorial Park held more than 20 weddings before 1979, according to cemetery files. Since then, there have been maybe eight to 10, "possibly more," said Coleman-Kohorn, who was hired about five years ago.