What to Do With Ashes After Cremation
After a cremation, families receive the ashes (usually in a sealed bag inside a simple temporary container) and face a question nobody prepares you for: what now? There is no deadline and no wrong answer. These are the seven paths families choose most, with the practical details for each.
1. Keep them close at home
The most common choice. A cremation urn on a mantel, shelf, or bedside table keeps your loved one part of daily life. Choose an urn finished for display and personalize it with engraving: a name, dates, artwork, or a line that sounds like them. Transferring the ashes is simple: the sealed bag moves from the temporary container into the urn through its lid or bottom panel, with nothing exposed. Any funeral home will gladly do it for you.
2. Bury the urn
Burial gives family a permanent place to visit. Most cemeteries accept urn burials in a standard plot (often several urns per plot) but require an urn vault, a small outer container that keeps the ground level. Ask your cemetery about vault requirements and marker options before the service.
3. Place it in a columbarium niche
A columbarium is a wall of small alcoves (niches) in a cemetery, church, or memorial garden. Our standard urn sizes fit typical niches; engraved metal urns are a popular choice here because the finish holds up beautifully behind glass-front niches. Confirm your columbarium's interior dimensions before ordering.
4. Scatter the ashes
Scattering at a meaningful place (a garden, trail, lake, or coastline) is a moving farewell. Rules vary: private land needs the owner's permission, public lands often allow scattering discreetly away from trails and water sources, and scattering at sea is federally regulated (3 nautical miles out). Read our scattering ashes guide for the full etiquette and law rundown before you go.
5. Share among family
Ashes can be divided, and many families do. Keepsake urns (about 3" tall, holding a few spoonfuls) let every family member keep a small remembrance; a sharing urn (about 6" tall, holding cups rather than spoonfuls) suits households splitting the remains more evenly. Both can be engraved individually, so each memorial is personal to its keeper.
6. Combine several options
These choices aren't either/or. A common arrangement: scatter most of the ashes at a beloved place, keep a sharing urn at home, and give each child a keepsake. Because remains arrive in a sealed bag, dividing them respectfully is straightforward: a funeral home can portion them into your urns in minutes.
7. Travel or ship to a resting place
Taking ashes to a family plot or homeland? TSA allows cremated remains in carry-on luggage in scannable containers. See our guide to flying with ashes. If shipping, USPS Priority Mail Express is the only lawful carrier for cremated remains in the US, using their free Cremated Remains kit.
Take your time
Ashes keep indefinitely: sealed, inert, and stable. There is no timetable. Many families keep the temporary container for months before choosing; others decide at the service. Whenever you're ready, our urn buying guide walks through every decision, and every urn here includes a free engraving preview so you can design the memorial before spending anything.
Nat Juchems is a Co-Founder at Green Meadow Memorials and helps those grieving the loss of a loved one find the right memorial to cherish. Over the past seven years, Nat has worked in the online memorial industry and has helped thousands of families find and purchase the right cremation urn for their needs and budgets.
Outside of work, you can find Nat with his family enjoying being active outdoors, playing games indoors or training for Triathlons. Read more details on Nat's years of experience on LinkedIn.