Who Gives the Eulogy at a Funeral? How Families Decide

There is no rule about who gives the eulogy at a funeral: it is usually a spouse, an adult child, a sibling or a close friend, chosen by the family. Most services have one or two speakers. If no one in the family can speak, the officiant can read a eulogy the family wrote.

You are probably reading this for one of two reasons. Either you are helping arrange a funeral this week and someone has to speak, and nobody has said yes yet. Or you were asked, you said yes before you thought about it, and now you are wondering whether you are allowed to change your mind.

Both are normal. Funeral directors have this conversation every day of the week.

Below is who usually does it, how families decide, the exact words to use when you ask someone, the exact words to use when you say no, and two complete eulogies: one given by a son, one read out by a celebrant on a family's behalf.

Who usually gives the eulogy at a funeral

The eulogy is usually given by the person closest to the one who died who can still get five minutes of words out loud. In practice, in rough order of how often it happens:

• An adult child. The most common choice when a parent dies, especially the eldest or the one who lived nearest at the end.
• A sibling. Common when the person died in middle age, or when the children are too young or too raw.
• A close friend. Often the right call when the family is too close to it, and almost always the right call for someone who had no partner or children.
• A spouse or partner. It happens, and it is often the hardest one. Many choose to write it and have someone else read it.
• A grandchild. Very common at the funeral of someone who lived a long life, sometimes two or three grandchildren sharing a few minutes each.
• The officiant, minister or celebrant. They either read what the family wrote or build the tribute from a conversation with the family.
• A colleague. Usual at the funeral of someone who died while still working, often as a second, shorter speech after the family one.

Nobody has the right to the lectern because of their place in the family. A eulogy is the speech that says who the person was, and it belongs to whoever knew them in the way the room needs to hear about and can get the words out on the day. A nephew who spent every summer with them can do it better than a son who saw them twice a year, and no one in the room will object.

How families decide who speaks

Three questions settle it, usually in one conversation around a kitchen table.

1. Who knew them in the way this room needs to hear about? Not who loved them most. Who has the stories. If the service is full of people from the choir she ran for thirty years, someone who was in that choir will land better than a relative who never heard her sing.

2. Who can physically do it on Saturday? This is the question families skip, and it is the one that causes trouble. Writing a eulogy and reading it out loud in front of two hundred people four days after a death are two different jobs. Being able to do the first does not mean being able to do the second.

3. Who will the rest of the family accept hearing it from? Funerals are not the place to settle who was closest. If one choice will cause a row, pick the other one, or have two speakers.

Often the answers point at different people. That is exactly why two speakers is so common: one person writes and reads the main eulogy, and someone steadier reads a short second tribute, or reads a poem. If you are worried about the second question, the page on how to deliver a eulogy without crying is about exactly that, and it is more practical than it sounds.

What to say when you ask someone to give the eulogy

Ask directly, name the length, and give them a way out. The reason people freeze when they are asked is that they think they are being handed an unlimited job with no exit. Take both of those away and most people say yes.

Asking an adult child, from a surviving parent:

I have been thinking about Saturday. Someone from the family should speak about your dad, and I think it should be you. You knew him in a way the rest of us did not. It does not have to be long, five minutes is plenty. And if you get partway through and cannot finish, I will come up and read the rest. Will you think about it tonight and tell me tomorrow?

Asking a close friend, when no one in the family can do it:

None of us can get through it. You knew her for thirty years and you were the one she called on Sundays. Would you speak at the service on Thursday? Four or five minutes, no more. We will write down the things we want said and send them to you tonight, so you are not starting from nothing. Nobody is expecting a performance. We just want her to sound like herself.

Asking the funeral director or celebrant to read what you wrote:

We want a eulogy, but none of us can read it out loud. Can you read it for us? We will have it to you by Wednesday evening, about four minutes long. Please say at the start that her daughter wrote it, so people know whose words they are.

Any of these can be sent as a text message. In the week after a death, a text is often kinder than a phone call, because it lets the other person sit with it for an hour before they answer.

How to say no when you have been asked

You are allowed to say no. Nobody at that funeral will remember who spoke. Everybody will remember someone standing up there unable to breathe. Saying no early, and offering something else, costs nothing and spares everyone.

To a parent or sibling, when you want to but cannot:

I want to, and I cannot. If I stand up there I will not get a sentence out, and I do not want that to be what Saturday is about. Let me write it instead, every word of it, and ask Michael to read it. He will do it properly. I will be sitting right behind him.

To whoever is organising, when you cannot do it at all:

I cannot speak at the service. I am sorry. I will help with anything that does not involve the lectern: collecting the photos, printing the order of service, ringing people. Please ask Lisa. She is steadier than me this week.

There is also a middle option that most people do not know is available. You can say yes and ask for a smaller version of the job:

Yes, I will do it. Two things though. I want to keep it short, about three minutes. And I want Rachel in the front row with a copy, in case I have to hand it over. If that works, I will have a draft by Thursday.

Three minutes is a real eulogy. It is around 400 words. If that is the version you can manage, these short eulogy examples all run under three minutes and are written to be read as they are.

A complete eulogy given by a son, for his father

This is what the main family eulogy usually sounds like. It is about 300 words, which is two and a half minutes at the lectern. Nothing in it is clever. That is the point.

My name is Daniel. Tom was my father.

Dad fixed things. That is the first thing to say about him. Washing machines, bikes, the gate at the end of the drive that never closed properly for twenty years and then suddenly did. If you brought him something broken he would not say much. He would turn it over in his hands, put it on the kitchen table, and three days later it would be back on your doorstep working, with no note.

He was a quiet man. People sometimes read that as cold, and it was not. He just did not think much of talking when he could be doing instead.

He taught me to drive in the car park behind the leisure centre. Eleven Sunday mornings. He said about four sentences the whole time, and one of them was, you are going to be fine, just slower.

When Mum was ill in 2019 he learned to cook six meals and he made those six meals on a rotation for fourteen months. None of us ever heard him complain about it once.

The last time I saw him properly he was in the chair by the window with the radio on. He asked about my kids by name, in order, oldest to youngest, the way he always did.

I do not have anything tidy to finish with. He would not have wanted a speech anyway, he would have wanted the gate looked at.

Thank you all for coming. He would have been quietly pleased, and he would have said so to exactly one of us, in the car park, afterwards.

A complete eulogy read out by a celebrant on the family's behalf

When no one in the family can read, the family still writes it. The celebrant or funeral director just says the words. Notice how the opening does the work of explaining whose words these are, so nobody in the room is confused.

Margaret's daughter Jen wrote what follows, and asked me to read it for her.

Mum was born in Dundee in 1941 and she never fully left it, no matter how long she lived down here. She was the second of five, and the one the other four phoned.

She was a nurse for thirty-one years, most of them on nights. She said she preferred nights because people tell you the truth at three in the morning. She came home at seven, slept until two, and was standing at the school gate at half past three with her coat on over her uniform.

She was funny in a way I have never been able to describe to anyone who did not meet her. Dry. Very fast. Usually at her own expense, and usually just as you were taking a drink.

Her house was the one everybody ended up in. There was always a cake, always someone at the table who was having a bad week, and always too many cups out.

She was ill for the last two years and she was impossible about it, in the way nurses are. She did not want this part talked about, so I will not.

What she would want said is that she had a good life, that she liked her job, and that she thought her three grandchildren were the funniest people she had ever met.

I am sorry I could not stand up and say this myself, Mum. You would have told me not to be daft, and then you would have made the tea.

How many people usually give a eulogy at a funeral?

Most funerals have one or two eulogies, and the total speaking time is usually 10 to 12 minutes. One main eulogy of 4 to 6 minutes from the family, and sometimes a second, shorter tribute of 2 to 3 minutes from a friend or colleague, is the standard shape.

Three speakers works if each one is kept to three minutes and they have agreed in advance who covers what. Four or more is where services start to drift, because the speeches overlap, the room gets tired, and the last speaker is talking to people who have stopped listening. If five people all want to say something, the usual fix is to have one person read short contributions from all five, or to move the open sharing to the reception afterwards.

Who speaks first, and in what order

The officiant opens the service, then the family eulogy comes first, then friends and colleagues. Readings and poems go between the speeches rather than all at the end, because they give the room somewhere to put its breath.

Two practical notes on order. Put the person most likely to break down earlier rather than later, so they are not sitting through two other speeches with the dread building. And if one speaker is going to be funny, put them before the most serious one, not after, so the service does not finish on a laugh the family did not want.

Tell every speaker their time limit out loud, in minutes, and ask them to read it aloud once at home with a clock running. People routinely write eight minutes and believe it is three.

Who gives the eulogy at a Catholic funeral, and other faith rules

This is the one that catches families out, so ask your officiant in the first conversation, not the day before.

At a Catholic funeral Mass, many parishes do not allow a eulogy during the Mass itself. The priest gives a homily instead, which is a reflection on scripture rather than a speech about the person. Some parishes allow a short "word of remembrance" by a family member, and many will suggest the vigil or rosary the night before, the graveside, or the reception as the place for the full eulogy. Practice varies parish to parish, so the answer is whatever your priest says.

At a Jewish funeral the hesped is usually given by the rabbi, often alongside one or more family members, and customs differ between Orthodox, Conservative and Reform communities. At a Muslim funeral there is normally no eulogy at the janazah prayer itself, and remembrance happens separately afterwards. Many Baptist and evangelical services have the pastor deliver the eulogy proper, with family tributes around it. Humanist and celebrant-led services are the most open: the celebrant hosts and the family speak as much as they want.

If your service does not have room for a eulogy, a reading often does the same work in less time. There is a page of eulogy poems and readings with the full texts, grouped by tone.

What to do when nobody wants to speak

Nobody speaking is a real outcome and it is not a failure. In order of how often it works:

1. Write it, and have someone else read it. The family's words, a steadier voice. This is the most common solution and the second example above is exactly that.
2. Ask the celebrant or funeral director to build the tribute. They will sit with you for half an hour, ask questions, and write it themselves. This is a standard part of what they do and it is usually included.
3. Two people, short. Two minutes each is much easier than five minutes alone, and each person only needs two stories.
4. A reading instead. A poem or a passage, read by anyone, with one sentence of introduction about why it was chosen.
5. Nothing at the service, something at the reception. People speak far more easily standing in a room holding a cup of tea than at a lectern in front of rows.

If you are the one who ended up with it and you have four days and a blank page, the hardest part is the first draft, not the delivery. You can read a free preview of a draft built from a few questions about them and rewrite it in your own words from there, which is easier than starting from nothing. And if you barely knew the person you have been asked to speak about, there is a page on how to write a eulogy for someone you did not know well, which is a more common situation than people admit.

Questions families ask

Who traditionally gives a eulogy?

Traditionally a close family member: a spouse, an adult child, or a sibling. In older practice, and still in many churches, the minister or priest spoke about the person and the family did not speak at all. The modern expectation that a son or daughter stands up is only a few generations old, and there is no tradition that obliges anyone to do it.

Is there only one eulogy at a funeral?

No. One is common, two is very common, three is manageable. There is no rule, only time: most services allocate 10 to 12 minutes in total for speeches. If more people want to speak than the service can hold, the usual answer is one main eulogy plus short tributes, or an open microphone at the reception.

What should you not say in a eulogy?

Leave out medical detail, the circumstances of the death unless the family has agreed to mention it, old family arguments, anything about money or the will, inside jokes that only three people will understand, and anything the person asked you never to repeat. Also leave out anything you cannot say out loud without stopping. Test it by reading it aloud before the day.

What are the three parts of a eulogy?

Who you are and what they were to you, two or three stories that show what they were like, and what they leave behind in the people in the room. Most good eulogies are that shape. At three to five minutes, that is roughly 60 words of introduction, 400 words of stories, and 100 words to close.

Can you refuse to give a eulogy if you are asked?

Yes, and you should if you know you cannot get through it. Say so early, in one sentence, and offer the alternative: write it and have someone else read it, or help with something other than speaking. Nobody at the funeral will remember who spoke, and nobody will hold it against you.

If you are still deciding, the question is not who ought to do it. It is who can stand up on the day and sound like someone who knew them.

That person is usually obvious to everyone except themselves.