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| - I had previously rated Avendidas Funeral Chapel with a 5 as I have been involved in using them with three previous funerals and they exceeded all expectations. They are professional, caring, affordable, and superb when it comes to cremation funerals. Today was my second experience with a funeral that wasn't cremation. This Avendidas experience was a disaster. I had been in touch with Avendidas (Brandon & Octavio) for the past 2 weeks as my MIL was not expected to live and we needed to have a Saturday funeral. They temporarily booked April 1st but she actually passed on March 31, 2017 so we had to reschedule for today, April 8, 2017. I had spoken to Brandon & Octavio regarding the funeral and plans to have the funeral at our church and not at the funeral chapel. The last funeral which was not a cremation was also held at the church. On Tuesday, my husband and I went in to sign the final consents and met with a new person. I misplaced her card but I think her name was Lorina. Although she denies that we told her we would not be using the funeral home chapel, both my husband and I agree that this discussion came up. After we had paid for the last minute changes (Saturday funeral and procession escort), Octavio came in and spoke with my husband and I. He instructed us to have the pallbearers at the church at 9:40am the day of the funeral. He even went on to say that if we did not have the pallbearers, he would bring his brother, Joseph, so they could help with the casket. The pallbearers were all there at 9:30am but I received no call from the funeral home and no appearance of their staff with the body. At 9:55, I called Avendidas and spoke to Brandon wondering where the body was since visitation started in 5 minutes. He informed me that it was his understanding that the funeral was taking place at their funeral chapel in Avondale. Lorina had completely messed up this funeral arrangement. She had the nerve to call and tell me it was more $ to have it at the church. (The last funeral we had at the church wasn't any extra $) I told her I didn't care about the $ right now but we have people arriving for visitation and no body. I told her that we had been super happy with their funeral home but this was a disaster. She promised me the casket was on its way. It is a 30 minute drive from the funeral home to the church but it took them an hour and 10 minutes to arrive. We had purchased with our plan, the book for guests to sign. The book arrived after the funeral started and was laid on the table at the entrance to the church. Joseph came by himself. There were about 250-300 people in attendance and we had to finish the memorial service in 1 1/2 hours to arrive at the cemetery on schedule. I had to leave the front row of the church to go back and speak to Joseph about the closing plans. I told him that after the main speaker, a song would be sung, "Wrap me in your Arms.." When he heard this song, he needed to come up and open the casket. I had to turn around and get his attention but he came up, opened the casket, had my grandson, in full marine military clothes, help him with the flowers. I had also instructed him to start having the people form a line to walk by the casket as this would be their only viewing of the deceased. He didn't, so my husband got his attention and told him he could go to the pulpit and make an announcement. He didn't understand what we wanted so my husband got up and went to the microphone and made the announcement to form a line to walk by the casket and exit. I don't think this was all Joseph's fault. Lorina took charge of this funeral and she should have made sure more than one person was in attendance and all service plans were clear from the beginning. I learned a very important lesson. I will be in contact with Avendidas with these issues. I have 2 more casket funerals in the future. At our meeting, I had asked Lorina if I needed to come in and fix my MIL's hair. I showed her several pictures. She said, "No.," she could do it. No, she couldn't do it. She didn't take any notes and didn't fix it any where near her usual hairstyle. Another issue is that we discussed make up. My MIL had an obvious make up that wasn't near her color and her skin looked pasted over. Her mouth was evidentially wired shut. It would have been better to leave the casket closed and place a picture of her nearby. Octavio had called to get embalming permission the day after her death so I don't understand all the skin processes with death and don't know if they just don't know how to embalm and preserve a body to look natural or if all this headache was due to Lorina.
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