meierlde
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
I am a big, um, fan, as it were, of waiting to do the memorial service. With DH, I was so crazed from nine months of his illness that I knew there was no way I could pull together something fitting for him within a few days. It was held just a smidge more than two months after he died, and we created a wonderful event, full of laughter and love and friendship. Wouldn't have been anything close to that if I had tried to do it within a week after he died.
Historically funerals were a trigger for an unplanned family reunion. With the ability to schedule the memorial service when convient, you can make it also a family reunion, and likley get more folks there. When my cousin died in mid winter we put a family reunion together the next summer which included a memorial service (note that a cousins husband and a cousin are Presbyterian ministers, so they knew what to do). (Also did it when an uncle died in mid winter, again in summer.