A memorial is a project you hire a builder to carry. Design-build means the same shop stays with you from the first conversation through the day the stone is set. This page is that path, in the order the work happens. On a published design, you'll see the price on the page. A fully custom design is priced on the consult. Ask for timing when you order. It belongs to your cemetery and your design.
Consult
You book a design consult and meet your project manager. That person is your design consultant, and the one you call from this first talk through the final walk-through.
Bring what you already know. Who the memorial is for. Whether it is one person or two. The cemetery name, if you have it. Any rules the cemetery has already given you. You can come without a finished design. The call is free. For what that first meeting covers, read what a memorial design consultation includes.
Cemetery site check
Before anyone draws a stone, your project manager checks the cemetery’s rules and the site. Families also call this a site survey. The check asks what that lot will allow: an upright, a flat marker, a slant, a bench, or another form, and the size the section permits.
The cemetery sets those rules. A section name, or a sheet they handed you, is enough to start. The questions worth asking are on what to ask the cemetery. A drawing of a stone the cemetery will refuse waits on this check.
CAD proof
A lead designer prepares the drawings. You will hear this called a CAD proof, or CAD drawings. It shows the form, the lettering, and the layout you asked for. You read the name, the dates, and the line.
The lead designer produces that proof. Your project manager is still the person you talk to. On a published design you can also enter the name, the dates, and the epitaph yourself, and choose a granite color that design offers. You'll see that price on the page. A vase or a photo is added only when you choose one that already has a price. A fully custom design has no price on the page. The design consult is where we price it.
Approval
Nothing is cut until you approve it. That approval is the submittal. You are saying the drawing is the memorial you want built.
When you approve the CAD proof, that drawing becomes the shop drawing. The shop drawing is the final approved drawing that goes to fabrication. Read the name again before you approve. The proof checks the layout you asked for. How that approval works is in how a monument proof is read and approved.
Stone selection
You choose the granite. The colors offered for that design are the colors you can pick. A darker polished granite gives engraved letters more contrast. A gray granite is quieter. A screen shifts color, so look at the granite colors with that in mind.
On a published design, you'll see the price on the page. A fully custom design is priced on the consult. The headstone cost guide shows the lows and highs already published. It is a planning estimate, not a quote.
Fabrication
After your approval, the shop builds the stone from the shop drawing. Fabrication is the craft. The granite is cut. The face is polished or finished as the drawing shows. The lettering and artwork are engraved.
The shop builds what you approved, and it starts that work after the submittal. Ask for timing when you order.
Setting
When the stone is finished, it is set. We install nearby or ship free. Where installation is included, and where the monument ships for someone else to set, is on the shipping and installation page. A cemetery can still require its own foundation crew. That rule belongs to the cemetery.
The setting itself, including the last look after the stone is in place, is in how the monument is set and walked through.
Final walk-through
After the stone is set, you and your project manager do a final walk-through. The punch list is the short list of what you still want looked at: the name, the dates, the placement. Final approval is yours at the end of the project, when the memorial is in place.
That is the path. Consult, site check, CAD proof, approval, stone, fabrication, setting, walk-through. Your project manager stays with you. When you are ready, book a design consult.