The proof arrived as a single PDF attachment, eleven days after the deposit cleared, and it looked finished enough that the first instinct was to reply with one word and be done. The layout showed a family surname across the top, two given names below it, one set of dates complete and one set with the birth year cut and the death year left open. It also showed a small cross that nobody in the family remembered asking for. That cross was in the dealer's standard template. Catching it took a second read, and the second read is the whole job.
1. Check every date against a document, not a memory
Birth years are the ones that go wrong, because everybody is certain and nobody looks. Pull the death certificate for the death date and, where you can, a birth certificate, a Social Security record, or a passport for the birth date, and compare digit by digit rather than reading for sense. Family Bibles and obituaries are secondary sources and they carry forward each other's errors. If the two documents disagree, decide which one the stone will follow before you approve anything, because the dealer has no way to arbitrate that and will simply cut what the proof says.
2. Read the names the way a stranger would
A proof is set in a display face at a reduced size, so a doubled letter, a transposed pair, or a middle name shortened to an initial can pass unnoticed by someone who already knows what it is supposed to say. Read the name backwards, letter by letter, which breaks the habit of seeing the word you expect. Decide deliberately between a full middle name and an initial, between a maiden name in parentheses and one carried as a middle name, and between MARY and Mary if the shop mixes cases. Then check that the order matches the plot layout, since the person on the left of the stone should be in the grave on the left.
3. Account for the second burial before the first inscription is cut
On a companion marker, half the face is being reserved for someone still living, and the reservation has to be drawn, not assumed. Ask the dealer to show the future panel on the proof at the same scale, with a placeholder name of realistic length, so you can see whether a nine-letter given name will actually fit the space left after centering. Watch the vertical margins too, because lettering set too low runs into the wash line where the stone meets the base, and a later addition then has nowhere to go. Ten minutes here prevents a compromise that lasts a century.
4. Treat symbols and fonts as separate approvals
Emblems, etchings, military insignia, and religious symbols are frequently dropped in from a shop library, and they carry their own errors: a rank abbreviated wrongly, a service branch seal in the wrong version, a rose that is really a generic flourish. Ask what each element is, in words, and confirm it is what the family wants rather than what the template supplied. Ask also about the depth and stroke width of the smallest lettering, because fine sandblasted script in a shallow cut reads beautifully on paper and weathers to a smudge on a north-facing stone within a few decades.
5. Know what your signature ends, and what a change costs after it
Approval of the proof is the point where responsibility transfers. Before it, an error is the shop's problem and gets corrected at no charge; after it, a cut error that came from the approved proof is billed to you, often at close to the price of a replacement stone, since granite cannot be filled convincingly and lettering cannot be moved. Decide in advance who signs, ideally the person who holds the deed to the plot or acts as the estate's representative, and have one other family member read the proof independently first. The Federal Trade Commission oversees disclosure practices in funeral goods and services, and a shop working to that standard will put the approval terms in writing without being asked.
6. Understand how the later inscription gets added
When the second death comes, the added date is usually cut in place at the cemetery by a letterer working with portable stencils and a small sandblasting unit, under a tent if the weather demands it. That work is priced separately, typically as a flat charge per line or per date, plus a cemetery permit fee where one applies. Ask now, in writing, whether the shop guarantees a font and depth match on the later cut, and whether the stone will need to be removed to the shop instead, which adds setting costs. Keeping the original order paperwork makes the match straightforward.
Ask for a revised proof after any correction, however small, and read the new one from the top rather than checking only the fix. Shops reset files, and a corrected date can arrive alongside a font that quietly changed.