A memorial is a small building project. It has a site, a drawing, an approval, a shop, and a crew. Gifford Monument Works has carried that work from Ada, Oklahoma since 1936, and North Texas families start the same project from our office in Wylie. We are the design-build partner. The people who sit with you at the beginning are on the same team as the people who cut the stone and the people who set it.

We don't sell headstones. We design and build memorials.

A shape in the gallery is a place to start, including designs we already know how to build. It is not a product you hand to someone else. From the first conversation until the stone is standing, one point of contact stays with your family. We do not give that role a title the shop has never used. Someone here owns the project with you from consult to setting. You are not sent to find a separate designer, fabricator, and installer, except where a cemetery's rules require its own setter. We check that before a date is promised.

The consultation

The project starts with a conversation, in the Ada showroom, at the Wylie office, or by phone, email, or a video call. Some families want to stand next to granite. Others never make the drive. Ardmore, Oklahoma City, Sherman, Plano, and the cemeteries between them follow the same sequence.

Bring a name and the dates you know, a photograph, a sketch, or a line only your family would carve. Bring the cemetery's rule sheet if you have one. If you already have a CAD drawing, a graphic, or a digital mockup, bring that too. We work from those files when a family has them. You do not need a finished design. You do need to leave knowing who is carrying the project.

The constraints come out here. Which cemetery, and which section if you know it. Flat, slant, or upright. One name or two. A portrait or none. What must be on the stone now, and what can wait. Our memorial artists will say what the granite and the cemetery will allow. To begin in writing, book a consultation. An appointment means someone can sit with you. A call is enough when the cemetery is hours from either office.

Design, with our designer

Our designer turns the conversation into a drawing, with the memorial artists who take the first call. On a new memorial that drawing is a design proof: shape, dimensions, lettering, layout, symbols, and granite color, together, before a saw touches the stone. The proof is drawn for the shop that will build it. A sketch, a photograph of another monument, or a CAD file you already have is worked into that proof and checked against the cemetery's rules and against what the stone will hold.

CAD has a narrower job than the word suggests, and it should stay that size. When the work is a date added to a monument already set, a technician rubs the existing letters and we rebuild the font, the size, and the depth as a CAD layout. You approve that proof before anything is cut. A CAD file you bring at the start becomes part of the design proof. A new memorial is not handed to you under the title "CAD proof." Ask for the design proof. That is the drawing you approve, and the drawing the shop builds.

Design can happen in the showroom or away from it. Our artists will prepare a rough draft you can mark up, or you can watch the layout change on a video call. Changes belong here, while they are still a line on a proof. What a custom design can include is on the page about a design made with you, not picked off a wall.

You approve the proof before anyone fabricates

Nothing in the shop starts until you approve the proof. Read it as a drawing you are about to build: dimensions, where the names and dates sit, the lettering, any emblem or portrait, and the granite color. A wrong date, or a word your family does not use, gets fixed now.

That approval releases fabrication. In a construction office, a packet sent for a yes or a no is called a submittal. The submittal you sign is the design proof. There is no second design for the craftsmen after you say yes. We do not start crafting until the final design is approved. The stone in the cemetery is supposed to match the proof you were shown.

Some cemeteries must approve the design, the material, or the size before a setting. We submit what they ask for — the drawing, the permit, the paperwork their office names — and we wait. If they reject a height, a color, or a shape, the proof is revised with you before we cut. Your approval, and the cemetery's where it requires one, both come first.

The cemetery site check

The site is the cemetery, not the showroom. Before we draw something the cemetery will refuse, and again before a crew is scheduled, we check the place.

Call it a cemetery site check. It is not a surveyor's land survey, and we do not describe it as one. We confirm the written rules, the plot, and the boundaries. We confirm whether the section allows an upright, a slant, or only a flat marker, and we confirm foundation size, setbacks, vase rules, and color limits when the cemetery has written them. We confirm who may set the stone. Many cemeteries welcome our crew. Some require their own setter or an approved contractor. National cemeteries are one of those cases. We tell you which applies before you count on a date.

A lawn section in Pontotoc County and a garden section in Collin County can disagree about height, color, and equipment. Bring the cemetery's name at the consultation, even without a section number. We would rather pause a drawing than haul a stone that cannot be set. Those rules are gathered under what the cemetery is allowed to require.

Choosing the stone

The proof names the granite. We bring stone from more than one country, in the grays and blacks families expect and in specialty colors people ask for after they have seen them. Color is chosen while the proof is open. It is not swapped after you approve.

A polished black face takes a portrait differently than a lighter gray. A rock-pitch edge throws a different shadow than a sawn edge. Our designer will say which differences matter and which are only taste. You approve the color on the same proof as the layout. Matching an older family stone is different from picking a favorite. Say so early. We look at what is already in the cemetery and say when a color can be approached and when it cannot. The custom monument work in Ada and Wylie is that choice on one drawing: shape, color, lettering, and the story.

In the shop in Ada

After approval, the granite is cut in our Ada workshop to the dimensions on the proof. Edges are finished, and lettering and artwork are carved to the layout you approved. The approved proof is what the shop builds from. If you know construction documents, that is the role a shop drawing plays. We do not issue a second set under another name.

A flat marker and a companion upright take the same route. Complexity changes how long the stone stays in the shop. It does not add another company. Custom monuments commonly take about eight to twelve weeks from design approval to installation. Cutting, finishing, and engraving are the middle of that span. A simple marker can move faster. A large custom piece can take longer, and weather or the cemetery's calendar can add time after the shop is done. If a birthday, a holiday, or an anniversary matters, say so at the start. We will say whether that day can be met. We would rather decline a date than promise one the stone cannot keep.

Our crew sets it

Setting stays in the same project. Gifford's own crews install the monuments we make, and installation is included. The crew delivers the stone, builds the foundation where the cemetery or the monument requires one, and sets the granite.

The order on site is the one we publish for families asking who sets the stone. Coordination first: rules confirmed again, the permit that cemetery requires, the hours it allows, the plot and its boundaries checked once more. Then the foundation, poured and left to cure when one is required. Then setting, with the equipment the stone weighs, leveled, aligned, and bonded. We do this across Oklahoma and North Texas from the Ada shop and the Wylie office.

If the cemetery requires its own crew, the stone still matches the approved proof, and we say so before any setting date is promised. We do not claim we set every stone in every cemetery. If you bought a monument elsewhere and want only setting, we will tell you whether we can. The crew's work, from foundation through the last check, is described with installation included with the memorial.

The punch list before we leave

When the stone is standing, the crew walks the plot before leaving. That walk-through is the punch list: level and plumb, sections bonded, alignment matching the cemetery's requirement, the right plot, and the ground cleaned. Those checks close every installation we finish.

You do not have to stand there that afternoon. What you receive is the result: a completion photograph, and word that the work is finished. If a punch-list item is wrong, it is corrected before we call the project done. The lifetime guarantee on the granite, and the ten-year guarantee on craftsmanship and installation, sit behind that inspection. They do not replace it.

Consult. Design. Approve the proof. Check the cemetery, and get its approval when a submittal is required. Name the stone on that proof. Craft it in Ada. Set it with our crew, unless the cemetery's rule says otherwise. Walk the punch list before anyone leaves.

One team. Design to setting. Ada, Oklahoma and Wylie, Texas, since 1936.

Families who want the most they will spend named before drawing starts can read how a package becomes the ceiling for the work. The path is the same either way: proof, shop, and setting stay with one team.

When you are ready, book a consultation. Bring the cemetery's name and what you know about the person the stone is for. Custom stones, markers, restoration, and lettering that follow this path are listed with the services we design and build.

Design-Build Memorials, Start to Finish