No need to apologize :-) To some unfamiliar, this might seem strange. Personally, consider it to be akin to a wake. A time for friends and family to catch up on one another and touch base with their roots. For many, the only time they get together like this is the funeral or per chance a wedding. Stories and anecdotes of the dearly departed are told, condolences are made, and even a few adult beverages are consumed.
Yep, I forgot about the funeral procession to the cemetery too. If you’re going to attend the burial ceremony, you can join a funeral procession which forms in the following order: the lead motorcycle police escort (police but not always), the hearse with the deceased on-board (and sometimes the pall bearers on-board or in a separate funeral car), the funeral car carrying the immediate family, and the rest of the friends of the deceased and others who wish join the procession and want drive their cars to the cemetery for the burial ceremony. I might not be exactly right about the order, but everyone knows their place.
Sometimes there is a rear motorcycle escort to show passersby where the procession ends. Other times the lead motorcycle may alternate zipping back and forth between the front and back of the procession or blocking off an intersection while the procession passes through.
Then with headlights lights turned on and a blast of the siren from one of the escorts, the procession begins the parade to the cemetery. As a courtesy, passerby are expected to stop what they are doing and pay their the respects to the deceased while the procession is passing by. Taking off one’s hat is another courtesy still observed around Texas.
If you encounter a procession on the road, as a common courtesy, you are expected to pull off to the side and let the procession pass before resuming your trek.
At the cemetery, everyone parks, groups around the burial plot where the casket and flowers are pre-arranged, and the burial ceremony begins, sometimes under a tent and sometimes not depending on many factors (usually weather).
At the conclusion of the burial ceremony, everyone is free to leave and go home and get out of their (burial attire) clothes. At the funerals, the guys are expected to wear dark suits and the women black dresses. Veils are appropriate too.
Since you mentioned it, adult beverages are served at most of homes but drunkenness is not permitted. Everyone is expected to stay sober.
There are other courtesys which are still observed from time-to-time such as the payment to the grave diggers, the preacher, etc. But I don’t know much about that.
Anyway that’s one of the ways we do it down here in Texas. I had forgotten a lot of the details but you helped me to remember some of the smaller ones.