Stunningly beautiful wedding picture of the groom dipping the bride at dusk outdoors at Potomac’s Bolger Center in Maryland.
This entry is from our Expert Guest series where wedding and honeymoon professionals share their best tips on creating memories that last a lifetime.
Your wedding day is one of the most special days of your entire life, and you’re going to want to be able to relive and remember it 10 days after, 10 months after, 10 years after, and when your children and grandchildren are getting married. Yet, no matter how good your memory is, as the years pass, your recollection of this exciting and joyful period of your life will naturally fade. So as you plan your wedding day, here are 10 ideas to help you remember your wedding day.
Create Lifelong Memories With Great Wedding Photographer
Journal every aspect of your wedding & beyond.
1. Keep a journal of the period from your engagement to your wedding day, and even of your honeymoon.
Pick up a journal like this Bride-to-Be Book, and start recording all the big and little things you experience as you plan your wedding, including your impressions, thoughts about the significance, feelings, and of course the fun things you and your partner do to celebrate your special engagement period.
2. Choose to make wedding photography one of the highest priorities of your wedding planning.
New York photographer Richie Schwartz wrote about his experience evacuating his home before the arrival of Hurricane Sandy. As he loaded his car, he looked around him and took stock of his neighbors. He noticed that they all seemed to be loading the same things in their cars. Not Xbox consoles or computers, nor pretty lamps or fancy blenders. Instead, he found that he and his neighbors were all filling their vehicles with their wedding albums and family portraits, which they removed from their walls, frames and all. [Read the full article here.]
Your pictures are your memories, making photography the ultimate treasure. No worldly possession can replace your memories, and so as each year goes by, your wedding photography becomes ever more valuable. So as much as possible, focus on quality and service when evaluating and selecting your professional wedding photographer, because as we all know, your wedding is one event that doesn’t have a do-over.
Turn old records into memories.
3. Collect the records of the first dance songs that your parents, grandparents, and even great-grandparents danced to at their weddings.
Put the records out at your wedding reception and allow guests to sign the records. Then mount each record in a shadow box and hang them in your home.
Ask guests to write personal notes to you.
4. Ask wedding guests to write notes to you to be opened in future years.
Place a nicely printed card on each plate inviting your guests to write a note to you to be opened between 1 and 10 years or more in the future. (So one table might have a 1-year note, another table has a 2-year note, etc.) Leave pens and envelopes on the table, and have a family member or maid of honor or best man collect the sealed notes at the end of the wedding reception. Then, on each wedding anniversary, that person delivers to you the notes for that year, which you open to relive your wedding day memories!
5. Write your own wedding vows and have them printed on cloth like a tapestry.
A number of companies, including Five Dot Design, can print your wedding vows on fabric. Use the fabric as a backdrop at your wedding ceremony or for a photobooth at your reception. Be sure to have your professional wedding photographer also capture some bride & groom portraits in front of it! Then, after the wedding, hang the fabric in your home on a decorative curtain rod.
Ask your wedding photographer if they can show you different wall portrait possibilities before you place your order.
6. Hang engagement & wedding photography in your home.
Your engagement & wedding photography won’t bring back memories of your special day if all they do is sit on the hard drive of your computer. Instead, decorate your home by hanging wall portraits from your wedding in prominent areas of your home that you spend a lot of time in, such as your family room or living room.
Erika & Juan chose one of their favorite engagement photographs for us to print and mount as a standout. We made one side of the image white, so that guests could sign it at their wedding reception.
In addition to creating the physical artwork, some wedding photographers can drag and drop your favorite wedding photographs onto a photo of your home to help you visualize size, layout, and frame possibilities before they exist, so that you can see what you like the best prior to ordering and printing. See more ideas for hanging photography in your home here.
Display your wedding album on your coffee table.
7. Place an album of your engagement photography and/or wedding photography on your coffee table.
If you have young children, you can also sit your professional photo album on a small desk easel, and place the easel and album on a chest or bookshelf. Instead of doing a traditional album of engagement portraits, ask your professional wedding photographer about a guest sign-in album, which has extra white space so that family & friends can write their best wishes around the photographs at your wedding reception. For your wedding album, ask your photographer to include the lyrics of your first dance song or even your vows if you wrote your own.
Use decor from your wedding on your table.
8. Use the table runner from your wedding reception in your dining room
Getting table runners for your wedding reception? Don’t just rent. Buy at least one, and keep it to adorn the dining room table or buffet in your home.
9. Use the & Sign or Block Letter of Your Name in Your First Family Portrait Session
Using an & sign or block letters of your names to decorate your sweetheart or other table at your reception? Save the sign/letters, and with your first child, use it to decorate the nursery AND as a prop in your first family portrait session!
Reimagine your wedding dress.
10. Pass On Your Wedding Dress, But Not in the Way You’re Imagining
Save your wedding dress and hire a seamstress to make a purse for your daughter or granddaughter as a gift on her wedding day.
Use these 10 ideas to make a collection of family heirlooms to last the ages, as each can and should be handed down, generation after generation. Congratulations on your engagement!
Looking for a creative way to fund your honeymoon or wedding expenses, such as a wedding photographer? Set up a Honeyfund honeymoon registry today.
Bio: Irene Abdou began to work professionally as a photographer in 2007, and today, her company, Irene Abdou Photography, LLC is a recipient of the People Love Us on Yelp award, Angie’s List Super Service Award, and two-time winner of the Bride’s Choice Awards by WeddingWire. Hundreds of her photographs have been recognized and/or published by magazines, newspapers, books, wedding blogs, and other publishers, and since her first exhibit of a single photograph in the fall of 2007, she has been juried into or invited to exhibit in numerous fine art exhibits. cheapigfollowersView her portfolio of artistic wedding photography here.
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