Preserving Your Wedding Memories
With all the planning that a wedding requires, it’s often easy to forget the most important part of the day. Sure you’ll be wearing the most beautiful dress you’ll ever wear your whole life, and all your friends and loved ones will be close to you- but what really matters are those promises you’ll make with the one person you love more than anything in the world.
I love that we get to choose to get married in a way that reflects our deepest convictions. Whether you get married at a church or in a field of lilies, the location and manner in which you are married describes who both of you are and what you want to become once you are united. I can’t think of a better thing to remember for your entire life than that, and what’s great is that the way to remember everything can be pretty close to free.
It’s hard to find a way to remember all that was said during your marriage ceremony, especially when many religions or ceremony locations don’t allow any type of recording device (video or photos). So how do you preserve the most important part of your wedding day? Well, there are of course many ways- but here’s one of my favorite.
My brother was married in an LDS temple where recording the marriage ceremony is not possible. To help them remember what advice their sealer had given them during their ceremony, I took a pile of blank sheets of paper and a bunch of pens with me to the wedding. After the ceremony, as we waited for the bride and groom to come out of the temple, we passed these papers to all those who were at the ceremony. Each person wrote down their memories - what the sealer said, the advice given to the couple and any other favorite detail they could remember- while it was all still fresh in the minds. ( note that in an LDS temple cerimony there are many things spoken of that are considered too sacred to write down. Be sure to remind guests only to write appropriate memories) After their wedding day I collected all the papers and put them all together in a book. While no one could remember every detail of what happened in the ceremony, with all their memories combined, I think we got just about everything written down.
The idea was a hit. I’ve had several cousins request the same activity for their weddings, and I had a cousin volunteer to do the same for my big day.
Of all the photos, notes and videos taken of our wedding these papers are my very favorite. They remind me of the most important hour of my entire life. I’m SO glad I didn’t let the memory of that time slip away without keeping it preserved on paper!
