Photo by Terje Sollie from Pexels

You spend months leading up to your special day, planning every little detail from the bouquet to the song you’ll have your first dance to. But while it can take months and even years to plan a wedding, your special day is over in the blink of an eye. What can you do to preserve your precious memories and make them last a lifetime? Here are a few ideas.

Things to do on the day

Rent a photo booth

Guests absolutely love a photo booth! Get lots of fun wigs, hats and other props and let your friends go to town with making crazy memories. You can ask them to leave a copy of their favorite snaps in a special box next to the booth, so you can treasure these fun moments. You’ll be pulled in all directions on the big day, so getting a snapshot into the great time that your guests had will be so much fun to look back on.

Pass around a Polaroid camera

Have a table where you place a Polaroid camera and ask guests to take two pictures, one for them to keep and one for you to treasure. In a digital age, polaroids have their own unique charm. You’ll end up with a whole host of sweet, hilarious photos that capture your guest’s enjoyment of the event in a cheeky and fun way. Add them to a memory box, or use them to create a garland.

Get a hashtag

You can create a more modern day photo album by asking your guests to use a certain hashtag if they post photos on social media. Your professional wedding photos will be gorgeous, but your friends’ photos will show a unique side to your wedding since every guest will capture a different angle of the event. Having a hashtag or an open album online means you can curate all of the thousands of photos and flick through at your leisure.

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Put pen to paper

There are so many ways you can ask your guests to leave you notes. You can get a decorative wish tree, where your loved ones write wishes for your marriage and hang them on the branches. Alternatively, you could ask your guests to sign a book, a framed picture, or anything really. Having heartfelt messages from your friends and family on your special day will be a beautiful thing to reflect on throughout your marriage. Handwritten notes are a true treasure in this modern day and never fail to conjure up emotion.

Things to do after your wedding

Preserve your bouquet

Keeping your beautiful bouquet will bring memories flooding back. You could even pass it down as an heirloom! You can choose to have the flowers dried and framed, or you can have some of the petals preserved in resin to create necklace pendants or custom designed home decor.

Repurpose your wardrobe

For some brides, the wedding dress is sacred and not to be worn again. But for others, repurposing the gown can help weave these special memories into your life. Could you have any of your outfit altered for your honeymoon? Beach weddings lend themselves nicely to a repurposed wardrobe since the garments and shoes often have a more bohemian or casual vibe. Some brides have their wedding dress tailored into a dress or skirt they can wear to celebrate their anniversary. It might be possible to dye white wedding shoes or lingerie to a different color to be worn again for special occasions.

Fill a memory box

Fill up a box with all of the treasured memories you collected on your special day. This could include a scrapbook full of photos, well wishes from your guests, invitations, and copies of the speeches. You can add special objects to the box, like table decorations or a garter belt. You could ask your bridesmaids to come over for a special evening where you decorate and fill the box. Keeping wedding mementoes in this way means you can spend hours reminiscing in the years to come.

Create a playlist

Music has the power to take us right back to that special moment. Why not create a playlist or CD of all the songs played at your wedding party? Your DJ will probably help with this if you ask them beforehand. You could also set your first dance song as your alarm or your ring tone, or have a vinyl of that song framed for your home. Finding ways to bring those special songs back into your life is sure to bring back gorgeous memories.