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Are you the sentimental types? Then incorporate your emotional sides
into your festive occasion -- and create some new mementos along the way
-- with these unique ideas.
Prewedding Parties
Shower
Yourself with Pictures
Start making memories before the wedding begins with a photo theme
shower. Have the shower hostess ask everyone to bring a photo-related
gift. The presents might be a memory-making object like a camera, slide
projector or mini cam; a memory-keeping object such as a picture frame
or photo album; or a ready-made memory, such as a collage of photos of
you and your friends from high school or a framed picture of you and
your fiancé. If most of your guests have been friends for years, you
could show a slide show of your shared past during the party. Have a
friend or relative on hand to take pictures of the event -- knowing you,
you'll want plenty of those!
Go For
Glam!
Take your
bachelorette party to a photo studio, for a chic set of prints
you'll keep long after the wedding. Make this "last night out with the
girls" a full-scale frill-a-thon. If you still want to do the more
traditional night out at the bars afterward, you'll be made-up and
ready.
Dinner
and a Movie
Put together a slide show for the rehearsal dinner. Pillage your old
photo albums for great shots of you before you met your beloved, during
your early days of dating each other, and now. Ask your sweetie (or his
mother) for childhood photos, and borrow any other good shots from both
of your friends. Get slides made of the prints from a photo shop and
rent a slide projector (or use the one you got during your shower!).
Make a tape of your favorite songs -- or the tunes that were playing
while your were dating -- to play while you show the slides. Better yet,
bring your laptop, rent a projector and do a slideshow with your digital
images.
The Wedding Day
The
Write Invite
Rather than ordering standard engraved invitations, why not incorporate
some of your own great art? Uncover that fabulous drawing of a bride and
groom you did when you were five, and do your invites on copies of it.
Or unearth that letter you wrote when you were 8 years old, vowing to
never kiss a boy (except your dad and brother), and reprint that
along with a picture of the two of you. Or, head to an old-school
black-and-white photo booth and create a fun photo strip for your
save-the-date notices!
Silent
Stars
If your parents took baby movies while you were growing up, you could
create your own video of the two of you as toddlers. Put it on a loop
and let it run silently in a corner throughout the cocktail hour and/or
reception; your guests will get to know you even better, and it's a
great conversation piece!
Instant Album
Hire a professional photographer or friend to take
Polaroid's of all the
wedding guests, then slip them into a photo scrapbook you have ready
right there on a table. The photographer will insert the pictures on the
spot, and ask everyone to write messages to the newlyweds, creating an
instant wedding album. You can use any pretty scrapbook or buy a special
photo book created for this purpose.
Wear
Your Heart on Your Chest
You've seen those computerized photo T-shirt shops at the mall. Why not
have one at your wedding? Your guests will have an instant outfit to
remind them of you whenever they wear it. You can also affix these
"photos" to coffee mugs, plaques or plates. Depending on your budget,
you can get the shirts or mugs pre-printed with the date of your
wedding.
Blowing Up Baby
At the wedding, have childhood photos of each of you blown up into
poster-size prints and mounted on a stiff cardboard sheets or foam-core
board. Ask all your guests to sign the poster before they leave the
reception. After the wedding, take your posters back home and hang them
on the wall next to each other. We know a couple who literally created
Memory Lane. They lined the pathway leading to their ceremony site with
a clothesline-full of blown-up photos through the years.
Theme
Shots
Why not give your guests some instant memories too? Hire a photographer
with old-fashioned costumes and a yesteryear backdrop for fun wedding
photos. Guests can don the costumes and pose in an Wild West saloon, an
old-fashioned malt shop, or a Victorian parlor -- it could even match
the theme of your wedding. The photographer can give your guests prints
to take home. You can even have individual cardboard frames printed with
your names and the date of your wedding to slip 'em into. Another,
simpler option is to rent or make one of those stand-up flats with the
bodies of famous people or cartoon characters painted on the front.
Guests stick their own heads on top of the fake bodies (or stand next to
the "famous" figure). Have someone on hand with a Polaroid, or just let
guests use their own cameras.
Sweet
Stand
Why let some ready-made bride and groom stand on your cake when you can
do it yourselves? Cut out a full-length pose of the two of you from a
photo and mount it on thick, solid board. Slide the board into a stand,
and then stick yourselves right into the frosting. Or go professional --
a lot of photo shops offer these silhouette-style, solid photos.
Picture This
Use small picture frames as escort card holders. Slide the guests'
escort card into the frames, and line up all the frames the way you
would ordinary escort cards. Guests will take the frame with them to
find their tables, and then take the frames home. Choose silver frames
or pressed paper, cardboard-backed frames.
Parental Pride
Display your parents' and grandparents' wedding photos on the entry
table or the cake table, creating a sense of history at your wedding and
honoring them at the same time.
Scatter Shots
Help your friends and families get to know each other through a visual
history of your lives. Scatter handfuls of both your families' photos on
each table (or assemble a bunch on a big table in a central location,
where everyone will be able to see it), along with a card offering short
explanations of the scenes. Sharing your photos can help create the
feeling of a shared past, something your families will appreciate,
particularly if they don't know each other well yet.
Share
the Shooting
Put a few disposable cameras on each table and ask guests to take
pictures of anything that seems interesting, or give them a special
scavenger hunt with images to find (bride and groom kissing, cake
cutting etc). When you develop the film later, you'll be surprised by
what you find.
Gift Giving
Favor
Them with Frames
Give picture frames as favors. Find unique old frames at antique stores,
or buy matching, elegant silver ones. If you have more eclectic taste,
you're sure to find frames that suit you -- in places from Walgreen's to
upscale gift shops. Or choose simple frames and decorate them yourself
with ribbon or glitter or a mosaic of old, cut-up photos. In the frames?
If you can dig 'em up, (and are having a small celebration) put a photo
of you or your fiancé with each guest in them, so every guest's favor
includes a picture of them and you!
Locket Up
Give your bridesmaids silver lockets, with a photo of you both inside.
Or leave them empty and let your friends chose whom to wear around their
neck (and close to their heart). Get real silver, if you can afford it
-- or check out antique stores for great, vintage buys. Present the
lockets on pretty velvet cords.
On Being Married ...
Start
an Anniversary Album
Decide now to take a photo, or roll of film, on every anniversary, and
keep them all together in one anniversary album. Start with pictures of
your wedding. Each year, add a shot of the two of you that depicts the
changes in your lives -- your new house, your new car, your new kids.
When your children get married, they'll have plenty of old photos right
in the album to use for their own wedding. |
