Organise the photos
Fingers crossed your photographer
processed your images whilst you were on your honeymoon. Sort the photos
into groups like ceremony, reception and formals which will help as no doubt
you’ll have hundreds of photos to choose from. If you're not having all your
photos included in your main wedding album, perhaps ask for copies on a CD or
DVD. Using the photographer’s list from the wedding day can be helpful
for knowing quantities of photos to be printed for the wedding party and close
friends and family. If you’d like to keep your photos private, a service
like Dropbox is a great cloud sharing service where just the wedding guests can
access the photos you chose to upload.
The all-important ‘Thank yous’
Although there will be many thank
you’s during the speeches and at the end of the night, it is still a lovely
gesture to send a formal thank you to your guests to thank them for their
attendance, and if appropriate, their gift. If you have chosen to receive
gifts, opening these in a systematic way is really important. It might be
a good idea to keep a spreadsheet of your guest list and update the list with
the gift you received as you go along.
It’s tempting to rip everything
open and easily forget who it is from. As to how you say thank you, the more
personalised the better. Try and avoid things like a text message and opt for a
card instead with a personalised and hand-written message on
the back.
Flower preservation
Following the wedding day, your
house will be filled to brim with beautiful flowers and not just the bride’s
bouquet. Flower preservation is becoming increasingly popular and it is a
wonderful way to capture a moment. Floral preservation can range from 3D
and 2D designs to encasing the bouquet, for example, in a paperweight.
This can sometimes be a costly process and may need to be included in the
initial wedding budgeting. Items to preserve could include: wedding bouquet,
flower girl headpieces, button holes, church or ceremony flowers and floral
table decorations.
Dress preservation
The wedding dress for many brides
is perhaps the most special part of their day. It is a once in a lifetime
dress which is completely
unreplicated and unique to the bride. Some brides choose to sell their
wedding dress after returning from their honeymoon but preserving such
beautiful gowns is popular too for sentimental reasons or for passing the dress
on for daughters’ and granddaughters’ weddings. Thinking about what to do with
your wedding dress can be planned before the day and ordered when you return
from your honeymoon.
It may be a good idea to dry
clean the wedding dress before storing it in a beautiful box. There are lots of
suppliers of wedding dress boxes, designed for purpose. Some may even offer a
service whereby you send your wedding dress and they will box it up
professionally. If you plan to store your wedding dress for the long term, a
fit for purpose box is a good idea as a wedding dress will easily discolour if
not kept properly. Even a plain brown cardboard box can discolour a dress
within 6 months.
Recycling - keepsakes for your
anniversary
One of the best parts of
organising your wedding day is planning those added touches; pretty vases on
the tables, bunting in the marquee, candles illuminating pathways. As exciting
as it is to organise the finishing touches, you can be left with tens if not
hundreds of one particular item. Time and time again these are left after the
big day to be thrown away or kept by the venue. Make sure the venue provides a
table for presents, cards etc. You’ll be too tired at the end of the night to
move these, so make sure they're in a secure place or ask the venue to move
them to your car.
After the honeymoon it might be a
good idea to make an inventory of all the bits and pieces you wouldn’t mind
recycling, donating to charity or re-selling. There are plenty of websites,
like eBay or other more bespoke sites where you can auction off your wedding
items. This is a good way to free-up storage space, reduce waste and make a
little money back at the same time. Make sure not to throw away everything,
or you may come to regret this later on. Things like corks from the table wine
can be turned into personalised cork boards or re-use paper pom-poms for
children’s parties.
Saving the cake
Preserving the top tier of your
wedding cake is a tradition that sees it eaten on the first wedding anniversary
or at the christening of your first child. Some cakes, flavours and fillings
take to freeze preservation process better than others. The more delicate the
cake ingredients, the dryer the cake tends to become. Ingredients such as
chocolate, hazelnut, almond, and carrot cake take particularly well to this
method of preservation. Whilst white cake, cake with fresh fruit, and cakes
with whipped cream fillings tend not to do so well.
Written by Michelle Rider at Braxted Park Weddings. Braxted
Park is a licensed Essex wedding venue based in the UK, with capacity ranging
from 50 to 300 guests. Braxted Park offers exclusive use for the day and boasts
the highest level of service of any outdoor wedding ceremony providers in
Essex, making sure your big day is unforgettable.
photo credits :
(cake) Photo 1 - Flickr
Creative Commons by Sugeo
(keepsakes) Photo 2 - Flickr
Creative Commons by Ideal I do's Wedding Photos
(flowers) Photo 3 - Flickr
Creative Commons by Rose Robinson
(photos) Photo 4 - Flickr
Creative Commons by .m.e.c.
(photos) Photo 5 - Flickr Creative Commons by .m.e.c.
(photos) Photo 5 - Flickr Creative Commons by .m.e.c.
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