The day produces an enormous amount of material and most of it disappears within a year. Here is what to keep, how to keep it, and what to do in the first month while it is all still to hand.
In this guide
- What to keep, decided in advance
- Do these in the first month
- Ways to keep it that people actually look at
- Preserving the fragile things
- Keep it going after the wedding
- What not to keep
What to keep, decided in advance
- The invitation suite — one complete unspoiled set, set aside before they are posted
- A menu, a place card and the seating chart
- The order of service and your vow books
- The marriage certificate
- Cards from guests, kept together
- A pressed flower from the bouquet
- The cork, the ribbon, a piece of the cake box — small things with a story
Do these in the first month
Print photographs. Almost every couple has a gallery link and nothing on a wall a year later, and the link will eventually expire. Choose twenty, print them properly, and frame at least one.
Back up the full-resolution files in two places. Photographers do not keep them forever, and losing a wedding gallery to a dead hard drive is common and irreversible.
Ways to keep it that people actually look at
- A hand-bound photo album — the single most-looked-at wedding keepsake there is
- A shadow box holding the invitation, a flower and a place card
- A keepsake box for the certificate, cards and confetti
- Vow books kept on a shelf rather than in a drawer
- One large framed print rather than a wall of small ones
- A woven blanket from one good photograph
Preserving the fragile things
The dress: professional cleaning within six months, then acid-free tissue and a breathable box, stored flat and away from light. The bouquet: press flat within two days, or send to a preservation service in the first 48 hours. Paper: acid-free sleeves, not a plastic wallet, and never in a loft.
Photographs printed on archival paper last decades; ones printed at a pharmacy kiosk fade in years.
Keep it going after the wedding
- Write down five things you remember, in the first week, before they blur
- Open the wedding video on each anniversary — most couples watch it once
- Add one photograph a year to the album
- Keep letters you write on anniversaries in the same box
- Print the guest book messages if they were digital
What not to keep
Everything else. Six identical table numbers, the spare signage, forty leftover favours, four hundred near-identical photographs. Keeping a small, well-chosen set is what makes it a keepsake; keeping all of it makes it a box in the loft nobody opens.
From Sagevow
Vows read from a phone screen never photograph well. Linen vow books do, and they stay on the shelf long after the last dance.
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