Say Yes to the…Album
So, here is a true story about our 10 year wedding anniversary. Just for fun, my husband and I asked each other what our most memorable moments were from our wedding day. He told me he remembered the first time he saw me coming down the aisle, and how I took his breath away (literally, he locked his knees and almost passed out lol). I remembered playfully smashing cake in his face, and us both grinning ear to ear.
The point was, we each had these little snapshots that we remembered from our day, but couldn’t remember the day in its entirety. It is a day that is so full of emotions and excitement, but it is over before you know it. Confession, as I thought of our day- I took out our wedding pictures because I wanted to remember those magical moments. I took the printed photos OUT OF A BOX. So here it is, I didn’t have a wedding album. Gasp! Yes, I know the horror! But all joking aside, it really is something that bothered me. I will tell you though that I truly, truly do not regret smashing cake in my husband’s face, but I do regret not having those gorgeous photos put into an album.
The photos in the box are incredible, but they have taken up real estate… in a box. And honestly, they are buried in some other memory box in our attic. It is sad, that this joyous day that we both envisioned for so long only comes out to play once a decade, maybe once every few years- if we are lucky. The photos don’t necessarily like their home. They are starting to bend a little at the edges, they are in a random order, they don’t smell as fresh as they used to. And if our home was to catch on fire, I highly doubt I would be running up to the attic to get them. It would be an afterthought that I would never be able to get back.
I can’t imagine how incredibly heartbreaking the loss of those photographs would be. Wedding albums are part of your love legacy. Moments forever frozen in time, that tell when you decided to believe in forever. Personally, we were not able to invite everyone I would have wanted to include to our intimate wedding. Those photographs provided an opportunity to have people feel like they were part of our day. I would cringe when family or friends would ask to see our wedding pictures, and I’m handing them a box saying, ‘please try not to get your fingerprints on them.”
Not really the most romantic way to show close family and friends your story. There also is something special about the thrill of being able to one day show your legacy to your children, and eventually your grandchildren. Incredibly, our albums last 100 years out of the box, and 200 years in the box! How crazy amazing is that?! This is due to the archival paper, and ink; just like love and your beautiful marriage, they are meant to last!
There is always the argument, well one day I can make an album. And that is true…one day you may make an album. But one day, I might clean all my baseboards or one day I might alphabetize my spices… things of this nature don’t usually end up very high on the to-do list. So, that day I decide to dig out that DVD of images, and I sat down with my husband and put together the wedding album of my dreams. Now it’s one of my daughter’s favorite “story books” and one of her favorite things to look at with us. And every anniversary we relive our wedding day by looking through the album together.
At the end of the day, your wedding is something you will treasure your whole life. Doesn’t your relationship, your marriage, your love deserve to last forever? Albums will help you recreate that magical day, every time you open it. Your wedding photographs deserve to be part of your history.