How to Preserve Your Wedding Memories

Your wedding is one of the most memorable events that will ever happen in your lifetime. It seems as if it takes a lifetime worth of planning, but only a day to actually enjoy. Though every newlywed has chronicled their wedding with photo albums, you can take it one step further by preserving much more of your wedding day memorabilia. In today's world, couples are savoring their memories such as their wedding gown, bouquet, invitations, and cake for many years to come. Here are a few helpful hints:
Preserving your bouquet.
If preserved properly, your wedding bouquet can turn out to be one of the neatest keepsakes from your wedding. My wife actually preserved her bouquet by sending it off to a professional designer, where they placed it in a shadowbox frame, along with our invitations and other memorabilia.

To preserve your bouquet you must start immediately after your wedding. If you're going to be away on your honeymoon, have a friend or family member begin the drying process by turning the bouquet upside down and hang it to dry. It's best done in a dry, dark place for a period of two to three weeks. By this time it should be dried out and ready to decorate on a wall. As I mentioned earlier, the designer of our shadowbox actually sprayed a chemical on the bouquet that enhanced the sheen of the flowers and it looks just as good now as it did on our wedding day.

Many couples are also turning their bouquet into potpourri. There's no better way to preserve the memory of your wedding than a sweet, intoxicating scent. To do this, remove the petals and place it in a bowl in a dark place for around two weeks. Once the petals have completely dried, gather them into where you plan on storing them and add just a drop of potpourri oil.

A friend of mine used their bouquet as a way to decorate the pages of their wedding album. They pressed the flowers and placed them in the pages of the album, along with a delicate piece of wax paper.

Preserving your wedding dress.
Please don't make the mistake of preserving your wedding dress by simply throwing it into the closet and hoping for the best. Taking time to preserve your wedding dress properly will pay off, especially several years down the road when you can pull it out and gaze at it in awe because you can't believe you were once that thin! With all kidding aside, I recommend taking your dress to the dry cleaners immediately after you return to your honeymoon. The cleaners will then remove any stains you acquired during the ceremony or reception. If you wait to take it to the cleaners then the stain could set and permanently embed in the fabric.

It's best to look up a professional in your area that specifically deals with the preservation of wedding dresses. My wife sent her dress off to someone located in New Orleans a few weeks before Hurricane Katrina, and we're just now getting the dress back. Fortunately, the business, along with my wife's dress, was still intact. If you're sending the dress off, turn it inside-out to avoid harm to the surface of the dress. I highly recommend storing the dress in an acid-free box. The window of the box will allow you to look at the dress, and it should be acetate, which is another acid-free base. Store the headpiece in a separate box because those materials could cause staining on the dress. Once you've received it, have the box sitting flat in a dry area with a consistently cool temperature. Keep an eye on the dress every now and then to make sure no damage or staining has affected the beauty of the dress.

Preserving your wedding cake.
Most people think the idea of preserving a wedding cake is not a good one. However, what most people don't know is that eating a piece of wedding cake on their first anniversary is an important tradition. When my wife and I did it, it was a nice way of revisiting that day and tasting the same food we enjoyed our wedding day.

To preserve your wedding cake, take the upper most layer and wrap it tight in plastic wrap, and then a layer of aluminum foil. It's important to use both, because if you only use aluminum foil it can leave the cake with an unpleasant taste, that similar of the foil. Once you've wrapped the cake you'll need to store it in the back of the freezer. You're storing it in the back because it will stay at a more consistent temperature. Items toward the front of your freezer hover in temperature because the door is opened so often. Keeping the right temperature is the key to retaining the original flavor of that delicious wedding cake!

Those are just a few ways to preserve your wedding memories. Enjoy!