We have talked before (well I rambled, you nodded along reading, agreeing with everything I said because you’re awesome like that) about preserving memories and how on your 50-year anniversary, likely, the ONLY thing that will be left from your wedding will be your photographs. Except the dress that you lovingly have put away or your daughter wore to her wedding. Below is a list of 5 ways to have something left from your wedding that you and hubs can still see 50 years later when some of the memories have faded.
- Wall Art & Albums – Well HELLO welcome to a photographer/artist’s article. You knew I was going there right? Artists began to use canvas around 1500. Portrait of a Young Man and His Tutor is an oil painting on canvas by Nicolas de Largillierre. It was painted in 1685 and is on display at the National Gallery of Art.
Can you imagine? This memory of a simple young man and his teacher has lasted 330+ years. How long do you want your memories to last? Offset reproduction of artwork began in the early 1900s and continued with the printing of photographs to canvas. Phoenix Rhys Photography offers many museum quality wall art options and even digital painting services to maximize your investment for the next 100 or so years.
- Save your bouquet. Shoot girl, that thing cost HUNDREDS of dollars (if you’re lucky)! Sure you could dry your bouquet, but that memory will probably only be around for your 2nd or 3rd anniversary before it deteriorates. Enter pressed & framed flowers. Everlastings Flowers based in Hampton, New Hampshire can take your bouquet, professionally press it between glass, and frame it creating a lasting keepsake from your wedding! They have some beautiful design options. Be sure to contact them BEFORE your wedding for instructions on how to preserve and ship your bouquet to them. Contact them to find out more information if you have had a recent wedding.
- Consider creating a living keepsake by adding succulents to your bouquet or hair piece. Besides the fact that these bouquets are GORGEOUS, succulents can be planted in the couple’s first garden (or indoor/outdoor flower pot) and can live (or be propagated from the original plant) for years to come. Urban Succulents has some beautiful succulent bouquets.
Photograph & Bouquet by Urban Succulents The price averages about $150 and it can be shipped to you. Remember here in East Texas, we likely get TOO much rain and a little too much frost for most succulents to survive outside of a pot. Be sure to talk with your floral designer about the type of succulents you would like to have in your bouquet to create a living keepsake. Also, learn how to preserve your succulents with Succulents & Sunshine HERE.
4. Use your wedding décor as home décor. This one is an oldy, but a goody. Unfortunately for me (or maybe fortunately because we are now divorced) my 17-year-old engaged self could not afford a Hawaii wedding. So I brought Hawaii to us with a Hawaiian themed wedding! That’s right I had it all. Grass skirts, coconut bras for the bridesmaids, tiki torches etc. It was very gaudy and FUN! All in all, I think there was about 2K dollars’ worth of wedding décor that was mostly junk. Nothing we had could be used in our home. I encourage you, when you’re planning your wedding to stop looking at Pinterest and look inside your home. That Pinterest perfect wedding you’re planning, is any of that ACTUALLY your style?
5. You worked so hard on your wedding vows. That DVD you ordered from your cinematographer will probably be obsolete in the next 10 or so years. So how do you preserve those precious words your husband poured out of his heart that one time (that you may never hear again…because…men…). Hand lettered and framed wedding vows! Have your vows professionally hand lettered and framed for many years of enjoyment. Make sure to use museum quality glass in your frame and to keep it out of direct sunlight to keep your vows in pristine condition.
In year 2066, you and your love will be sitting on your couch in your home holding hands. There will be a flowerpot sitting on the coffee table overflowing with succulents from the original succulent from your bouquet, reminding you of the expanding love from that day. 
Your children grew up walking by and reading every day, your hand-lettered vows currently hanging on the wall in the hallway. Children, grandchildren, and even possibly great grandchildren will be seated around you both in celebration of this everlasting love. You’ll be perusing your wedding album with a grandchild pointing and asking “Who’s that gamma?” And you will begin to tell them all of the beginning of your love story as a portrait of you and your love looks down from the wall smiling upon you both.
My Philosophy : Pictures are our way of capturing a sliver of time, a moment, so that we can tell it back to ourselves later. It’s my job to capture that moment for you in all its intensity and beauty so that you can hold onto it through times both bad and good. My passion is storytelling, I just use a camera instead of a words.
Criss can be found floating around on her Website, Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter accounts when she’s not running around the house in her cape or digging in the dirt in East Texas.
Phoenix Rhys Artistry 