Letters from loved ones

I love a good letter. I love reading them and I love writing them. It’s like a good card. I always feel like they are worth the effort and they are something that I hold on to. I’m sentimental with that sort of thing and even started writing to my children even before they were born. I write them a letter at every birthday and have been putting them away to give to them when they are older.  I’m not sure what prompted me to start doing these things but it’s something that I would have loved to have had myself. Every birthday I sit and write them a letter about the year, the things they have done to make me laugh and that make me proud. A reminder to them that they can be themselves, and no matter what that looks like, they will be loved.

At my wedding I wrote a letter for my best friend, my bridesmaid. I gave my husband a card but didn’t know too much about weddings back then and in hindsight, could have written him a letter and had someone else read it out as part of our ceremony.

Recently, I have had a few people who have had guests who were unable to attend their ceremony. I mentioned that it might be a nice thing to do to have their loved ones write them a letter. They can have it read out, or not. I personally think it would be lovely to have it read by someone else before the couple read it themselves. Just be sure to have someone check the length of it and make sure there were no huge surprises in it!

You could ask them to include advice for your marriage, or well wishes for your future together. They could include memories of their weddings, memories of when you met as a couple or it could be as simple as just them choosing a poem, a blessing or if you are religious, a prayer.
I think that it is a wonderful way to include family that may be unable to travel to the wedding. Especially if they are very close to you. If your Grandparent has played a huge role in your life and is unable to travel, or if your best friend lives overseas and simply cannot afford to be at your wedding. It would be a lovely way to include them on your wedding day.

Thank you to Kirralee for the use of her images on this blog, check out more of her work here or find her facebook page by clicking here.

 

 

Wine Box and Time Capsules

There are some rituals for the ceremony that I am hearing more about, it is the time capsule or a wine box ceremony, there are lots of people out there who have seen a candle ceremony and the sand ceremonies done at weddings, and thought that they are a great idea but feel that they might not want to have it as their friends had it at their ceremony, or that they are not something that would suit their personalities. If that is the case, a wine box or a time capsule could be something that you might like to consider.

Depending if you like wine or not would be one way to decide on if you would make a wine box or a time capsule, but really essentially they have the same idea behind them. During the ceremony, you can put together the time capsule or wine box. It is something that you choose to open at one of your wedding anniversaries, maybe your 10, 15 or 20 year anniversary. Long enough away so that time has passed and you have forgotten some of the details of things that have gone into the box. You can buy these boxes, or you can make one yourself. During the ceremony you can put all sorts of things in the wine box/time capsule. One great thing that you can put in it is a letter to each other, one from each of you, you can put in it how you feel about each other now, what you hope for in the future and how you are feeling about the up coming wedding day, it is something that will be great to read years down the track. You can add things that hold special meaning to you in your relationship, or momentos that you have from special places.

This is also a great way to include children in the ceremony, if you have children from a previous relationship or together it would be a great way to include them, they could write letters to the two of you. Other ways you can include children in your ceremonies can be found on my other blog posts on Sand ceremonies with children, and Children in the wedding ceremony.  It can also be a great way to incorporate members of your family and to include people that have passed away, by asking someone close to them to contribute something to the wine box/ time capsule, they can be mentioned in the ceremony when the box is being compiled and a great way to incorporate them into the ceremony without drawing too much attention to the people who are missing if it might be recent or too upsetting for some people.

You could also choose to do this at the reception instead and have this as something that all of your guests can contribute to, they could fill in a questionnaire, answering things like, where will we be living in 10 years time? How many children will we have? How many animals will we have and what types? Or you could ask your guests to provide you with tips and advice for married life.

Thanks to Corey Brown, once again for the wonderful photos. Check out his blog here.