Many people’s wedding days will count as one of the most magical and memorable days of their lives. People spend months or even years planning out their weddings to the last detail and long after their wedding is over, they often enjoy reminiscing about that special day.
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A wedding keepsake box is a place where you can keep and preserve artifacts and treasures from your own wedding day. In many ways, it serves as a kind of a wedding time capsule. Today, we’ll talk about some of the wedding items you can preserve in a personalized keepsake box.
Tip: If you want to create a lasting keepsake from a loved one's ashes, you can transform the cremains into a diamond with Eterneva or into cremation stones with Parting Stone.
Things to Put in a Wedding Keepsake Box
For a lot of people, a wedding dress may be the most expensive item of clothing they ever own. In 2020, the average cost of a wedding gown in the United States was $1,631. It comes as no surprise then that people take measures to protect the gown long after the wedding is over. Check out items you might put away in a wedding dress keepsake box.
1. Intact wedding dress
Many people save their wedding gowns fully intact in case their children or grandchildren want to wear them someday. If you plan to save your entire wedding dress, you should get it professionally cleaned as soon after the wedding as possible. This will take care of sweat and any other stains that may have appeared during the reception.
Take your wedding dress to a dry cleaner that offers preservation services. The dry cleaner will put your dress in an acid-free box and recommend that you store it long-term in a cool, dry environment.
2. Repurposed wedding dress
While it has long been a tradition to preserve your entire wedding gown, some people have moved away from that. They know that their future children might have a different body type or sense of personal style or may not even be interested in getting married. Instead, they repurpose their wedding gown into a special keepsake item.
One popular option is to have your wedding gowns made into christening gowns for future children. You could also make decorative pillows featuring the more intricate pieces of embroidery or beadwork. That preserves the most iconic details of your gown.
3. Wedding veil
The wedding gown isn’t the only iconic piece of wedding regalia that people like to hold onto. Wedding veils are also important in many different cultural and religious traditions. They are often said to symbolize concepts like modesty, obedience, and chastity.
In the past, they were also sometimes regarded as an indicator of someone’s social status. Like wedding gowns, veils need to be specially stored so they don’t turn yellow or disintegrate as time passes. You can store them in an acid-free archival box.
4. Wedding shoes
Not everyone preserves wedding shoes, but it’s not difficult to do if you decide to do so. Wearing a pair of nitrile gloves, wipe the shoes with a clean dry cloth to remove any bacteria lingering after a night of dancing. Put them into a breathable archival box separate from the dress and veil.
5. Tiara and jewelry
Some brides will use a glittery tiara in lieu of or in addition to a wedding veil. If you were one of them, you may want to store your tiara along with your dress and veil. Just remember that opening a sealed box with a gown or veil in it can undo the preservation process. If you think you’d like to revisit your tiara and jewelry on a more regular basis, store them in their own separate box.
6. Groom’s clothing items
While wedding gowns are commonly preserved and protected, a groom’s clothing is usually an afterthought. Some men even rent tuxes for their big day but more men are making their own fashion statements on a smaller scale through accessories like ties and pocket squares.
Men also sometimes sport cufflinks on formal occasions. Store fabric items like bowties, cummerbunds, or pocket squares in acid-free tissue paper in an archival box near your wedding gown. Keep other items like cufflinks with the bride’s tiara and jewelry.
Other Items to Put in a Wedding Keepsake Box
It’s easy to identify wedding gowns and veils (iconic pieces to put in a keepsake box) but you can add several other wedding keepsake items worth holding onto. Here are some other pieces of wedding-related ephemera you might like to preserve.
7. Printed paper items
Even if you’ve never had strong opinions on things like cardstock and fonts, an upcoming wedding can make you care in a hurry. Brides and grooms might spend hours designing engagement announcements, save-the-date cards, and invitations. It’s always a great idea to order extras of these items to preserve in a keepsake box.
Weddings also usually have printed programs that tell people about the order of service. These are other items worth holding onto. You can even ask caterers for a printout of your menu. Organize all these documents into a scrapbook or album that can be placed inside a keepsake box.
8. Dried wedding flowers
Flowers are often a fairly big line item on a wedding budget. So it makes sense that people would want to preserve the flowers they so carefully selected. You can use old-fashioned methods of preserving flowers by pressing their blossoms between pages or hanging a bouquet upside down to dry out.
You can also use more advanced techniques like preserving blooms with silica gel or freezing them inside epoxy resin.
9. Wedding cake topper
One popular tradition calls for newlyweds to freeze the top tier of their wedding cake. Then, on their one-year anniversary, they can defrost this cake and eat it together.
While this is perfectly safe to do, even the world’s tastiest cake will suffer a loss in quality from being frozen. In our opinion, the cake topper is a better memento to hold onto. It symbolically represents your cake without going stale.
10. Wedding playlist
Music often sets the tone for a wedding reception. Whether they hire a DJ or a live band, brides and grooms tend to have a lot of input in the songs played at a wedding, such as the married couple’s first dance and dances with their parents.
Even beyond that, the newlyweds may have other meaningful songs they’d like to be played during the reception. Typing up a playlist of these songs is a great way to hold onto them in your memory. You can even put some of those songs on while you revisit your keepsake items.
11. Wedding guest book
When people get married, they often have people sign into a guest book. This serves as a kind of a living document of the people who came to support your union. Guests write their names in the guest book along with a personal message.
This might include memories about the married couple falling in love or advice for a happy marriage. Most of the items in a keepsake box will remind you about your own experiences while planning the wedding. The guest book can show you a whole new perspective on your special day.
12. Keepsake gifts
Newlyweds often get wedding gifts to help them as they embark on their new lives. Many of these items get lots of use on a daily basis. Some wedding gifts are delicate and are intended for special occasions, such as champagne flute keepsake gifts.
Unique personalized items like this are nice to tuck away in a keepsake box. When you’re in the mood to look through the box, pull out the champagne flutes and pop open a bottle of bubbly. You can sip out of these glasses while you reminisce.
Keepsake Boxes Help You Make the Most Out of Your Wedding Memories
Out of all of our senses, the sense of touch may have the strongest connection to memory. Studies have shown that when people touch and handle an object, the memories associated with it can be stronger and last for a longer period of time.
Keeping special items from your wedding in a keepsake box can help you to more easily access your memories when you’re in the mood for reminiscing — it’s a great time capsule idea to help you remember specific special days.