First Comes Love …

Capturing the Story Behind the Wedding Day Magic

By Amanda Kuhnert

Your wedding day is the pivotal chapter in a beautiful love story–one that began months, often years, before you ever tried on that perfect bridal gown. Have you ever thought about how you’ll preserve the story behind your special day? After all, it’s your unique romantic journey that sets your wedding ceremony apart from any other.

I know that amidst the busyness that surrounded my own wedding over a decade ago, I didn’t have a spare second to sit down and record my thoughts and feelings about this once-in-a-lifetime experience. And my husband-to-be certainly wasn’t keeping a journal! Thirteen years, a house, and two children later, I would love to hear what we might have had to say as we approached this major milestone in our relationship – and lives.

Yes, I have a wedding album and a video of the entire event. I even had my gown preserved in white acid-free tissue paper. But I don’t have any record of what was going through our hearts and minds during the months and days leading up to the moment when we said, “I do.”

As a personal historian who helps individuals and families share and preserve their memories, I often interview couples celebrating a golden anniversary or milestone birthday. And we always touch on one topic in particular–their wedding day. But after fifty years or so, memories can be a tad bit fuzzy.

With the passage of time and the surreal nature of the event itself, it’s understandable that decades from now you might not remember all of the details surrounding your engagement and wedding planning, let alone your innermost thoughts, feelings, hopes, and dreams.

But there are steps that you can take today that will boost memory recall later on. Here are a few fun and simple ways to keep those special memories fresh through the years:

• Select photo albums with memo space for writing detailed descriptions alongside your pictures–remember, who, what, when, where! At the very least, consider pasting (on the inside-front cover of the album) a list of key memories, moments, and funny stories from your wedding week.
• Keep a journal chronicling the events leading up to your wedding day, as well as your thoughts and emotions prior to, during, and after the celebration. Some couples even create wedding blogs to share with friends and family. Save hard copies of your posts and place them in a beautifully designed binder.
• Print out and save wedding-related emails. Store them in a folder or binder along with any other special letters and cards. Together, they will tell the story of your engagement in a unique and intimate way.
• Hire a personal historian to help you tell your love story in your own words. Captured through interviews with the bride and groom (and even friends and family) days before the big event, “your wedding story” can take the form of a digital recording complete with music and photos or a keepsake book to be shared with loved ones or tucked away for your own enjoyment through the years.

Whatever approach works best for you, I encourage you to take the time and make the effort to preserve your love story so that it’s as clear in your mind fifty years from now as it is today.

Amanda Kuhnert, personal historian and owner of Fourfold Legacy Services, helps couples share and preserve their Wedding Stories through customized interviews that are digitally recorded and combined with music and photos to create a family keepsake.

www.fourfoldlegacy.com
802-371-9777

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