Your wedding day is a day you spend months planning for to make sure every detail, big and small, is perfect! You Purchase the most elegant dress, the classiest décor, and the prettiest floral arrangements. But what do you do with all of these special items when the day is over? It can be hard to part with items that were used to make your wedding day perfect, however we have come up with some ideas on how to reuse and preserve your wedding memorabilia.
First things first… Your wedding dress! One of the more traditional ideas on reusing a wedding dress is preservation. Many brides preserve their wedding dress so that they can feature it in their home in a shadow box or save it for future daughters to wear on their big day. If you’re not set on preserving your wedding dress as is, why not transform it into something new. Companies such as fairy godmother creations can transform your wedding dress into a child’s christening gown or luxurious romper. Some other unique ideas would be transforming your wedding dress into a table runner to use on special occasions, a teddy bear or pillow case to set on your bed, a bed skirt for a future baby crib, or even a clutch for fancy nights out.
Photo: Fairy Godmother Creations
If you don’t want to necessarily keep your dress but feel wrong just throwing it away, then find a charity, such as adorned in grace, who will take your wedding gown and resell them in order to raise awareness and money for sex-trafficking. Another amazing organization to donate your beloved dress to is Brides Across America. This organization donates wedding dresses to military brides. Having your wedding dress make someone else’s special day more magical is something I can get behind.
Photo: Brides Across America
Photo: Adorned In Grace
One thing that is necessary for the planning stage of your wedding day is the invitations! Unfortunately, most wedding invitations get tossed in the trash after the big day is over. Yikes! That’s a lot of wasted paper. Companies such as Botanical Paper Works has accepted the challenge and offer a creative solution to paper invitations. This company prints wedding invitations onto seed paper. This means that when planted in soil the paper actually grows wildflowers or herbs! How neat is that?
Too late to do this for your invitations? How about ordering your thank you cards from them!
Photo: Botanical Paper Works
The amount of food you purchase is always a concern at weddings. Often times couples over purchase wedding food in order to insure that all guests have plenty to eat on their big day! What do you do with the leftovers? Obviously one solution is to give the leftovers to family or even offer It to the staff members (I can assure you that college interns and or setup members would greatly appreciate it). You can also make arrangements with your caterers or ask your venue if they know of a place that the leftover food can be donated.
Photos (Left to Right): Logan Simmons Photography, Cezanne Photography, Cait Carr Photography, L+A Photography, and Joey Wallace Photography
You spend hours pining different floral arrangements on Pintrest and many meetings with a florist but what happens to your flowers after your wedding? Many brides take some home but leave the rest at the venue for either the staff of florists to pick up. Consider donating your flowers to a hospital or nursing home so that patients can enjoy them why they are fresh. This is a sweet way to brighten someone else’s day. Another idea on how to upcycle your florals is to preserve some. Some brides press a few wedding flowers in order to use them to decorate their wedding album!
Photo: Pintrest
Everyone loves to create the perfect center pieces to their reception tables, but what do you do with twenty tall vases or fifty white candles after the day is over? If you know of a non-profit that is hosting a nice fundraising event you could donate your center pieces to them in order to help lower their costs and generate more donations. Another good idea is trying to sell or donate wedding items that won’t be reused on sites such as wedding-recycle.com.
Photos (From Left to Right): Scenic Root Photography, Haley Henderson Photography, Jessica Pendley Photography, and Dash Photography
The list of ideas on how to upcycle your wedding items is endless. The ideas range from dyeing your white pumps into a color that would allow you to wear your wedding shoes more often to selling unwanted wedding items on Facebook. We hope our list of suggestions gives you an idea on how to stretch each wedding item to repurpose or donate it. Whatever you choose to do, make it your own! As always happy planning!