Episode 37: Creative Ways to Honor Loved Ones at Your Wedding

Episode Summary

There are so many meaningful ways to bring the people you love into your wedding day, friends. In this episode, I’m sharing ideas for honoring loved ones who have passed and including those who can’t attend. We’ll talk about heirlooms, memory walls, family recipes, signature drinks, and small details that carry a story without needing a big announcement. I’ll also share why recording a ceremony can be such a gift for family members watching from afar. These gestures can be as personal and quiet as you want them to be.

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julianleaver.com | @julianleaver

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Full Episode Transcript

Welcome back to Mind Over Matrimony. I hope you all are having a lovely beginning to the fall season. We are back in the throes of it. We are really truly, let's be honest, it didn't really stop this year. There was no summer break, but we are just back into the fall and everybody is full swing ahead with their planning and really looking into next year as well. And I think one of the conversations has been coming up a lot this fall is how to honor your loved ones who maybe can't be with you at the wedding or who have passed and are no longer with us and really thinking about the different ways that is possible in the different places that you can actually unpack that and honor them throughout your celebrations.

And what I've loved is that everybody in the fall is actually honoring their loved ones in different ways. We have one couple who's honoring them through a memory wall that's at their cocktail hour adjoining their escort card wall. They have, I don't even know how to describe the theme of this wedding, but it's kind of more like grandma chic. And so like more is more in this situation. And so we have images and pictures and things mounted on the wall. And what I actually think is really cool is we've taken plates from some of the grandparents who have passed away and we're using those actually with the escort cards and writing their information on there.

So it's not only just a picture of their loved one, but it's like actually a physical thing, something that reminds them physically of their loved one at the wedding. And this wedding is in Charleston. And so it's got all of these just really lovely southern vibes happening. And it's going to be just a really cool way to honor. And I think the family's going to really respond so beautifully to it. And then we have a lot of people this fall honoring at the ceremony, which there's so many different ways to honor your loved ones at the ceremony. But I think the fit, the one that really is like my favorite in the ceremony is to have some kind of an heirloom, right?

Whether it's like a rosary or a cross or a locket or a beautiful handkerchief or something that that really reminds you of the person that's passed and brings them with you into the present moment and allows you to have that there just for yourself, right? Nobody else needs to know that it's there. It doesn't have to be a big show of honoring. It's just saying, hey, these are the people that I love and that I miss and that I wish they could be here and having them be with you through one of these mementos is so lovely. And then I think there's, of course, like not so much honoring, but making sure that people who can't actually be there with you, whether it's through illness or age or travel restriction or whatever that piece looks like, I think it is really important.

And we've been seeing a lot of this lately in terms of a video offering of having someone actually there to video the entire ceremony because our loved ones who are a little bit older, that really is the part for them that they connect with, that they want to see, they want to see you exchange your vows. They want to see everybody walk down the aisle. They want to see their great grandchild be the flower girl. It was really cool. We had a wedding in New York this two weekends ago and we had a recording of this ceremony, pardon me, but what was really cool about it was it was the second wedding, like very quickly in succession, maybe three years apart in this family at this same church. And so in the first wedding, there was a young man who was a ring bearer.

He was on the older side of being a ring bearer, but not quite aged out, right? And so he was a ring bearer at that wedding. And so then at this wedding, he actually did a reading. And so his grandparent who wasn't able to be there is going to be able to see, oh, this is so cool. At the last one, he did this and at this one, he did this. And then probably at the next one, he'll be an usher, right? And then he'll be a groomsman and then it'll be his time to get married. And these things are happening in the same church, in the same way, in the same ritual of it all. And I love that and the capturing of that.

I think really is so important for these memories and also for just the continuation of telling the story of a family or of how people are interacting with the kind of a sacrament of marriage in a lot of ways. And then I also really love we're doing another wedding this fall. This is so interesting that actually all of these pieces have been coming throughout in this fall way, but we have another wedding that's a more family style wedding. And so they wanted it to really feel like a restaurant. They wanted to be able to have everyone partake in this feast in some ways. And so one of the dishes in the feast is actually a recipe from one of the grandparents that had passed away. And so I love that that is coming in and weaving its way in.

And you can say, oh, this is grandma's and it's on the menu card. And so there's a beautiful way of honoring that person and having everyone kind of break bread around this idea of honoring your loved ones. And so there's so many different ways to do this. And I think it's just about thinking a little outside of the box in a lot of ways. I know we always for so many years, all we were doing really was was honoring on the ceremony program, like in loving memory, right? And then kind of that's where it ended. But it's I think it's more I hate to use the word experiential, right? But it is an experience. Bring them into the experience. Bring them into the way that you can have them flow through the whole space, right? You could honor them in the signature cocktail.

I think sometimes we get to this point in the tasting and people are like, what would you like your signature cocktail to be? And I think that's just such a generic question in so many ways in the food and beverage side. I think the food and beverage people should be asking what was your grandmother's favorite drink or what did your grandfather love to have at the end of the night right before as his nightcap. Let's bring those elements in. And it makes that part of a wedding that has been around for a very long time. You just twist it just a little tiny bit and it does make it a little bit more special or this kind of idea of mismatch things, right? We have a bride for next year and she's in love with these little demitasse spoons, right?

She has this spoon collection, but it was inspired by a family member who also loved collecting these spoons. And so it's these little tiny things like how can we use these little spoons, right? Can they be at each little place as the escort card or the place card or can we serve them with a cake or I think there's just so many fun and different and interesting ways. And we just all have to expand our brain on the food and beverage side a little bit and dive into the history of things and why certain foods are important or why certain pieces of China are important and bring those things in as the honoring and mix those things in, right?

I love when we get to the cake cutting and it's an heirloom cake knife and server that was maybe used three or four or five times in a family and you bring that tradition forward or that you with intention maybe you don't have an heirloom like that, right? But you're starting that kind of thing for your family for the future. I do think that there's so many other cool ways to do it. Let's bring it into the party part, too. Let's bring in the party. I was thinking, like, for my great-grandparents, I'm like, okay, we're going to serve Jello with like pineapple and carrots in it, which is so random, but like weird stuff like that.

Like what did they love or like what did they, what was their favorite sweet or like those things and it's not a thing that's going to resonate with everybody, right? It's not a broadcast of this. We are honoring in this way and there needs to be a sign and no, it needs to be none of that. It needs to be like subtle and sweet and the people that know they know. And I love that. It's just like a little nod. There's all these little tiny bits and bobs in a wedding that we have the opportunity to really make it feel so special to you and your story that are so important. And I think we love to have the opportunity to have those conversations with you to get to know you better in that way and then help you tell that story.

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