Happily After All: Honoring Our Family

As I've said a couple of times before, it was really important to me to honor our family members that have gotten married before us.  They've provided such a positive picture of what family and marriage should be like.
I showed you what I did with all of the pictures I gathered in the post about decorating, but I wanted to post each picture individually, because some of them are really old and fun to look at!

Edited to include: A few of you have asked how I pulled this off and was able to get every single family members' picture.  Well, I already had everyone's address for the invitation, so I just sent a letter to each wife asking for a picture from their wedding day for a special project I was working on.  I let them know they could either mail it to me, or email it if it was on their computer. (So I included my email and my address.)  I asked if I could keep the picture or if I needed to return it afterwards. 
So slowly, they all started trickling in.  I only had to remind a couple of people to send them my way.

We'll start with Mr. T's family.

Josh's Mom and Dad

His maternal grandparents.  His grandpa was in WWII and now they live on a gorgeous 300+ acre farm.  They had five kids, one of whom is Josh's mom.

His mom's brother and wife.  They have three kids, one of which is married with two kids, and one who is getting married in October!

The married daughter, Josh's cousin.

His mom's other brother and wife.

His mom's sister and husband.  Does he not look exactly like Tom Cruise?!!  They also have two married daughters and a younger son.

Here is their oldest who is expecting their first baby any day now!

And their other daughter who just left with her husband for two years in the Peace Corps in Fiji.

Here's another of Josh's cousins who was recently married.  They now have an adorable little girl.

And onto his dad's side of the family:

His paternal grandparents.  They also had five children, one of which was obviously Josh's dad.

His dad's sister and husband.  They have two girls.

His other aunt and her husband.  They have two boys.

All but a couple of these people live right here in MN within 45 minutes in any direction of us.  It's so nice having family so close, because I didn't have that with my family when I was growing up.

And now for my family.

My parents.

My maternal grandparents (my late grandpa).  My mom's parents had five kids, three of which are married, one that was married, and one that hasn't been yet.

My aunt and her husband.  They have three girls, one who is married with a little baby, and another who is getting married this month!

Their married oldest.

My mom's youngest sister and her husband.

And now my dad's side:

My dad's parents.  They only had three kids, all of whom are married with children.  I'm the first on this side to get married.

My dad's sister, the oldest.

My dad's brother, and his wife.

So there you have it.  All of our important family wedding pictures.  Hopefully some of the pictures provided a little humor for you.  I just wish I would have gotten all of their wedding dates while I was collecting pictures.  That might be another project!

The Anniversary Dance

For those of you that have been following me for a few months, you might remember my post Honoring Those Before Us.  Mr. T and I are both so lucky and blessed to have great examples of loving and successful marriages in our families and we want to celebrate that on our wedding day.  The previous post is about something I'd like to put together using everyones' wedding photos.  I would also like to incorporate an Anniversary Dance at our reception.  I have attended numerous weddings that did this, so to me it's not a new concept.

For those of you that may not know, or be familiar with it, an Anniversary Dance is a special dance at the reception that can be done following the first dance, father-daughter dance, and mother-son dance to encourage people to get out on the dance floor.  We'll pick a slow, lovey-dovey song, and the DJ will encourage all couples to come out to the floor and dance with us.  Then throughout the song, in intervals, he will ask anyone that has been married for less than ___ years to take a seat.  You fill in the blanks, starting with one year, five years, ten years, and building your way up.  The last couple on the dance floor at the end of the song will be married the longest.

(source)

I have no idea who this couple is, but I want to be that happy and in love when I get old and wrinkly.

I think it's a really great way to celebrate the marriages in our family.  It will be fun to see who makes it the longest.  I remember my grandparents celebrating their 50th anniversary when I was younger, not quite sure what they're up to now, and I'm sure Mr. T's grandparents have celebrated theirs as well.  It will be one more reminder for us that love really does last, and not all marriages are doomed for divorce.

What are you doing to celebrate your loved ones on your wedding day?

Honoring Those Before Us

With all the looking and searching I've been doing for different aspects of my wedding, I have run into "memorial" type things pretty frequently.  It has had been thinking for awhile now.  On my side of the family, my only close relative to pass has been my Grandpa when I was younger.  Mr. T still has all of his close relatives.  While I do have great aunts and uncles, great grandparents, etc that have passed away, I never actually knew them.  So to me, a full blown memorial table, or dedication in the program just doesn't seem fitting. 

I'm also afraid it might add a sort of depressing tone to the day.  I do like the idea though of having a charm attached to my bouquet, and since it would just be my Grandpa, it wouldn't start to look too cluttered.

The more I have thought about it, I really think it would be nice to honor all of our family members before us that have entered into marriage.  Mr. T and I are extremely lucky to have family that has stuck together and not given up when times have gotten tough.

I think it would be nice to put together a collage of sorts honoring our parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, great-grandparents, great aunts and uncles, cousins, etc that have married before us.

I can see something like this, with all of our relatives wedding day pictures sitting by the gift table, or possibly the entrance table containing the escort cards.  I think it would be something that would draw a lot of attention and spark stories of times past.  I already have wedding pictures of most of my relatives, all the way back to my great-great-grandparents, so I would just need to get Mr. T's and come up with a nice way to display them.

Are any of you doing anything to honor, or remember family members that have either passed, or are still living today??