The Wedding Picture Display

One of the goals I hoped to achieve in wedding planning was to retain certain traditional elements of the wedding ceremony while throwing in a few twists. I wanted people to walk away saying, "That was different, but I liked it."

The wedding picture display was not an entirely original idea, but it was one of those things I hoped would set our reception decor apart a little. I had heard of a wedding where the bride asked guests to send in a picture from their own wedding. She turned the pictures into posters and hung them up in the reception hall. I hadn't actually thought about doing something like that until I met with Sharon, who manages the Postma Center, where we had our reception. She encouraged me to have something in the foyer that would let everyone know as they arrived that they were in the right place: the Selden/Gysen wedding.

I love pictures as a decoration, so it occurred to me that I could ask some close friends and family members to lend me pictures of their weddings, nicely framed, to put on display on a table in the foyer. The result was more beautiful than I could imagine, thanks to the creative skill of my extraordinary reception coordinator, my sister-in-law, Zella, whose lovely wedding picture with my brother as groom was on the table.

Among the display photos was this one of Henry's parents. I also had a picture of another Dutch couple, the Postmas, from the Netherlands in the 1940s, I'm guessing. Of course my parents' and grandparents' pictures were there, along with good friends' pictures from the sixties, seventies, eighties, and nineties.

And it couldn't have been easier to coordinate. I asked participants to bring their pictures to me at work or church, framed (the more variety, the better), and then told them to take them with them as they left the reception. An easy idea that worked out well, and hopefully gave my guests something to enjoy as they wandered through the foyer. Thanks again to everyone who helped me out by letting us decorate our wedding with pictures of theirs. It turned out to be a great tribute to love, weddings, and brides and grooms!