Family Wedding Photos

A long, long time ago, in a land far-away otherwise known as my "Pre-Wedding Days" (there is definitely a divide in my mind between the Pre-Wedding Days and Post-Wedding Days) I mentioned how I was on the hunt for family wedding photos to display at the wedding. 

What I did not talk about was how I planned to display them because truthfully, I had no freakin' idea.  I did eventually track down all seven wedding photos of our parents and grandparents (my grandfather re-married after my grandmother passed away, hence the seven photos instead of six.)

My original idea was to frame each one individually and display them together but I couldn't quite visualize where or how this would happen at our outdoor, tented wedding.  It seemed perfect if I had a mantel piece or some other display-type area in an indoor space but because we were outside, I was a bit stumped. Plus, buying seven frames was starting to sound pricey, which held me back as well (although ironically enough, what I ended up doing cost way more than buying the seven frames. Oh well...)

Anyways, this project morphed multiple times, both in my head and in real life.  First, I thought I could buy some sort of board to pin all the photos on and display it on a vintage easel I had laying around. Then I decided to do two boards, one for each family.  Then I decided I would frame the boards, necessitating a trip to the flea markets (I tell you, in the weeks leading up to the wedding, I was a flea markets maniac. I went to three different ones the same weekend at one point!)

After I bought the frames, I had the brilliant idea to make the boards myself, using card stock covered in fabric.  I went so far as to buy my materials but got about five minutes into the project before realizing that A) I am not good at these types of crafts and B) WHAT THE HELL AM I DOING?  I do not have the fine motor craft skills to successfully create these boards, at least not to the level where I would want to display them at the wedding (gluing fabric onto card stock is not as easy as it looks.  That shit wrinkles, pulls and tears almost as much as I did...)

I was stumped.  I had all my photos and these two beautiful frames I had scavenged at the flea markets but no clue how to display the photos in the frames.  Hmmmmmm, what to do, what to do...And then,randomly, miraculously, a light bulb went off in my head and BAM! Inspiration struck.

Hello? Parent gifts! I was planning on gifting our parents something before the wedding anyways but hadn't given much thought to the matter.  This was perfect.  I brought the frames and the photos to my local frame store and had them arranged and matted.  $175 dollars and two weeks later, I had two beautiful parent gifts waiting for me and I'm so pleased with how they turned out.

OK, now that you've managed to make it through the saga that was the family wedding photos, are you ready to see how look? Stupid me forgot to take the corner-protectors off of the frames when I took these photos so you'll have to wait for recaps to see them in their true glory but use your imagination for now...

Starting from the top left going clockwise, that is my maternal grandparents' wedding, my grandfathers' wedding to his second wife (the only grandma I've ever known,) my parents' wedding and my paternal grandparents.

Clockwise from the top,  Mr TM's maternal grandparents' wedding, Mr TM's parents' wedding and Mr TM's paternal grandparents' wedding.

We displayed them on vintage-style easels on the table with the guest book at the wedding and they were a huge hit, we received many compliments on them!

Here are the mama's opening their gifts the night before the rehearsal dinner, when we had a casual dinner for everyone who had arrived early for the weekend.

I think they both cried when they opened the gifts and saw what they were.

I'm really glad that I somehow managed to come up with this idea and I think everyone was happy with the results.  These will definitely be displayed in both our parents' homes and are a sweet reminder of the many weddings in our families before ours. 

Did you display family photos at your wedding? How did you/are you planning on doing it?