I was watching a TLC show recently called “A Blooming Business” about a floral designer in Dallas who was creating floral wedding decorations for a particular wedding in which the bride wanted to honor family members who had passed away. I’m all about honoring people who have impacted our lives, so my ears perked up when the designer shared this idea that she used.

When she created the bridal bouquet made from creamy peach peonies, she used strands of ivory satin ribbon to attach several antique gold lockets to the bouquet. Inside the lockets were photos of the bride’s loved ones she wanted to honor and remember on her wedding day. The photos had been scanned on the computer, printed, and cut to fit into the lockets for a really beautiful addition to the bride’s bouquet.

A note was included in the wedding program that the lockets were part of the bridal bouquet to honor those loved ones.

I think you could go a step further and include the loved ones’ photos in the program with the note of explanation, or even display their larger photos in the foyer on a small table with the explanation written on a larger sign. This would add to the wedding decorations as guests enter the ceremony site.

There are many traditional ways of honoring people through the wedding decorations—candles, pew flowers, wedding reception centerpieces—but I think this one is very unique and is a lasting keepsake for the bride.

Weddings have always been important days. They used to be considered among the luckiest of days, for the bride and groom were entering a more socially acceptable, and therefore more profitable, stage in life. The wedding day was particularly lucky for the bride, and she was considered the most lucky participant in the wedding. Guests who wished to appropriate some of that luck would attack the bride and tear off pieces of her dress, veil, or flowers as she and her new husband attempted to leave the ceremony. These objects supposedly transferred some of the bride’s luck to their new owners.

The tradition of tossing the bridal bouquet came first from self-defense: the bride would surrender her flowers to the pressing crowd in order Read the rest of Why Toss The Wedding Bouquet? »