In the interest of helping my daughter be more organized with her homework, school books and papers, I promised to give her a large plastic case I had up in the back of the closet. It’s bright blue with 10 or so pockets and a flap that folds down over the front and closes with elastic bands. The pockets were all neatly labeled and there was an index card in a pocket on the front listing the contents of each pocket as well: ceremony, flowers, reception, catering, photographer, etc. I bought the case in 1995 and used it to hold all the documents and materials that I accumulated while planning our wedding, which took place in June, 1996.
The elastic was stretched out and floppy and the layer of dust on the cover of the case was, frankly, embarrassing, but in my own defense, I HAVE cleaned it out once before…a long time ago, after we moved to Sweden. But every pocket still contained something of enough importance that I felt the need to hold on to it.
Tonight, I went through and winnowed it down again. I threw away the following:
- receipts & copies of checks, business cards and contracts for the photographer, the violinist (that my sister met on a plane!), the dress, the DJ, the flowers, the cake, the catering, the reception hall, the church, the hotel room, and our travel itinerary for our honeymoon
- spreadsheet of cost comparisons for photographers
- 1996 White Sox schedule
- spreadsheet of costs of each section of our month-long honeymoon (Athens, Istanbul, Santorini, Naxos, Sweden)
- lists of household items we already had
- wishlists for the wedding registry for things we DIDN’T have yet
- printouts from actual purchases from the wedding registry (strangely, no one bought us the $150 espresso machine)
- pages ripped from magazines with pictures of my dress (long since sold) and the bridesmaid dresses and a page of flower ideas that I liked
- sheet music for the Delsbo Wedding March
- The minister’s play-by-play for the entire ceremony including instructions such as TELL THEM TO SIT DOWN
- page after page after page of photograph orders by number and placement for albums
Things I actually kept anyway for posterity:
- The catering contract which listed all the food for the reception including, of course, Swedish meatball appetizers
- The questionnaire for the DJ which has NO checked for the following: Hokey-Pokey? Bunny Hop? Polka’s? (sic) but YES checked for Ethnic Music and then the description: Swedish—Peps Persson, Dan Hylander 😀
- Receipts and appraisal information for my wedding and engagement rings
- 2 copies of the ceremony program
- 2 copies of the wedding invitations
- spreadsheet of the invited guests, which included columns labeled “sent”, “likely” and “responded”. There are at least 3 people listed that I have no recollection of whatsoever.
- copies of our wedding certificate
- The angry 2-page letter that I wrote to the first Swedish church that dumped us, just because I write an awesome angry letter
Keep in mind that I have 4 photo albums plus all the original proofs, the guestbook from the reception that everyone wrote in, a framed copy of the invitation that my friend Sharon who sang at the wedding gave to me (currently in the back of the closet) plus a little organizer notebook with most of the details filled out, and which also includes such helpful information as a entire page of text, divided into columns, headed “Who pays for what”.
I should scan some wedding pics, shouldn’t I? We should go buy a new scanner/printer, shouldn’t we?