Sure, you can spend many thousands of dollars decorating your wedding venue with streamers or fishbowl centerpieces or battery-operated votive candles—and many wedding planners will make you think you’re crazy for wanting to lay low on the decor.  But in addition to choosing some tasteful flowers and other decor, why not invest also invest in decorations that you can carry with you through your lifetime together?  

We all know that there will be moments of joy and moments of challenge in every marriage.  Having something tangible from your ceremony in your home can serve as a powerful reminder of the love and community that surrounded you on your wedding day.  

1. Buy a beautiful flower vase from a local artist. 

Fill it with its first stunning bouquet on your wedding day, and place it in a central spot to welcome your guests when they arrive.  After the wedding, put the vase on a mantelpiece or kitchen counter, and every so often surprise each other by filling it with flowers. 

There will come a time when the two of you might struggle to find the time to connect, with kids and careers and a hundred other obligations filling your days.  Putting a simple bouquet in the vase and setting it on a counter for your spouse to find when they come down in the morning is a sweet way to let them know that you are thinking about them and cherishing the memories of your wedding.  

Fill the vase on anniversaries, to celebrate birthdays, or just because it’s a Wednesday—it can quickly become a favorite tradition in your marriage.

2. Use a special chuppah for your ceremony that you can hang in your home after the wedding. 

A chuppah, or Jewish wedding canopy, can serve as both a powerful spiritual center for the ceremony, and a beautiful aesthetic focal point for the wedding.  In the Jewish tradition, a chuppah is meant to symbolize the couple’s home together, and is open on all four sides to welcome the community inside.  

Some people choose to rent a chuppah from their florist (or, as I recently heard from one shocked wedding planner, just grab a bed sheet from Target on the way to the ceremony)!  But if you buy a chuppah from an artist then you can have the chuppah to cherish for your lifetime together.  If you’re moving into a new home together, perhaps it will even be the first work of art that you purchase together.  Hang it on the walls of your bedroom, or the entryway of your home, and be reminded each time you look at it of the vows you shared and the love and community that ground your marriage.

3.  Instead of cut flower centerpieces, go for live flower bulbs.  

After the wedding, plant the bulbs in your yard (or if you don’t have a patch of grass to call your own, keep them in pots on a windowsill).  When they come up the next year after a long dreary winter, you’ll have a sweet little reminder of the joy and beauty that surrounded you on your wedding day. 

The best part about this is that most flower bulbs divide and replicate.  Every few years you can dig up the bulbs and you’ll find that you have many more bulbs waiting to be re-planted.  You can literally watch your love grow and multiply throughout the years—by your thirty-year anniversary you’ll have a field of flowers, and enough to share with your kids for their wedding ceremony (should they share your taste in flowers).  

Looking for more ideas while planning your wedding?  Check out our post How to Hang a Chuppah on Your Wall,  read our interview with Ketuv Fine Art Ketubahs, and sign up below to get more great stories like this delivered straight to your inbox!