One of the most common elements to a wedding is to have some sort of personalization for you and your future spouse. It’s coming into fashion to have some ways to tell your love story and show off your hobbies throughout your wedding decor and other decisions, but it can be hard to know where to start.

The first thing you should do is make a list of yours and your partner’s hobbies, things that remind you of each other, or significant details about how you met or other elements of your life story. The goal here is to wrap up some details about you both and find some things to subtly or bluntly show who you are as a couple. You can also ask some of your close family and friends what reminds them of you both if you need some extra ideas. If you are able to add these personalized elements to your wedding, your guests will be intrigued and invested in you and your story even more than before. This is almost guaranteed to have your guests have a memorable experience! Here are some of the things that you can start to think about when you try and find ways to add a little more personality and more of “you” in your wedding:

Hobbies

Looking at the activities that you both do together or things that you do individually is certainly a good start. For example, you can have ceramics that you have made as centerpieces, or have your table “numbers” as names of your favorite plants, childhood photos of you both at those ages, or places you’ve been. My favorite real-life example is from a wedding I worked where the couple were both food bloggers and they had a unity “spice” ceremony instead of with sand, and then had little spice mason jars as their wedding favors that also had family recipes attached to use for the spices.

Locations

The location of your engagement session, rehearsal dinner, wedding shower, ceremony, or your reception can be something that speaks to you as a couple. If there is a spot that you got engaged that you want to shoot photos at, or to eat at your favorite restaurant for your rehearsal dinner, or even have a destination wedding at your favorite place to vacation, you can definitely have some fun with this one.

Specific Dates

Depending on the time of year, you could try and have your wedding date on the same day that you met, started dating, or got engaged. You can also incorporate your favorite holiday and see about having a holiday wedding.

Including your Pets

If you have any pets of your own, this is a fun way to have them involved with your wedding! If your venue and time allows, you can try and hire a pet handler to actually bring them to the wedding for some photos. If that’s not possible, you can do something like having them as a cake topper, the face of your signature cocktails, or print out their face to put on napkins.

Incorporating your “Favorites”

When you’re listing all the things that remind you of your soon-to-be spouse, you may want to list some of their favorite things like colors, foods, desserts, and flowers. This is a really easy way to get those favorite things incorporated that will probably already be on your list of things you need! You can use a favorite color as the color for your wedding party, a favorite flower in your bouquets, or having your favorite desserts or food served at the wedding. If possible, your signature cocktails could also be your favorite drinks, too. Even with some of your more specific favorites, like movies or books, you can have some subtle nods to those things in your decor or your ceremony as well. I saw someone do a grand exit with their wedding party all holding lightsabers, so just know you can really be as creative as you want.

Music

The music you play throughout your wedding has a huge influence on how the day feels, and if you aren’t the “classic Michael Bublé cocktail hour” type of couple, definitely use some opportunities to play some of your favorite tunes! I recommend sticking with danceable music for your open dancing part of your reception, but you can really play with your ceremony, cocktail hour, and reception music to add a unique touch to your day. You can walk down the aisle to your favorite song, have your rock music during cocktail hour, and have a fun first dance song. Whatever holds meaning to you will also make it more memorable for your guests.

Nods to your Guests

If you want to include more than you and your partner on your day for some special tributes and nods to other family members or friends, you can definitely play with this idea. Some couples play their parents’ first dance song as one of their slow songs for the night or walk down the aisle to a song their grandparents love. You can also play some songs that you used to sing with your best friends too. There can be other nods other than music though, like using a parent’s cake topper or having their favorite dessert. I have seen more often that mothers of the bride will give their dress to be repurposed into either a modern dress for the bride to wear to the rehearsal, or to make a robe for the morning to get ready in too. For the loved ones that have passed, you can also have ways to honor them throughout your day too. I have a blog post here about some of the options to honor your loved ones that are no longer with us.

Personalized Vows

This is probably one of the most personal things you can do at your ceremony! Having words that speak from your heart is an amazing way to have your guests in on a little part of your relationship, and usually these vows are a lot more meaningful to you as a couple. If you’re also doing a first look, you can have these vows during the first look so that you don’t have to have this in front of everyone if that’s not your cup of tea.

Personal Thank Yous

Having a way to interact with your guests makes them feel a little extra special and loved. If you have the time and energy, having personalized “thank yous” really can make your guests feel personally involved in your wedding in a way that will mean the world to them. You can write individual thank yous for their placecards, you can write them for each table, or you can have a thank you speech to have a moment to look around the room and be grateful for all of the love that everyone has for you two.

For my own wedding, I have a pretty long list of ways I made things more personalized. Many of them were subtle where the guests may not have noticed, but they meant a lot to me. I walked down the aisle to my husband’s favorite song, I had a little corgi on our wedding cake to represent our dog, Pierogi, and we used my late grandparents’ wedding cake knife for our cake cutting. I have a blog post about the full list of personalized things from my own wedding here.

If it’s possible to find ways to have your hobbies and favorite things incorporated into your day, it really adds a unique and personal touch that you will appreciate and your guests will remember for years to come. Adding personalized things to your wedding really makes the experience for you and your guests extra special and meaningful for you and your future spouse. Hopefully you are able to think of something fun to represent you and your love story!

If you would need help coming up with ideas, email me at hello@firmlyrootedevents.com with some of your favorite things and some details about you and your partner. I’d love to help you try and come up with something fun!