Memorial Table at the Wedding?

Do you want happiness and a sense of the future at your wedding or sorrow, loss, and looking back at the past? I would toast "Absent friends," and let it go at that.

Before you do any type of memorial display, please think of the feeling that others will have about it. This is a very recent loss for your family. It may upset some family members to be reminded of it by seeing a photo at the ceremony or reception. It may also be difficult for you to have that on the day of your wedding. Your emotions will most likely already be heightened just because of the day's activities.

If you want to honor her and have a part of her at your wedding, I would suggest a smaller more subtle way. Maybe a photo charm in your bouquet? Is there a piece of her jewelry you can incorporate either by wearing it or wrapping it in your bouquet? Or maybe adding her favorite flower to your centerpieces, alter flowers, bouquet, etc? This way, you will still know that small touch is in honor of her but it is not a big bold reminder that may upset people.

My grandmother passed away a little less then a year before the wedding. We did this and balled my eyes out twice during the dinner. I love her and miss her so much. I would recommend doing it as it was moving to see her there even though she wasn't there.

Instead of only pictures folks we have lost I made collages of the whole family. It was more celebratory than memorial. People stopped and seemed to love it. Someone even took one of the photos, i assume they were featured in it. All of my grandparents have passed, so I wore a necklace that was my grandmas' birthstones, a ring from my one grandma, and worked my other grandma's rosary and a charm for my grandpa into my bouquet.

We are doing a small wall display of pictures. Since we have met, we have lost a grandmother and grandfather each, so we decided to have a small display for them.

We did not do any kind of memorial table for our deceased loved ones.

My grandmother passed away a few days before our wedding. I did not think it would be appropriate to display her picture or make any kind of big show about her death. I certainly would not have been able to have that kind of reminder in my line of sight for even a second without breaking down in tears, and I think it would have been cruel for my family to have walked in to our venue and be faced with a visual reminder of our huge loss. We didn't even have time to hold her funeral before our wedding.

I also feel strongly that with memorial displays, it's all or nothing. You either include everyone or you don't. If you don't, you risk offending those guests who shared that relative with you because it makes it look like some were more important than others. DH and I had 9 grandparents between the two of us who were deceased, including the grandmother who passed away just before our wedding. It did not seem fair to only do a memorial table for that one grandmother because her death was most recent, especially since two of the others had also passed away within the previous year. All I can imagine when I think of a memorial table for 9 grandparents is that it would be morbid and guests would feel like they had walked into a funeral home, not a wedding venue. It would have been so focused on loss.

I am not saying don't honor your grandmother. I just favor less obvious, more personal ways of honoring loved ones who have passed, or ways that focus on celebrating life and not focusing on loss. I think I would have really liked to carry a bouquet charm with my grandmother's picture, but there was no time for me to get one. I chose instead to ask our DJ to dedicate a song to my grandmother during the reception that was social to her, and had him request that everyone join us on the dance floor. He simply said "she couldn't be there tonight" and said a brief line about why the sing was significant (it was one of the two we all remember her humming and singing as she did anything). She was also someone who loved to dance. So we had a nice moment where we were all up dancing, doing something she loved, and it felt like we were celebrating life, not focusing on our loss. No one cried.

Considering how recent your grandmother's loss is to your wedding, I recommend that you choose the way you honor your grandmother carefully. Consider that you will still be grieving and your family will still be grieving, and certain things, like a display focused on how much she is missed will likely be overwhelming. Think small and simple so that you'll be able to get through your celebration with joy. I cannot say enough how sorry I am for your loss.

We haven't fully decided yet but I do want to recognize our loss of FH father, three grandparents, my aunt, and my two cousins. I was thinking listing the names in a frame and then just having a few candles lit next to it. Pictures might make me emotional

We had a memory table for my husband's parents. It was a table off to the side with their wedding picture on it. Our officiant also mentioned them in our ceremony (and my two grandmothers) To me, this is such a personal thing that I feel like this is the one instance where you can say, you do you boo (as much as I hate that phrase) For us, remembering my husband's parents and my grandmothers added more meaning to our day. For other people, a memory table would only make them sad.

I think an " in memory of those we love" picture and frame is lovely by the name cards is nice too. I plan to for my Uncle.

FH and I have gone back and forth on this issue quite a bit. Ultimately we decided we're going to frame a poem or prayer for those we lost and put it with some candles on the venue's grand piano. I didn't want anything too sad or depressing and feel like including photos or listing names might be too much for some of our guests since our losses are not just our own, they're our families' as well and we don't want to upset anyone on what should be a happy day. There was also the issue of who should be included and we didn't want to leave anyone out so that's why we decided to keep it vague.

However, I did take a piece of the beaded crown my grandmother wore on her wedding day and my seamstress cut it into the shape of a heart and sewed it on the inside of the skirt of my dress. I'll also be wearing a piece of my other grandmother's jewelry on the day. FH is wearing a pin with the pictures of his two deceased cousins and grandparents. So there's other ways you can honor a loved one who passed away that might actually be more personal.

I was doing one but opted out.

FH lost all 3 of his grandmothers within a year and the most recent one last year which was the hardest for him. He asked about having some pictures up like we saw at another wedding and really wants to do something so we are thinking about getting a photo collage from snapfish or something like that with pictures of all of our grandparents, and possibly my uncle.

I agree that subtlety is key since you don't know where others are in their grief journey.

We plan to do something as a memorial, not necessarily a table set up at the reception with the empty chairs but definitely a table with photos and some sort of sign or poem in a frame with candles.

I'm doing one. My FH has had a handful of family members pass and I had my grandma pass last year whom I was very close to. Just going to have their photos and a memorial candle lit.

We are having one, I lost my grandmother a year ago and wanted her and my grandfathers their in some way. We are just having a table with a flower arrangement and some pictures.

I am planning on having framed wedding pictures of our parents and grandparents on the card/guestbook table. I think it's a nice way to honor our families.

Currently I am going to do one just because I lost my grandmother this year and I grew up extremely close to her and it really kills me that she's not going to be able to see me walk down the aisle. also, on my fiance side he's lost a couple close people this year so yeah we decided to do one we thought it would be a nice way to honor them and kind of have them there with us... How we're doing it, I think I'm going to get a bunch of antique frames and I'm probably going to ask for pictures of them from the family (just one picture of each person) and I'm probably going to get like a little Lantern and have a candle inside and have a nice poem in the middle of all the pictures of them

We are doing something like this for ours.

@Jaskra - I am very sorry for your loss. I may be in in the unpopular opinion here but here goes: I do not like memorial tables at weddings. It is a wedding, not a wake, not a funeral, not sitting shiva. The memorial table trend is new (about 15, 20 years) and it seems to shift the mood of a wedding from joy to a memorial. My parents have both passed, I got married a few weeks ago - we had funerals for them, now it is a wedding day! Having lost your dear gramma so soon may bring up strong emotions in our guests as well.