Honouring absent loved ones on your wedding day: 9 heartfelt ways to remember them

Your wedding is a truly happy event and one filled with joy and celebration. If you are missing a special friend of loved family member from your celebrations, you might be considering ways you can include them in your wedding and ensure they are remembered and treasured on your big day. Choosing a way that feels right for you and your partner is important.

Here are some meaningful ways to honour and remember your loved ones on your special day:

1. Reserve a Seat

This is one we’ve seen done many times and it’s always a lovely way of paying homage to someone special. Whether it be a chair in the front row at your ceremony or a space at a table for your reception, it’s a beautiful way of honouring that person. You could add a favourite item of clothing to the chair, a beautiful bouquet of flowers or another special item to honour that person.

2. Memorial Table

What better way of incorporating them into your day with photos? Setting up a memorial table adorned with candles, photographs, and mementos that reflect their life and personality is a treasured way of including them in your day. This one is really popular and a beautiful way of including our loved one in your celebrations.

3. Incorporate Their Favourite Flowers

Consider incorporating your loved one’s favourite flowers into your wedding bouquet or floral arrangements. It’s a subtle yet meaningful way to carry their memory with you as you walk down the aisle or throughout the day. Whether it’s a single bloom or a predominant feature in your floral decor, their favourite flowers can symbolise their presence in a beautiful and natural way.

4. Include a tribute in the Ceremony

During the ceremony, you or someone else close to you could read a poem or passage that was meaningful to your loved one or play a song that reminds you of them. Alternatively, include a tribute to them in your ceremony for your celebrant to read – acknowledge their absence in your wedding so they can be remembered.

5. Wear Something Significant

Incorporate a meaningful item of clothing or jewellery that belonged to your loved one. This could be a piece of jewellery they wore, a handkerchief, a scarf, or even a part of their clothing sewn into your own attire. Having something of theirs close to you on your wedding day can provide a beautiful sense of closeness.

6. Include Their Favourite Food or Drink

Adding a favourite dish, dessert, or drink into your wedding can be a great way of honouring your loved one and adding a lovely personal touch and celebrating their memory. This could be served during cocktail hour, as a dessert option, or even as part of the main course.

7. Hold a special candle lighting ceremony

This could be done during your ceremony as a mark of remembrance and a way of including your loved one in your day. Always a good idea to put the candle in a hurricane vase, especially if your ceremony is outside to prevent any wind blowing the candle out. One bride lit a candle for her recently passed grandmother while she was walking down the aisle.

8. Include Your Loved One in Toasts and Speeches

Add a special tribute or dedication during your speeches to absent loved ones is a lovely way of honouring those people and including them in celebrations. If it feels too much for you or a family member to do this, consider asking your MC or a wedding party member to help with this.

9. Donate to a Charity

You could ask your guests to make a donation to a charity in lieu of a gift to an organisation that was special to your loved one. Alternatively, rather than giving your guests wedding favours, you could make a donation to a charity and have a special sign advising guests of this.

Honouring absent loved ones is a very personal thing, do it in a way that feels comfortable and appropriate to you and your partner.