Why People Don't Remember Their Wedding

Posted in Wedding Advice on Jan 20, 2025

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Over and over in a tour or in passing, I've had someone say they don't remember their wedding. They know they were happy, they might remember some small details here and there, but the overall day is a complete blur.

So easily, wedding day schedules can get so very full trying to do all the things. Our lives do the same. How well do you remember yesterday? How about last Monday?

What do you remember most in the past month?

What if you could change that, not only on your wedding day, but in more of your life?

For years, my team and I have counseled our couples to build in a few "breather" moments in their wedding day. Turns out, these breathers are more important than just giving the two of you some space to be together for a few minutes on your wedding day.

One way our brains make memories is through moments of pause, without distraction. Sitting together over a meal, having a good conversation, taking in the smells, the way the light is falling as the sun is setting, the sounds in or outside the room... all of these things make memory. The food iself can be the trigger for the memory later, like the first time you had orange and chocolate paired together or had sundried tomatoes from Italy and could taste the sun in that explosion of flavor on your tongue.

Emotional moments also make memory, such as a moment in school where you felt deep shame, or great pride or excitement. You'll no doubt remember feeling nervous before taking the stage for a speech in school, but do you remember making the speech itself, or the relief you felt when you sat back down?

A smell can take us right back to a moment in time, also. There was a podcast I listned to some years ago (I think it was a guest on The Wedding Biz by Andy Kushner) and one of the questions the guest liked to ask his couples was "what does your wedding smell like?"

I had not heard of that before, but it makes so much sense it's one of the questions I ask couples who hire me for wedding design. That scent, be it orange blossom or salt and roses, will bring you and your guests right back to your wedding day anytime they come across it. How lovely is that?

So what are the memory hacks we suggest?

  1. Build in time for moments and work with your planner so the day doesn't feel rushed. Easy moments for the two of you to be together include the First Look, having a private dinner together before going out to greet your guests, and a Last Dance with just the two of you on the dance floor.
  2. Biohacks -- think scents, textures, color combinations, flavor combinations...

You can build this into your lives too. Our lives in this country are so very busy. It seems everything is designed to make us rush from place to place, to jump from one task to the next. Everything feels rushed, our schedules feel stacked, all the time. Our cell phones only add to this, making us accessible all the time, informing us of messages, calls, and if you haven't silenced it, all the private messages, likes and comments on various apps.

I feel, very deeply, that our rushed life is very wrong. That this life spent looking at screens is wrong. That a rushed wedding is equally, wrong.

For most of our couples, the busy-ness of heavy schedules and the constant distraction of screens have always been there. Right there. But I grew up before after-school schedules were so loaded, and before cell phones became so ubiquitious, so ever-present (hmmm omnipresent?) in our lives, when I had no choice but to study every line of the wallpaper in my room out of complete boredom. There were 32 pink flowers per column on the section under my bedroom window, by the way.

I'm grateful for it. There is something so calming about setting the phone aside, of sitting down no distractions. My favorite moments of pause now revolves around mealtime. Our sunroom is my favorite place to sit if eating outdoors is not an option. Looking at the trees, the blueness of the sky, hearing the birds or the scent of sweetgrass in the breeze... It all embodies truly enjoying the meal before me, and taking note of the depth of the little glass of wine and how it enhances the flavors of the meal itself.

I notice that after, I feel different. Calmer. That pause in the rush of the day feels like a balm.

I imagine that pause together on your wedding day feels much the same. That meal. Those beautiful florals. The music being played. The sunlight... it's all unique to that day, those moments, those colors, those smells... all of it.

Drink it in.

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