We are back with another amazing “SCORE!” courtesy of one of our local thrift stores – This time it’s wedding-themed, and I am so freaking excited about it. All you locals out there, newlywed, engaged to be married or even married for several years, let me preface by saying that this was one of multiples and you need to head over to the Wards Road Goodwill asap to grab one for yourself!
But let me get to the point…As a woman, and a sentimental one at that, I love to document memories. I went through a pretty hard-core scrapbooking phase at one time and I am always switching out family photos in frames throughout the house to make sure the most recent memory is fresh in our minds. So when I spotted today’s “Thrift Store SCORE!” piled sadly on the bottom shelf at the store, I knew I had to take a closer look. Boy, am I glad I did!
Behold, my new-to-me (and actually brand new in reality) marriage memory book:
This beautiful canvas-wrapped box stores a matching canvas-wrapped binder with the same letter-pressed writing: “Wedded Bliss” and “The First Ten.”
When I slipped the binder out and flipped it open to the first page, I was met with a lengthy, but well-written and sweet introduction from the creator of the book. I read the entire thing and thought it was a great start to perusing the rest of the book. The author talks about how there are ample amounts of wedding planning books out there for brides to utilize, but not quite as many resources for the marriage itself. Her hope through creating the Wedded Bliss memory book was to get couples talking and communicating with one another, and to have a designated keepsake spot to document the highs and lows of a marriage. After skimming the lines of the intro, I was pumped to see the rest.
When you glance over the contents, you’ll see that the book covers EVERYTHING – From the wedding and honeymoon, to anniversaries, babies, pets, traveling and moving. Not only had I stumbled upon a memory book for our marriage, but also a baby book, a way to document the pets in our lives (who are our current babies and the lights of our life) and a moving diary for when we choose to sell the house and take on a new home.
The first page is kind of fun (although it definitely reminds me of my senior book from high school) – It’s one of those questionnaires where you record things like the current president, the price of gas, who won the Oscar for best actress, etc. It’s a little silly, but I’m sure that it will be fun to look back on in several years.
And of course, with any wedding memory book, there is a page for the wedding day. I thought it was a tad funny that they asked for the names of the bride and groom – Duh!
And there are tons of little pocket pages that I could stick a wedding program, receipt from a special date, extra photos, etc. in to spark more memories.
Then there are ten pages dedicated to notating the joys and challenges of each year up to our tenth anniversary. I can see us making a tradition of this each year – A glass of wine or a mug of coffee, a blanket, binder and pen on the couch in the living room. There aren’t a million questions, so it’s not too overwhelming to keep up with and I think it will be fun to lead us in a conversation to look back on years gone by.
There’s also a mid-decade page for looking back on the first five years – It’s much like the yearly anniversary pages, asking us to name things like our best decision, biggest regret, best and worst investment, etc. Who knows, this could very well be the tool that helps us learn from the past and avoid regret in the future.
The baby book is also a great feature – There are so many beautiful customized baby book options from places like Etsy (for example…This one or this one), but having it contained within our marriage memory book seems like a fitting place for it to be kept – Makes me feel like they are part of our marriage and family rather than a separate entity. There are three pages for girls and three pages for boys, so I guess we’ll have to have 6 kids! Just kidding…DEFINITELY just kidding. We’ll be lucky if we get past our pet pages at this point – We are just so in love with our furry “kids.”
Here’s a look at the page for moving memories, with places to document old and new addresses, dates and prices. This could be an interesting page to look back on after a few moves, especially to see how the price of real estate changes over the years.
There is also a page for travel memories and many more of those pocket pages for loose memory storage. I am really looking forward to documenting our life in our new-to-us keepsake book. Although many of the pages must wait for special days to come and go before we can make our notes, we did go ahead and fill out that first page I told you about with questions like the current president, price of gas etc. – We started at the bottom with answers to popular trends (ex. TV shows, fashion and fitness trends, etc.) and also our heroes and how we like to spend time together. We are waiting to fill in the rest on a day closer to our wedding day.
Although this book came from Goodwill, it had not been handled much before my hands got a hold of it. The binding even made that tell-tale cracking sound when I opened it, making me think that I was literally the first person to open it. And like I said (LOCALS!!!), this wasn’t the only one. I found it in the home goods section of the store and it was sitting in the back bottom shelf with about six or seven others. Some had a couple of stains on the cover, but other than that they were in mint, never-used condition.
Some had a price tag on them for $5, but the one I picked was tag-less and the woman at the counter gave the book to me for a measly $2.00!!!!!!!!! I did a little internet investigating and found the website from the creators of my new memory book (click here for the main website, and here to purchase your own copy if you aren’t a local) – I must warn you though, if you’re looking to pick up a new copy, a brand new memory book shipped from the manufacturer is $68. I cannot believe I got mine for next to nothing compared to retail…This could very well be my best “Thrift Store SCORE!” to-date.
For all you married folks, how do you document your married life memories? Anybody have any fabulous “Thrift Store SCORE!”s to gush about?
