What To Do With Your Wedding Stationery After The Big Day
It’s a sad truth about most weddings that the stationery and papergoods often get discarded at the end of the day, which is such a shame especially when you’ve had something beautifully bespoke crafted for you. As a designer who is also a big fan of gift giving and gorgeous keepsakes, I have so many lovely ideas for things you can do with your wedding stationery after the big day. Less waste, more longevity, and most of all more opportunities to look back fondly on your wedding day and weave elements of it into your life.
Which stationery items can you keep at the end of your wedding?
The short answer is: anything you want! If you are working with a wedding planner or coordinator, I recommend letting them know if you specifically want to keep items of stationery from your wedding day. While they or your venue are likely to put aside and store bigger things like your welcome signs or precious items such as your vow books, you will likely need to tell them if you want to hang onto menu cards, place names and table numbers - these sorts of thing can be swept up and discarded by the catering team when clearing your tables at the end of the night otherwise!
Personally, I would be looking to keep your larger signage such as welcome and table plan, your table names or numbers, your personal name cards and a handful of menus, particularly if you opted for specific custom elements that make them really special to you. However, it’s worth remembering that items on tables can become casualties of the party, gathering wine stains and the echoes of dessert or accidentally getting too close to the candles…
The solution? Ask me, your wedding stationery designer, to create one additional complete set for your wedding that will remain at home, totally untouched. I can easily add an extra couple of menu cards, even duplicate name cards for special ones you want to keep, and anything else you request. So, now you’re sure you’ll have clean, pristine copies of your wedding stationery, what should you do with it after the big day?
5 ways to reuse your wedding stationery
Make and frame a flatlay
A flatlay is a wedding industry term, and it refers to stationery items (invitations, order of the day, details cards, menu cards etc) arranged on a flat surface and photographed from above, alongside a selection of pretty things from your wedding such as flowers, ribbons, jewellery, perfume and so on. Your wedding day photographer will be able to take one of these for you on the day itself, but you can also recreate a sort of flatlay at home and put it in a beautiful box frame.
If you’re a creative person, pop to your local craft shop and pick up some bits that match your stationery to arrange with it. If you have non valuable items from the wedding itself that can go in there, that’s a beautiful touch too - but I don’t recommend putting expensive earrings or cufflinks on the wall, unless you really want to!
A well designed and framed flatlay can make a really lovely interior decor piece that reminds you of your wedding and doubles as stylish wall art, and means you are reminded of your wedding every time you walk past it.Create a wedding memory scrapbook
As a huge fan of anything bookish (journalling, literary inspired weddings (add link when live), diaries…), this one is right up my street. Get a big, beautiful book and gather all your wedding keepsakes together to make a gorgeous memory scrapbook - you can even have the cover personalised with your names, initials and/or wedding date.
Ideas for things to put inside:
Save the dates and invitations
Order of the day/schedule cards
RSVP cards
Menu cards from VIP guests
Table names or numbers
Your vows
Handwritten speeches
A few photos (Polaroids taken by guests or other non-professional ones really add to the vintage scrapbooking experience)
Any funny anecdotes about the day that you want to remember
It can also double up as a bit of a journal; if you both want to write down your favourite memories from the day, intersperse this with the other items to make it feel beautifully homemade in a really considered way. This is a gorgeous keepsake to look back at on anniversaries and share with family and friends - and future generations to come!
3.Store it properly and safely
If you’re not a couple who likes to have things on display, make sure you store your wedding stationery properly and safely. Choose a good solid box (perhaps wooden), store it somewhere it won’t get heat or water damaged, and wrap everything in acid-free tissue paper inside. This is the perfect place for your complete untouched stationery set I mentioned asking your designer for earlier.
You could also store it in the same box as other mementoes from milestones in your relationship - the cinema tickets from your first date, photo snaps of your honeymoon, the first gifts you ever gave each other. It becomes like a little shrine to your love, something that may stay unopened for a long time but that will be really special to revisit when the time comes.
4.Have special items sewn or bound into a booklet
There are some highly skilled people out there who can take your wedding stationery keepsakes and bind them into a little booklet, telling the story of your wedding day through items that were actually there. Do your research and make sure they’re reputable before handing over your precious items, and then think about whether you’d like to display or store this priceless little book.
5.Use wedding stationery items as styling in your home
If you’re not too precious about your stationery lasting forever and remaining pristine, you can use it in fun ways around your home as decor and styling. Pop one of your menu cards inside your coffee table book as a marker, for example, or mount your invitations onto bookends and display them on your bookshelf. You could even have your signage turned into home decor, sectioning off the ‘welcome’ or your names from your welcome sign and using them elsewhere in the house.
If you want to get really fun and romantic about it, why not keep hold of some of the menus and throw an anniversary dinner party together where you try to recreate the food, dress the tables and sit down together to celebrate and reminisce!
Last year I even printed a smaller version of a welcome sign for one of my couples to use in their home, and am now offering this as a lovely little add-on for 2026 and beyond. Choose to replicate your favourite wedding signage or have a quote from your vows printed onto a mini sign - whatever feels most meaningful for you.
My Gift To You…
To help you treasure your wedding stationery long after your big day, I provide every Scribed by Sophie couple with a lovingly packaged, branded keepsake portfolio. Inside you’ll find keepsake versions of all your stationery items, safe from wine and coffee spills and dancefloor damage!
If you’re a fan of all these ways to enjoy your wedding stationery even longer, you’ll probably also enjoy my musings on how to design invitations that feel like old fashioned love letters. Did you know I also create stationery for life’s other milestones? I can craft a new version of your wedding stationery as an anniversary card, create magical festive papergoods for your Christmas dinner party, and assist with baby announcements and baby shower invitations. Browse the full range of ideas here.
Don’t hesitate to get in touch if you’d love to work with a stationer who values meaningful connections and lasting memories, and designs with those things in mind. Creating bespoke wedding stationery designs that can be enjoyed long beyond your wedding day is my greatest joy, and I’d love to hear from you!
Much Love,
Sophie
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Sunshine SEO Studio
Claire Riding Photography