16 Loving Ways to Include Your Mother at the Wedding
Make her a part of your big day with one of these sweet ideas.
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Sure, it’s your day, but honoring generations of women, from your mother to your mother-in-law and grandmothers, at your wedding will add that extra-special touch. Here, inspiration from our brides on how to embrace them within your festivities.
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Photography: Leo Patrone Photography
Ally and her groom, Adam, incorporated their family heritage into their celebration. During a Vietnamese tea ceremony, it is traditional for the mother-in-law to gift her future daughter-in-law something special. Adam’s mother gave Ally a keepsake necklace at theirs, which was held six months before the wedding.
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Photography: Belathée Photography3 of 17
Work As a Team
Together, Jolene and her mom bonded before the wedding as they assembled tiny sachets of lavender (one of the bride’s favorite scents) for guests to toss as the newlyweds walked back up the aisle.
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Photography: Jen Fariello Photography4 of 17
Celebrate Her Hidden Talents
This bride invited her mom to knit nine handbags from a Jane Austen pattern, one for each bridesmaid at this vintage DIY wedding on a Virginia farm. The mother then personalized the pouches by cross-stitching tags with her daughter’s new initials and wedding date inside.
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Photography: KT Merry5 of 17
Get Inspired by Her Style
“When it comes to fashion, I look up to my mom,” Annie says. Her mother wore a traditional hanbok to her daughter’s nuptials and found Annie’s jeweled headpiece in a South Korea boutique. The mother-daughter duo later designed the bride’s beaded ivory dress for the reception.
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Photography: Millie Holloman Photography6 of 17
Curate a Photo Display
Abigail and Michael’s nuptials in Wilmington, North Carolina, were all about family. Using Polaroids and tags, the two hung old photographs of relatives to create a real-life ancestral tree, remembering those who came before them, including mothers, grandmothers, and great-grandmothers.
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Photography: Elizabeth Messina Photography7 of 17
Take a First Look Photo With Her
Bride JoJo and her mother, Rita Cohen, stole an embrace on the big day, acknowledging the power of sneaking in a hug amid a celebration bustling with activity.
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Photography: Harwell Photography8 of 17
Never Forget Her
Fate played a hand in this couple’s romance. The duo’s mothers were best friends in high school, but the groom’s mother, Mimi, passed away before Lizzy got to meet her. However, this bride believes “It was all fate…Mimi brought us together.” The pair held their first look at the cemetery where Mimi was laid to rest. “I could feel the warmth of Mimi’s presence and knew she was dancing in heaven when we were all there together,” the bride says of one of her favorite parts of the day. Lizzy also donned her grandmother’s aquamarine necklace as her “something blue.”
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Photography: Rylee Hitchner9 of 17
Don an Heirloom
This bride’s gown was a given. Carrie, an interior designer and stylist, came across the silk Jane Wilson-Marquis dress that her mom, Roseanne Cash, wore at her wedding to Carrie’s stepfather in 1995. “I said right then I would wear it one day,” she recalls, upholding her love for “the tradition of generations of women in the same wedding gown.”
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Photography: Abby Jiu Photography10 of 17
Carry Her With You
Bride Sally adorned her bouquet of jasmine vines, silvery dusty miller, white lisianthus, tulips, freesia, roses, and dahlias with her great-grandmother’s brooch to remember her as she walked down the aisle.
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Photography: Jen Fariello Photography11 of 17
Hold Her Close
Dickie Morris of Just a Little Ditty incorporated fabric from the groom’s late mother’s clothing into a clutch for the bride, keeping the mom’s memory in hand as the duo created new memories.
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Photography: Elizabeth Messina Photography12 of 17
Keep the Gang Together
This bride included her entire family for her aisle walk: She began on her father’s arm, met her mother halfway for a kiss, then joined her future stepchildren for the final steps to the altar.
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Photography: Belathée Photography13 of 17
Leave Her a Sweet Note
To keep tears at bay, Jolene gave her mom a handkerchief embroidered by EmbroiderybyLinda, complete with a special message from daughter to mother.
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Send Them a Message
At this destination wedding, the bride and groom sent photographed notes to their grandmothers who were unable to attend the festivities to include them in a one-of-a-kind way.
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Photography: Landon Jacob15 of 17
Share Her Beloved Recipes
Irby’s grandmother, known as Happy, is famous for her chocolate chip cookies and makes them for everyone. When the bride was thinking of what the wedding favor would be, she could think of no better token of thanks than some of the noteworthy cookies. Grandma was happy to bake the sweets, which were packaged in custom baggies.
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Let Love Bloom
At Zooey and David’s green-and-white wedding in Missouri, centerpieces of potted dusty miller added a verdant note to tables. The husband-and-wife team later planted the flowers in the mother-of-the-bride’s garden as a thank you for all of her love and support.
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Say Thank You
Annie Meyers-Shyer’s parents may have co-written the Father of the Bride remake, but for their daughter’s wedding, her mom, then an official mother of the bride, took the reigns as sole director. Annie thanked her for the cinema-worthy day with an accordion card of family photos as a token of gratitude.
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