Our Family History Display

It was important to me to incorporate my genealogy hobby into the wedding. I thought showing our family trees would be a bit more personal and inclusive than the traditional baby pictures of the bride and groom. Almost everyone at the wedding was family, so they could find their ancestors in the tree and learn a little bit about where they came from.

I started by collecting old family pictures and putting them in various cheap frames from Michaels.

I've been researching my own family tree for a few years now, so I simply put all the information together on a single board using Adobe Illustrator. I only went back as far as great-great-grandparents for the tree. I also picked out a few interesting ancestors from as far back as my research goes and highlighted them.

When we got engaged, I started researching Anthony's family tree as well. I didn't get very far before the wedding, but I was still able to get most great-grandparents and some great-great-grandparents. I was also able to find some interesting ancestors from colonial times and highlight them. I found some ancestors that even Anthony's family didn't know about!

Our families loved the family tree boards! It was great for my research too, since it made people want to share what they knew about the family and help me add to the trees.

I also put together "our new family tree" with everyone who attended the rehearsal dinner. I had everyone put their thumbprint by their name as their "leaf". See more details here.

I had all three boards printed professional and displayed them at the reception. Even though it was a LOT of work to do all that research and design work, I think it made our wedding really special and unique for everyone who attended.