Wedding Photographs of Siblings and Spouses

As I wrote recently, I’ve had weddings on my mind. Here’s another post on the subject of weddings. This time, the bride(s) and groom(s) are me and my siblings. Specifically, this post is about framed wedding pictures of me and my spouse and my siblings and their spouses.

My mother had this thing about years ending in the same digit. She born in 1933 and married in 1955. So she thought it only fitting that I married in 1977, and my sister in 1988.

When 1999 came along and my brother didn’t get married, though he had a girlfriend at the time, Mother began to worry. But then she realized—2000 also ended in two of the same digit. So she relaxed. In fact, my brother married his girlfriend in 2000, and all was well.

After my brother was married, my parents had wedding pictures of each of the three of us and our spouses framed together. Though the weddings were more than a decade apart, they had formal photographs of all three couples, and decided to mount them together. They proudly displayed the combined pictures in the homes they lived in after 2000. I remember this collage in the hallway of their last house, though I can’t recall where it was in the other two homes they had in their later years.

Not only did they keep this framed set of photographs, but they also had a copy made for each of their children. I’ve never been sure what to do with my copy. (And I think I ended up with my parents’ copy also.)

What am I supposed to do with this picture? I don’t want to destroy it, which somehow seems disrespectful to my husband, siblings, and in-laws. But I really don’t need to hang a collection of three wedding pictures on my wall. I never hung it in my old house, though I had it for over fifteen years.

Recently, while going through artwork to plan what to hang on the walls in our new home, I came across the picture. One copy of it, anyway. I decided not to hang it in the new house either. So it went on the shelves in the unfinished portion of our basement where we are storing memorabilia.

I wonder what my brother and sister do with their copy. Do they each want two copies? I could supply them.

What pictures do you have that you don’t want to hang?