What Do You Do With Your Wedding Photos After Divorce?

This blog contains affiliate links, which we may receive a commission for purchases. The decision is yours, whether or not you decide to buy.

You start married life full of the joys of spring, you feel loved up, on top of the world and invincible, but over the years, the cracks start to appear, the marriage starts to crumble and ultimately the relationship ends in divorce.

You divide your belongings, the house, the furniture, the bank accounts and the time spent with the children – but what do you do with your wedding photos?

What do you do with something that represents a happy time that you now don’t have?

The way you feel about your wedding photos is usually dependent on how acrimonious your divorce was. If you had an amicable split you may have reached acquiescence that your marriage is over and quite happily store your wedding album in the attic for sentimental reasons. Just because a particular part of your life is over, doesn’t mean it never happened.

If you had a bitter split the last thing you want to do is be reminded of your ex partner you’d be happy to use your wedding photos as lining paper for the cat’s litter tray or as floor tiles for the dogs kennel.

You could burn them (my friend set fire to her garden fence in her over zealousness) or bin them or use them as target practice for your next archery class.

You could use your nice heavy wedding album as a door stop for the shed door when you’re next doing some gardening; the weight of it does a grand job!

Some people want no reminders whatsoever of a marriage that’s ended badly. They will happily destroy their photos without a backward glance.

But what if that marriage produced children? Children that are a part of you and a part of your ex partner. They love you both and would possibly like to be reminded that their parents were once happy and in love.

My children never tire of hearing about how in love their Dad and I were when they were conceived. I’m a child of divorced parents and I have my parents wedding album.

I cherish those black and white 1960s photographs. My parents are sadly both gone now but to see their happy, youthful smiles still warms my heart.

Another reason to keep your photos is there are lots of relatives in them that you might not see very often or that might have passed away. On most wedding photos everybody is dressed up and smiling and looking happy.

Your parents might like to keep them for this very reason. The third and final reason to keep your wedding photos is in most cases you were young, starry eyed and looked DAMN good in them.

Written by Tina Hetherington. Divorce Coach. Visit survivingdivorce.co.uk for further information.

PHOTO CREDIT: IRINA PATRASCU GHEORGHITA

Books

Buy now from Amazon

Podcast

Kate Daly is co-founder of amicable and host of the The Divorce Podcast. Kate created The Divorce Podcast to discuss and demystify divorce, separation and co-parenting in the UK. In each episode, Kate is joined by experts in their field to explore divorce and separation from every angle.