Today, we have so many means of preserving our wedding photos and sentimental knickknacks from our happy day – all those wedding photo albums, bride boxes, framed photo collages, digital picture frames, etc. But how did our grandmothers and great grandmothers keep their favorite wedding items? This is a rare old wedding photo frame that belonged to an ordinary family from the Carpathian mountain region, not some fancy piece of a princess or baroness, made not from gold or silver, but handcrafted with so much love and care. It hung in the most honored corner of the house, perfectly complementing the simple wooden interior. And now, we see it in a museum.
This is a vintage wedding photo frame from western Ukraine, 1957. It is wooden and massive. And also, inside it, under the glass, you can see the traditional wedding wreath of a bride – her headpiece worn during the ceremony. These wreaths were stored and preserved by women during their whole life.
This frame might look weird and crude to you, but it is an extremely rare authentic piece. Not so many people made such decorative frames – usually, they just stored their wedding photos in an album and the bridal wreath under the glass of a religious icon.
Sorry, the photos aren’t great but the frame is exhibited behind the glass, and bad lighting also doesn’t help.
The wreath is made from fresh (right now, they’re dried) flowers, artificial paper and foil flowers, balls of foil, and other decorative items. It used to be sparkly and bright half a century ago but looks rather bleak today.
The photo frame holds 6 old photos – of the bride and groom at their wedding, their adult pictures, and snaps of their children. A small family history in one vintage photo frame. The owner must have stored her most valuable sentimental items in this large wooden board.
There is even a date of the wedding engraved here – June 12, 1957.
And the frame is handcrafted in a style typical for western Ukraine, Hutsul area. It is the Carpathian region, where wood was used to make practically everything. And these tiny nails that create the patterns are brass decorative nails – this is also a pretty typical mean of embellishing things (leather bags and shoes, wooden boxes and household items, jewelry, etc.).
Several decades after this wedding, the wooden photo frame got to the museum exhibition and now you’re able to see it, too. It’s history incarnated in wood, glass, and metal.
