What’s a good way to save the early romance of a relationship? Well, this might sound odd, but I’d put scrap-booking high on the list. I know, I know, scrap-booking is for those old ladies you see in hobby stores filling their carts with shaping scissors and glue sticks. It summons to mind images of old people thumbing through dusty books of photographs and souvenirs from trips taken decades ago; there doesn’t seem to be anything remotely romantic about it. But actually there is.

Keeping old mementos pasted into the pages of books is more than just a hobby for people who have too much time on their hands. It can be a means of preserving precious memories of the early days when you and your partner were a young couple just falling in love. One fun and romantic activity is even scrap-booking together (although I’d recommend this one only for married couples—making this suggestion to a new boyfriend or girlfriend would probably send them running, and not without cause).

But for a long-term, committed couple, flipping through an “Us” scrap-book is an excellent way to recall and renew the romance. When my now husband of four years and I were dating, I tended to keep things from our various dates, little keep sakes to remind me later on of this time in my life. At first I had no particular object in mind. I just stuck the mementos away in a box and forgot them for awhile. But then, around the time we became engaged, the idea came to me of collecting all of these things together for a dating scrap-book. After all, we’d be married soon enough and then these “young couple” days would be just a memory.

So, I began gathering together the things I’d need and was surprised myself at the number of keep sakes I’d stored up over the past couple of years. Scrap-books don’t have to be just for photographs and love letters, I realized, although of course I put some of those in as well. But I also included, among other things: tickets to movies and different events my boyfriend and I had visited together, pressed flowers, a cheapy little ring he once gave me from a gumball machine (it was an inside joke), the program for a high-school banquet he had taken me to, and an invitation to his high-school graduation.

Now that we are well into our marriage and have two children those early memories are more special than ever, and I’m grateful I took the time to preserve them. I’ve since added two wedding and engagement scrap-books to my collection as well, and expect to add more. Until then I keep saving those little keep sakes, and know as I’m doing so that I’m really saving memories.

Vote Result

Score: 0.0, Votes: 0