A bride received a sentimental wedding gift from her grandmother, who died 28 years before her special day, and it made her to 'take a trip down memory lane'. Weddings can be emotional for several reasons. While it can be overwhelming to think about the promise of a lifetime your about to make to your partner, it can also come with sadness from thinking about the people who you wish could have been their for your big day.
Colleen Kerrigan from New Jersey, USA, married her husband, Tim, on the 17 May 2024, describing it as a 'perfect day' on her Instagram page. After getting to celebrate her big day, Colleen's aunt surprised her with a sentimental wedding gift from her grandmother, who had passed away when Colleen was just five years old. "When your grandmother, who passed away in 1996, packed away her china for you as a wedding gift and you finally get to open it." she shared at the beginning of he video, while opening the box which was filled with her grandmother's old china collection.
"When you get to open a 28-year-old wedding present and take a trip down memory lane in the process," she added in the caption of the video. The china collection in question is the Evesham Gold collection from Royal Worcester, which xx white plates, bowls, cups and jugs with golden edges. They're all decorated by the autumnal fruits of the Vale of Evesham. She showed off the entire collection at the end of the video, as it took up a whole shelf with different sixed plates and bowls, cups and saucers, a tureen, a milk jug, sugar bowl, just to name a few items.
When asked why she was only just now allowed to open the present, Colleen said: "I was 5 when she passed and my grandmother left it for me as a wedding gift. My aunt kept it for me all this time. I got married this year, so finally got to open it.". Colleen's video received over 70,000 likes on Instagram, and several people took to the comments to share their own experiences with similar gifts from their loved ones.
One person commented: "Use it! Don’t save for special occasions because you’ll end up just storing it. It’s really cute!". "How lovely. Women from her generation took great pride in their good china, glassware and silverware. It was a sign of success to have these things and display them in a glass doored hutch. It was considered a great honour to inherit place settings from a previous generation," a second person said.
