We floated our Unity Candle inside a vase etched with our names and wedding date. The idea being, obviously, that the vase would then be used in our home. Unfortunately, the vase was cracked all the way down and right through the center of our names the day after the wedding. It doesn't hold water and the crack is so obvious that putting something in it, like rocks or fake flowers, just doesn't look pretty now. It feels weird to just trash something so personal. Our best thought was to crush the glass and bury it at our newly-purchased house, to represent putting down our roots. I'd be interested to hear any other thoughts before we go on a glass-smashing spree.
Also, I checked: "Memento" can be spelled with the first "e" or "momento". Both spellings look weird to me now.
In general, I try not to be overly sentimental. That particular piece, because it was chosen specifically to be used in the future, upset me when it became cracked. I love the idea of getting the glass tumbled. I've even used glass in a mosaic and never thought about how the pieces came to be. I will absolutely look into that. My husband gifted me with a stained glass window after we got engaged, so maybe that could be a nice tie-in.
I hear the concerns about broken glass and lest any of you think I've lost my mind, we were thinking pulverized into sand broken, not just stepped on. I'm excited about the alternatives, though. Really loving the Liberty Bell analogy. It's more appropriate than I can really express here. We may talk about it and sit on the idea and, knowing us, decide in a few years that we'll never get around to doing anything and out it goes anyway. I'm always interested to pick the brain of the hive-mind, though. Thanks, everyone!
Buy another vase, and have the names and date etched on it, and then break up the first one and put it into the new vase and have it sealed.
I have glass pieces that I've purchase that have been tumbled so that they have smooth edges. I think you could do that with a rock polishing tumbler. Then you could use them as decoration.
I think you could have it done by someone at a store that sells decorative rock collecting supplies.
Similar to what Marda P. suggested I would see if you can get the pieces tumbled and then I'd either make a mosaic or a wind chime with the pieces (or have someone do it for you). You can just make the mosaic on a picture frame or on a tile that you could incorporate into a kitchen or bathroom project or onto a new patio. Depends on how much glass you have an how nice it looks :). You could also just hang the mosaic as art or make it into a wind chime to hang on your new porch.
If it were me, I'd sleep soundly knowing I had a picture of it in my wedding album and toss the cracked vase in the trash. Yes, it has emotion attached to it, but I'd feel strange burying the broken glass. If you're really stuck on it, maybe you could have a new one made?
Also, not that it matters, but I don't think momento=memento. I think memento is a keepsake/souvenir, and momento means "moment" in Spanish or Italian.
My wedding cake topper was a statue or something very sentimental to us. It had also been engraved with our names and wedding date. It broke once, I glued it together. It broke again in a move, to the point of shattering. I swept it up and tossed it in the trash and it hasn't bothered me since.
I wouldn't put the crushed glass in the ground. Anyone in the future can dig that up and injure themselves.... unless of course you seal it in a little wooden box or something.
You can have the glass cut and the edges soldered the edges make a Christmas ornament out of it.
I'm sure someone took a wonderful photo of it during your wedding. I'd put that on the wall and toss the vase myself. If you really want to hang onto it, maybe you can have it melted down and turned into something else. I'd be highly against having crushed glass buried in the yard. That's an accident waiting to happen. You could have some of the pieces of glass put into the backsplash of your kitchen, should you have one, or take a good chunk of the glass and safely frame it in a shadowbox type frame.
if you could safely extract his name, and your name... that what I'd try and salvage to frame.
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The Liberty Bell has a crack and it's a symbol of Unity. It cracked on Washingtons Birthday. They could've melted it down and and reforged it, but instead chose to use it as a symbol of strength and unity. It was sent to travel around the US after the Civil War as a symbol to unite the two sides. Keeping that in mind, it seems completely appropriate that a Unity Candle have a crack too. I would put it on the mantle with a candle in it and a portrait of the Liberty Bell behind it.
It wouldn't bother me at all to toss it since it is irreparably broken.
And since, you most likely have a photo of it, how about matting & framing a pic and displaying that instead?
After all, it's the marriage that's important!
I'd be too worried about burying broken glass, too.
