Old Fashioned Curio Cabinet Display

I was recent­ly gift­ed an old­er style cab­i­net of curiosi­ties from my aunt and I imme­di­ate­ly knew I would use it to dis­play some of my favorite col­lect­ed items from our wed­ding. We had an old fash­ioned style wed­ding so it seemed fit­ting to cre­ate an old fash­ioned curio cab­i­net dis­play that would revive the mem­o­ries of our spe­cial day.

For near­ly 9 years I have been shuf­fling keep­sakes from my wed­ding around my home until even­tu­al­ly I tucked them in a tote in the back of a stor­age clos­et nev­er to be seen. After you see how beau­ti­ful every­thing looks styled togeth­er again, I promise you will be hunt­ing one of the old styled curios down next yard sale season!

As soon as I got her home I got her cleaned up. Even­tu­al­ly I may do a wood bleach refin­ished like I did to this old pota­to bin HERE but for now, she is stay­ing in all of her orig­i­nal glo­ry. All she need­ed was a lit­tle dust­ing and a good ole glass clean­ing and she perked right up! The trick is if I can keep the glass look­ing this good with 2 lit­tle boys run­ning around.…time will tell.

Let’s start with the top shelf, shall we? These are the things I 100% knew I want­ed in this cab­i­net. The flutes from our wed­ding and the cake cut­lery we had tucked away. These pieces were splurge expens­es and impor­tant for me to have at our wed­ding and I absolute­ly hat­ed that they had been kept in their pro­tec­tive box­es all these years. 

I paired these lit­tle heir­looms with a small green wreath and a cou­ple of my favorite engage­ment pho­tos. Even 9+ years ago I liked the same neu­tral colors!

Lean­ing in to the old fash­ioned look I stacked a few old books for added height, also dou­bling as a place to prop the cut­lery. Win win! 

Peep the pock­et watch? 

This was my gift to Josh on our wed­ding day, I had it engraved with a for­tune I had kept from a cook­ie years before meet­ing him. It said, “an admir­er is too shy to greet you at the moment.” For what­ev­er rea­son I kept that lit­tle slip of paper because it stuck. Grant­ed I don’t put any kind of eter­nal stake into these kinds of things but it just seemed a lit­tle spe­cial to me at that time in my life. Lit­tle did I know, dur­ing that time Josh was in fact admir­ing me from a dis­tance and WAS too shy to greet me at the moment. I thought it was extra spe­cial to have marked on our day and it obvi­ous­ly need­ed to be on display.

Mov­ing down to the next shelf, there are a cou­ple things to note here. I styled this shelf with a large stretched can­vas that was gift­ed after our wed­ding. Though I adore the pic­ture of me, Josh, my maid of hon­or and his best man tak­ing a shot of bour­bon in front of an old barn before get­ting hitched, I real­ly did­n’t have an appro­pri­ate place to dis­play it. Curio cab­i­net to the rescue!

I paired the can­vas with some old fash­ioned curiosi­ties I had in my decor stash.. A chunky wood archi­tec­tur­al piece, wood beads and a shoe form all add to the old fash­ioned look that was my wed­ding day.

Below that you will see our wed­ding box. This is actu­al­ly a wine box we have stuffed with let­ters to one anoth­er over the years, begin­ning on our wed­ding day. The first 5 or so years of our mar­riage we would put a bot­tle of wine in there ‚wait to open it, and read through the let­ters on our anniver­sary. Life and kids have changed that tra­di­tion but it is still very impor­tant and stuffed full of let­ters and hand writ­ten words express­ing our feel­ing for one anoth­er at that moment.

Again, you will see it styled with a cou­ple old books that have his bou­ton­niere and my pearl neck­lace that I wore. The old barn door hinges came from the doors we removed from my father in law’s barn. We used those doors as a back­drop at the alter. 

And last­ly, my bou­quet. This is per­haps one of my favorite rea­sons to have this cab­i­net. I loved this bou­quet so much and it is a reflec­tion of the warm col­ors of our beau­ti­ful fall wed­ding day. She is still stun­ning after all these years an d I am so hap­py to have it to admire dai­ly behind this beau­ti­ful glass.

I hope you found this cab­i­net styling inspir­ing in some way. Col­lec­tions can be beau­ti­ful when styled togeth­er with oth­er pieces. Be on the look­out for one of these cab­i­nets or maybe dust off the one you have in the cor­ner and see what mem­o­ries you can bring back to life.

Be inspired, friend.

Look­ing for some beau­ti­ful pieces to style your own old fash­ioned cab­i­net? I would love for your to vis­it our home decor bou­tique linked below!

-Kaycee