Our Wedding Memory Jar

If there's one thing you should have learned about me by now, it's that I love saving things. Collecting mementos is like preserving memories. I still remember the first time I saw the movie Everything is Illuminated and how fascinated I was by the concept of memory collectors. But there is a fine line between saving things of sentimental value and becoming a hoarder.
For that reason, I try to be very intentional about what I keep around for more than 6 months to a year. And if it ends up meriting saving, I want to be sure to keep it in a place it won't just get forgotten.

Unfortunately, I haven't always been so intentional so there has been a lot of making up for lost time. One of the sets of items I found myself unable to part with were items from our wedding. These things felt like such a big part of our life and history as a couple that I couldn't bear to throw them away. But because I didn't have a specific purpose in mind for them, they were scattered across several boxes throughout our house.

I hate to say that it took 3 years for me to finally create a way to display these pieces but at least now I have. It ended up being a very quick project (like under 10 minutes) and I love how it turned out. It literally makes me smile every time I see it.

I started by grabbing everything I had saved and put it in one place. Then I just put it all together in a jar. What is great about this display piece is that every aspect of it is from our wedding. It includes:

• A Mason Jar donated from my grandparents that was used in our wedding centerpieces
• My Wedding Veil that I handmade.
• Luke's Boutonniere including the fake sunflower that my bridesmaids substituted minutes before our photos because the real one had died.
• The beautiful Garter I purchased from Florrie Mitton.
• A scrap piece of Lace from our invitations.
• And Twine that was also used in the centerpieces.

It was so easy to assemble and has found a perfect home inside the wooden house shadow box display in our living room.

This makes it even more special to me because the ultimate goal for this display is to showcase things that have happened "In This House..." Our wedding jar and the stuffed raccoons will be the only permanent current residents since both things have origins that took place in our current physical house. We were actually working on assembling our wedding invitations in this house the week my great-grandmother passed away.

Eventually, I plan to add photos and other mementos from the 50ish years this house has been in my family. The raccoons were my great-grandparents and my cousins and I would play with them when we would visit here as kids. I hope to find things from my mom's childhood since this is where she grew up. Plus Minion will have his own items since this is where we will bring him home. I'm sure I'll share an update as that project comes together.

Did you come up with any creative ways to preserve items from your wedding?