southernafternoon.com

Oh golly, am I excited for a new year!!  Resolutions? Mine is to help everyone around me have the best year of their lives. I can’t tame the winds of change or temper the storms that come, but just maybe I can provide a bit of shelter by adding some kindness and caring.  A touch of Southern hospitality in every life I touch.

Mulling that thought is what brought me around to this idea.  A true Southern Afternoon wedding.  Graceful oak trees, sweet tea in mason jars, yellow garden roses set against the green, green, green of summer.  A perfect afternoon surrounded by family, both born and chosen.  This is my wish for all of you this year.  Not the details, not the place, but the feeling of belonging.  The sense of relaxed graciousness.  Sun on your face, breeze on your skin.  And feeling that peace no matter what the weather in your world brings.

Blessings to all y’all and Happy New Year!

You can find our invitations on our website or in our etsy shop.  Sources for these ideas, plus thousands of others, can be found on our Pinterest boards.

It never seems to let up.  The To Dos turning into Ta Da!s.  Making a list, checking it twice.  Making the rounds during the holidays.  Just getting the day to day done at this time of year is a challenge.  With the year winding down and the holidays gearing up, it’s easy to forget to stop and smell the lilies of the valley.

Oh, I know.  Roses.  Sure.  Love roses.  But consider the delicate little lilies of the valley.  They won’t even be in bloom for months, but the scent is one that I LIVE for in the springtime. Calm completely covers me when I inhale it.  Fresh and bright and pretty, it’s like white puffy clouds in a sunny sky in aroma form.  Even the Royals love them–they were a big part of Kate Middleton’s wedding bouquet and definitely trending in popularity because of it!

The flowers are sweet little bells that can range from simple and quaint in small nosegays or they can take on a stunning formality like they do in that cascade bouquet shown here.  This pinboard takes a sophisticated approach, from the classic black tux to the pretty gold hairpiece. Add a simple cake and our elegant Annabella wedding invitation and you have an enchanting look.  Prefer something more casual and floral?  Check out our sweet Willow Winds Garden Inspired Wedding Invitation.  Versatile, lovely smelling, delicate…and maybe just perfect for your day.  As always, sources for these great looks as well as lots of other ideas can be found on our Pinterest boards!

Lily of the valley inspired pinboard featuring a traditional invitation from Paperwhites Press

I have a thing for houses with iconic trees.  A 150 year old oak is the centerpiece of my back yard, huge and sprawling.  And in the sweet little starter bungalow before this?  A magnolia tree that burst into pinkish bloom every spring and then dropped its glossy, leathery leaves every fall.  I had such a fondness for bringing in branches in the springtime.  I loved the craggy sticks bedecked with blossoms for transforming my shabby dining room into a chic one.

Every time I see this invitation, it reminds me of those happy newlywed times.  The sheen of the leaves, the rich creaminess of the flowers, the luxury of it all adds a note of sophistication without any sort of fussiness.   It’s pretty and unique, especially when you add grace notes like some South Carolina inspired basket weave to the cake and some lovely blues to compliment the green leaves.  Dreamy…

For sources for these great pics, as well as other great ideas, check out our Magnolia Pinterest board!

I went for a walk in the woods the other day.  There’s a rail trail near home that’s canopied with huge old oaks and maples.  They’re starting to think about maybe turning color one of these days, but still green and shady.  There wasn’t another soul around.  Just me, my thoughts, the expansive tunnel of trees.  There was a calm to it, but also a thrill of discovery.

That thrill is what draws us into the old stories.  It’s what makes our culture reexamine, reinterpret, and reinvent characters and familiar stories.  Take Snow White.  This year alone there have been three retellings of the tale, each one different, each beautiful, each touching on the themes of the classic.

A fairy tale wedding is the dream of so many brides, but this is one case where less is more.  Touches of apples on the cake, bouquet, and ring.  Bright pops of color far removed from any classic animation.  A beautiful and romantic wedding invitation like Paperwhites Rebecca Wedding Invitation.  And that sweet grace note to seal it all–And they lived happily ever after.

For resources for all these amazing ideas, plus some other great ways to add some fairy tale magic to your day, check out our Pinterest Board! For other great romantic wedding invitations for your own fairy tale, take a look at our Signature collection at our website or our etsy shop.

The nip of fall is starting to creep in.  Pumpkin patches are opening.  The farmers markets are shifting from the late summer to the autumn and winter veggies.  So, of course, that means I’m thinking of springtime!

It’s a strange world.

One of my favorite sites in spring are the tulips creeping up.  So pretty, so welcome after the winter.  The array of colors is stunning, though here I’ve focused on a particular orchid-y colored tulip.  Set against a cool gray, the shade is vibrant and fresh and the perfect set of details to go with our beautiful and unique Tulip Wedding Invitation.  It’s a perfect choice for any wedding, but extra lovely with lots of tulip accents, from flowers and shoe details to the almost-punny tulip skirt on that lovely bridesmaid dress.  I could have done it in a million colors–red, yellow, orange, pastels–and still only touched on a few ideas for how to incorporate this springtime miracle into your wedding day.  You can check out other options in our etsy shop, and check out sources for these ideas and lots of other purple tulip ideas on our Pinterest Board.

It’s been a busy few weeks here with wrapping up summer and getting ready for fall!  I can imagine everyone has been in similar transitions, but it’s back to the lovely, dreamy normal here.

Today that means pairing our beautiful, classic, yet unusual Posh Scroll Wedding Invitation with the beautiful, classic, yet unusual Protea.  We’ve mentioned several times that succulents are very big and very on trend, but protea are still a bit on the fringes of that.  I love the big, bold, graphic single bloom.  They are almost primordial in appearance and could easily go from interesting to “interesting.” when paired with the wrong elements.  The key is to balance their angles with some sweeping graceful lines, like in the elegant scroll work in our invitation.  The mix is a perfect balance, great for a bride who favors the unique.  You can see baskets full of other protea ideas, as well as sources for these, on our Pintrest boards!

When you think purple and orange, you may think of something brash–team colors or overbright Halloween decorations.  And there is certainly a time and place for those shades and hues.  If you are looking for something a bit deeper and richer and more sophisticated, consider shades of plum and pumpkin.  Ideal for a fall wedding, a little unexpected, and very, very pretty.

Here we pair this combination with our Caroline Floral Wedding Invitation.  The design is seasonless and timeless.  It’s beautiful and rich and just a little unexpected, precisely like the plum and pumpkin.  Classic without being predictable.  Traditional without being stuffy.  Floral without being flowery.  Exactly right, every time.

Check out the sources for all these ideas on our Pinterest board.  To see our full line of invitations, check out our website or our etsy shop!

I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: Inspiration comes in the weirdest places.  Would you believe that Katy Perry was the inspiration for the lovely, sophisticated combo you see before you?  Lemmie walk you through it…

I was watching the previews at the picture show the other day and they showed a trailer for Katy Perry’s new movie.  I’m not a huge fan, but I do find her to be a unique twist on current culture, with her candy colored hair and anime eyes, to be interesting.  But young.  Oh. So. Young.  A question of how to make that vibrance translate to something more mature without stripping it of all it’s energy started rolling around in my brain.

I came up with two solutions.  The first was our grown up Confetti Trendspotting board. Seriously, you cannot watch that movie preview without being stunned by how much confetti there was swirling around!  And the second is this more subdued color combo that still emanates young, but without the tweenness.  The crux of it is our own Adria Floral Wedding Invitation.  It’s just a little bit unusual, just a little bit quirky, just a little bit unexpected.  The vines and flowers combine with pattern to make a beautiful border that’s both classic and fresh.  Want more ideas to go with the sources for these ideas?  Check out our Pinterest boards!

I know that Pantone declared Tangerine Tango the color of the year and I LOVE it.  Orange everywhere, as accent, as dominant color, on shoes, on bags…it’s EVERYWHERE.  But I realized something the other day.  Ready?  It’s kind of a secret.

I think the **real** color of the year…is…

Coral.

If you look around the wide world of Pinterest, you see coral about 10 times more than you see Tangerine Tango.  Bridesmaid dresses. Flowers. Decorating.  Coral is just a little softer.  A little bit pink without being too twee.  Still red/orange, but maybe more liveable and versitile.  Pair it with cream and it seems beachy, but pair it with a taupey gray like we did here and it looks even more cool and sophisticated.  Flattering for just about everyone, it reminds me of sunsets and peach pie (or cake, like in the pinboard.)

We paired it here with a great classic wedding invitation with an unusual wedding invitation twist.  We call it the Kiev, but it is a beautiful invitation with pretty flourishes in the corners to take this from the basic wedding invitation to something very unique that will set your wedding apart.  Pretty, cool, and just pretty cool.  More ideas and inspirations, as well as sources on our Pintrest board.

I know, I know, I know.  I’m supposed to be thinking ahead to fall and winter already.  Today I just can’t.  I can only think of the hydrangeas I have been spotting on my walks.  Beautiful, luscious, poufs of blooms, huge clusters of tiny delicate petals.  And such colors!  I love white, I am smitten with the pink, I am enamored with the green and I am utterly over the moon for all the blues.

Here, I picked the whispery blues, tinged with green and cream, to go with our Hydrangea Invitation.  Simple, beautiful and elegant.  It’s an option that’s so effortless that it’s almost plug and play.  Choose the invitation and all the elements fall into place–the flowers, the colors, the shapes.  Add some surprising elements like that amazing necklace for the bridesmaids (or yourself?) to make the day your own and your thoughts can move on to that handsome gent who’s placing a ring on your finger. Check out sources for these, as well as other ideas that would be lovely with any of our Botanical invitations on our Pinterest Boards.