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Deep breath. Time to try to start regular life again.  This is Friday’s post, saved for a few days. Heavy hearts and deeply felt prayers took the place of our usual frivolities.

I love the idea of an anchor as a wedding symbol.  Sure, it brings to mind the sea and is perfect paired with the navy blue  and white stripes.  At the same time, the bigger symbol is finding the person who keeps you grounded and being the person that keeps someone else grounded.  It acknowledges the people in your life who do the same.  What a wonderful graphic to set the tone of your ceremony.  The handmade boutonniere is an unexpectedly perfect accent to the groom’s suit. Classic navy bridesmaid dresses and a preppy striped table and cake combine to make a crisp palette that’s fresh and bright.

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 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.

I can think of all kinds of stodgy, stuffy, formal things to write about wheat.  I can think of a million very dull ways to say that wheat symbolizes so much of what weddings are about–hope for the future, a life of abundance, the gifts of hard work. I can think of very formal ways to describe the joys of wheat.

Really, though?  It just looks amazing!

That beautiful golden color looks great with almost anything.  Depending on how you cut and display it, it can look wild and untamed or manicured and modern.  It’s sunny and lovely and everything people think of when they think “fall.”  From using it in place of flowers, to a couple of terrific wreaths to that gold necklace (that I’m already dreaming about saving my pennies for), it’s versatile and unusual.  Paired with white, it looks even more golden.  It has that wonderful quality of baby’s breath where it looks even better in huge bunches.  I’m kind of in love with this whole wedding.  Check out some more ideas of what to do with wheat stalks, from the tame to the insane, on our Pinterest Board–you can find sources for all these pics, too!

It’s not often that I find myself dissolving in tears as I pin, but today I did.  With Mother’s Day coming, I wanted to do a post about remembering Mothers and Grandmothers and other loved ones who passed.  And what I found was example after example of  great ways to pay tribute to generations past.  Lovely ways to hold their place in your day as well as in your heart–an empty chair with a framed photo, a collection of your grandparents wedding rings worn on a chain for your ‘something borrowed’, centerpieces made of their wedding memories.  There are so many small ways to remember them.  Here I featured a sweet locket pin on the bouquet, and the brooch.  It seems that most weddings I’ve been to lately have had a collection of wedding photos from the grandparents, though I love them on the wall with ribbons as in the picture below.  The votives featured below are really pretty simple DIY and a great way to integrate old photos throughout the wedding.

No matter how you choose, remembering loved ones is something that has a timelessness beyond timelessness.  May all of you have a happy and memorable Mother’s Day honoring the women who helped make you who you are.

Sources for the photos above can be found through our Remember Always Pinterest board.

It’s getting to be the season when flea markets are in full swing.  There are so many amazing finds out there, just waiting for a new home.  Vintage is a great way to go for setting up your new home.  Not only are things well constructed, but they are unique (and often really, really affordable!)  I love the idea of using vintage finds in your wedding.  They then just become part of your household, each one made more special by the memory of your happy day.

It’s best to have a love for the unmatched and a clear color scheme in mind.  If you can sort of keep an eye on era, that can help the look seem more cohesive.  Look for teacups, plates, bottles and bowls.  Seek out great linens or scarves to help top the tables.  If you can’t find enough, add in some burlap.  Use classic florals like the roses and baby’s breath.  The look is sweet and soft in this collection.  Breezy and sophisticated.  Perfect for the woman who likes to go antiquing with mom or who likes to pick up this and that as she spots it.  A great collection for a special day.

For sources for these items and lots of other great Flea Market ideas, check out our Pinterest Board!

Well, things have been brilliantly busy around the Paperwhites offices!  Mastering our new (amazing and awesome!) printer, getting things together for some wonderful brides, thinking ahead to what comes next…the usual whirlwind that we wouldn’t trade for anything!  We’ve got some real life brides coming up that we’ll be featuring.  And we got a lovely shout out on Style Me Pretty for a wedding in New Zealand that we did paper for (loving how our Dahlia invite works here!).  So many great things!

And we’ve been thinking about weddings to come.  This color combo came to mind when thinking about September in that stretch of Indian Summer.  It’s that time when the world is giving us just a bit more sun and warmth to go with the final bursts of color from flowers.  It’s that time when the sky is an impossible shade of blue and the leaves are starting to think about changing color.  Clearly not Autumn, but almost.  That’s the perfect time to put together those same colors in your wedding.

Cobalt blue looks great on almost everyone, whether on a bridesmaid’s dress or as a touch in a groomsman’s pocket.  The vibrant orange in the flowers is picked up in the other accessories–the tie, the necklace, those fantastic shoes.  The rich blue glassware always looks amazing on a white tablecloth, but when you add in the tangerine elements in the flowers, you get a look that is unexpected and pretty and in keeping with the time of year.

Can’t you just picture it? Maybe with our Ava Invitation with Cobalt ink?  Check out the sources for these great ideas, as well as some other great Cobalt Blue and Orange ideas on our Pinterest Board!

Between the end of the Edwardian era and the advent of the Great War (World War 1), there was a moment when things turned modern. It was a time when there was a sudden surge of newness in the world.  Telephones, electricity and cars all started to make their way into homes.  The old ways were starting to fall away.  Women were demanding the vote.  Change was coming.  And that’s when we are introduced to the Crawley family of Downton Abbey.

The show is compelling and well regarded on both sides of the pond, but as with any sort of international phenomenon, the impact is far reaching beyond good ratings.  And one of the easiest places to see the impact is in fashion.  The era is full of sleek and modern silhouettes with beading and lace.  It’s the first time we see ankles in the daylight (though at night the gowns still sweep the floor.)  We aren’t quite to the short, fringed flapper dresses, but we are a far cry from the bustles of  a few years earlier. Think the earliest years of Coco Chanel.

In looking for modern makers of this kind of evening wear, BHLDN and Temperly London both have a number of examples that show the same lean lines and graceful shapes.  I expect others to come along soon.  Gloves were a must then…and might be the right choice now.  The jewelry shown is part of the extensive and amazing collection of antique rings available from Erica Weiner Jewelry. If you are looking for a sophisticated, elegant and beautiful feel for your wedding, this may be just right.

To check out the sources for these amazing gowns and other examples of Downton Abbey style, check our our Pinterest Board.

What an amazing and celebratory weekend!  Welcome to the New Year.  We hope it is full of peace, happiness and love.  Our year over here at Paperwhites is looking to be an exciting one!  We’re going to be launching some new products, revamping our website with some amazing photographs (What?  A sneak preview?  I can arrange that!) and lots of other surprises.  Here at the blog, we’ll keep bringing you great ideas and all kinds of things we spot around the world that will bring that special something to add to your special occasions.

Over the weekend, we were drinking prosecco and I was watching the fizz at the top of the glass.  I had been thinking about bubbles for the blog, but had been thinking about cute, sweet wedding favors (On our Pinterest board, there is a little girl blowing bubbles from a mason jar with a vintage key–adorable!).  The golden fizz made me realize that bubbles could take on a totally different vibe, too.  Very sleek and sophisticated.  The geometry is always a perfect orb, the color is always reflective of the world around, the style is totally minimalist.  Bubbles are no longer just the providence of backyard playdates or bathtime fun–when approached with the right mindset, they are very grown up indeed.

The source for this and bubble load of other bubble ideas, from the sophisticated to the casual, on our Pinterest Board!

You know how really good chocolate and butter can make transcendentally good brownies?  Or how a perfect fabric makes a skirt drape just right?  The way using the right elements can make something lovely into something spectacular?  That’s how I feel about these necklaces.   Name necklaces are always sweet and charming, but when you pair them with this amazing calligraphy, you get something fantastic.

Good calligraphy makes all the difference here and on an invitation.  These necklaces from Brevity. are lettered by one of our favorite typographers/calligraphers, Crystal Kluge.  Classic, with a twist of whimsy.  The ultimate bridesmaid gift, perfect for the wedding day, perfect for later, perfect for yourself.  Just perfect.

Picture courtesy of Brevity. (check out their chevrons, too!)
Calligraphy by Crystal Kluge,
Check out our Pinterest Retail Therapy board for other great finds.