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.

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.

Yesterday it was announced, the few words that set the tone and tones for so many of the design decisions that are to come.  Pantone’s color of the year…is…Emerald!!

A love of blue green has been percolating for a while…we’ve touched on it here.  And here.  And here. But I’ll pin this particular color choice on Pippa Middleton’s bridesmaid dress, which was a perfect emerald blue green.  It was fresh, flattering and sophisticated.

The best part?  It’s surprisingly versatile. Here, we’ve got it paired with a lighter, bluer aqua for a breezy palette, but it could easily go with silver and very angular design for an art deco look. or with peach, or with gray, or with deep plum, or with….You get the idea.

For sources for all these pics, check out our Pinterest board.  For more info on our sweet Botanical Breeze Save the Date, check out our Etsy shop.  And for everything else, visit our website.

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

Sometimes I’ll get a whisper of an idea that will form in my brain. Other times I’ll have things form completely in a matter of seconds.  This is the latter.

I spotted that AMAZING Carolina Herrera dress and I just knew the wedding that it belonged in.  The Hannah dress is a lovely shape, flattering and pretty, but the special touch that makes it just perfect is the hint of gray and touch of pink.  Pink dresses are hot right now.  Here, it’s just a touch, but it’s silvery and dusky and special.  As soon as I saw it, it reminded me of the pale pink dogwood blossoms that usher in spring.  And the rest just fell into place.  Our Dogwood Wedding Invitation, light gray suit with pink tie, amazing macarons, and an elegant table all play in perfect harmony with the dress. Unique, but not jarring.  Unusual, but not quirky.  And just…so….lovely.

There are more ideas than I can include here, as well as sources for these goodies on our Pinterest board.

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!

There are times I feel I breathe, eat and sleep weddings. I was on Pinterest the other day (shocker.) checking out decorating ideas and was transfixed by the array and patterns with wallpaper and fabric.  Everywhere.  The graphics remind me of everything from Moroccan tiles to bamboo lattice work.  They can be bold and overwhelming, which is surprisingly charming in a little powder room.  Alternatively, in a small tone on tone pattern, they can provide a subtle backdrop that adds polish and order and touch, which is unexpectedly sweet and gentle. Like maybe….on a great wedding invitation?

For example, here we show one of the color options for our Quatrefoil Wedding Invitation.  What a great option for a bride who loves enhanced simplicity! Tiffany blue is always beautiful, always classic, always a perfect choice, and, considering Pantone’s recent color suggestions, totally on trend.  A gray quatrefoil pattern frame surrounds the text.  The blue-green touches (and there really aren’t more than touches) stand out against the gray backdrop to make a combination that will look fresh and spectacular in your wedding album for years to come. Add an amazing bridesmaid dress with a bit of sparkle, fantastic ribbon bedecked shoes and that Lowcountry Lemonade (love when something so pretty is so yummy!) and your friends will remember yours as one of the prettiest weddings on record.

Clean lines, clear colors. A breath of fresh (wedding) air.

Lots more great ideas, as well as sources for these, can be found on our Pinterest boards!  Check out our website or our etsy shop to see other color options for this great invitation!

When I bought my first house, one of the things I was most enchanted with were the teeny tiny closets that were lined with beautiful. Sadly, because of the teeny tiny-ness of the closet, all that pretty paper got covered up, but the lesson was learned–just a touch of pattern and color can brighten up any little thing.

For example, if you tend toward a traditional style, but want that little twist of something special, our Vintage Border Wedding Invitation may be just the thing!  It’s a pretty little grace note that enhances the romance and brightens the look of a classic.   The palette is one any Southern girl would love, soft peach and leafy green. But the glory is all in the details.  The stripe of the tie found again in the swag of the chair.  The subtle ribbon of the gown circling the middle of the cake. The bit of lacy detail trimming in the invitation reminds me of the gown and tying together all the elements.  That little touch that makes it extra special.  A similar look can be found with our Vintage Ribbon Wedding Invitation.  Either choice will add that dash of sweetness you might be looking for.

I found a LOT of great ideas to compliment this theme and color scheme.  You can find them, as well as sources for these great ideas, on our Pinterest Board!

Frosty gray days with a little underlying sweetness.  There was a time where I would have overlooked those days for weddings.  June would have been all I could imagine.  The more I delve into wedding world, though, the more I see the beauty in every season of the year.  You just have to look at it a little differently.  Some of the greatest things are like that.

For example, we LOVE damask.  It’s classic and beautiful and bold and looks great with every color.  But when you strip it down, enlarge it, simplify it, you come up with something very modern and cool.  At the same time it retains all that classic bold graphic that we originally fell for.  Our Lindsay Wedding Invitation is a perfect example of that–oversized and simplified damask gracing the corners, punctuated with and framed up by colors of your choice.  Ideal for the bride who likes to have her own take on the classics.

More ideas and sources for these amazing ones can be found on our Pinterest board.

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!