southernafternoon.com

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.

Deep reds are everywhere right now!  Reds with purple and brown undertones are lush and dramatic.  The colors are most at home on rich leathers, but they have been showing up everywhere from some amazing hats to even more amazinger shoes.  (Yeah, I know it’s not a word, but have you seen those shoes???)

I’ve never thought of these colors as a kind of neutral, but they fit nicely in many different scenarios.  Paired with touches of greenery and black and white, these colors are bold and sophisticated.  To achieve the look, you need to add just a bit of shimmer, some great flowers, and a bit of restraint.  Too much of the blood red or making your groom sparkle from head to toe and you’re venturing into Hollywood vampire flick territory.  If you were to take away the glitter and the black and white and replace it with more leather, brown tweed and cream, you’d have a steampunk flair.  Swap the black for navy and add more maroon and some stripes and it’s very preppy.

A touch or two will update your wardrobe–and I’ve got lots and lots of great jackets and bags pinned on Pinterest (and sources for all these things! Like the invite?  Check out our other work on etsy or our website!

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.

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!

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 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.