When Annie + Jimmy planned their wedding, they simply wanted a design that would reflect their “deep-seated Tennessee Southern roots.” From homemade elements like numerous family quilts and pillows to the late night snack of Krystal burgers, there ain’t nothin’ more Southern than what the newlyweds put together. (Y’all just read about their getaway truck, Earl!) Of the numerous details, some of my favorites include the hanging kites and wildflower arrangements. Scroll down and you’ll see a gorgeous quilted chair back that will make you want to break out your sewing kit. Even better is the adorable ring bearer trying to make his getaway, but I won’t give it all away. These images from Jonathan Canlas will do just the trick.

For Annie, her best advice to brides is to “make it yours.” I can’t tell you how special it was to have meaning in absolutely everything.

We used all types of flowers for the wedding. I wanted it to look like we had gone out and picked our favorite flowers. We used tons of wildflowers as well as peonies, hydrangeas and sunflowers. We used all different types of containers for the flowers – from mason jars to vintage Cracker Jack tins.

The wedding cake was made to look like a quilt. It was square with three tiers. Each square was made to look like it was quilted and had various quilt square patterns going around it. The cake topper was composed of two handmade fabric birds made to look like us. The groom had Jimmy’s exact plaid pocket square, tie and linen suit (in miniature, of course!), and the bride was made using the actual lace from my wedding dress. It was a strawberry cake with buttercream icing, and it was delicious! I didn’t want a traditional cake with fondant icing. Jimmy’s groom’s cake was a surprise. It was made to look like a stack of his favorite books: “All the Pretty Horses” by Cormac McCarthy, “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” by Mark Twain, and “All the King’s Men” by Robert Penn Warren.

We left the ceremony in Jimmy’s green ‘52 Ford pickup truck, affectionately known as “Earl.” It was an engagement gift from my dad to Jimmy, and they plan to restore it over the next few years together. Before the wedding, they managed to cut and build mahogany rails for the bed. My mom stitched the phrase “Just Hitched” onto a burlap banner attached to the tailgate, which was also lined with ribbon streamers strung with yarn pompons. Our guests tossed—or in some cases, hurled—birdseed that was tied up in squares of old floral flour sacks and kitchen twine. My aunt is making us a Double Wedding Ring quilt as our wedding gift using the flour sack fabric from the birdseed toss—something we will cherish forever.

What was the funniest moment? What was the scariest? The cake cutting was one of the funniest moments, I think. I had already warned Jimmy that I was going to smash the cake in his face, but I wasn’t expecting him to strike first! He served the slice delicately toward my mouth, then smeared it straight up my face. While I stood there in shock, he drew war paint on my cheeks with the icing, and grinned wickedly. I was breathing strawberries and butter cream the rest of the night! But I got him back with a great forehand to his face. We kissed and made up, coated in icing. The scariest moment for me was being in front of everyone at the ceremony. I am very shy! It was likewise for Jimmy, but mainly because he felt a little overheated in his suit and had to stand at the altar during the full processional of bridesmaids, flower girls, and ring bearer before my entrance. He was very excited to grasp my hand and stand beside me!
Were there any family traditions you included in the reception? I used pictures of my grandmother and my mom on their wedding days, as well as lots of family antiques and quilted elements – which are part of my family heritage. My family owns a Krystal franchise. It’s a Southern-specific burger chain that has been a big part of the South since 1932. As a surprise, we served Krystals as the late night snack in custom made Krystal boxes Jimmy and I had designed months earlier.
What’s next for you as a couple? What are you looking forward to in the future? I’m looking forward to being home as a married couple and using the different objects from the wedding to make a home for us. I am very excited to start our life together here in Chattanooga! We hope to learn something new about each other every day, and we are certain that whatever the future holds, we can enjoy its blessings and endure its hardships as long as we stand by each other.
Best advice or most memorable comment someone made to you during the wedding celebration. One of Jimmy’s fraternity brothers shared some advice that he was told at his own wedding, and Jimmy found it really moving: “Marriage isn’t about keeping score, because you already owe the other person everything.”

Annie + Jimmy’s V4 wedding is one that I keep finding new details in. Their Tennessee nuptials bound their love of the South and all things vintage with a dedication to tradition and family. Their ceremony was packed with nods to Jimmy’s love of literature and the couple’s relationship, with a reading of William Butler Yeats’ poem, “He Wishes For the Cloths of Heaven.” The reading was extra special since it was the poem that Jimmy included in his first love letter to Annie (aww!). Just looking at these images from Jonathan Canlas makes our hearts melt.

I found my wedding dress at a little boutique in Nashville called B. Hughes Bridal. I was set on having a Vera Wang dress, and B. Hughes had the best selection. They were also incredibly nice and made the whole experience so much fun! My best friend and mom went with me to help – along with my dog for some of my fittings! My dress looks like a mixture of vintage lace and couture fashion. Fashion is my other weakness – so it fit the bill perfectly! I knew it was my dress, because it was the one that best made me feel like a bride. Surprisingly, the style was opposite of what I always thought I would have, but I absolutely love it! I felt so beautiful in it.

For the groom, the vintage handkerchiefs in the wedding program held extra importance. In just the seven months prior to our wedding, I’d lost the two most influential men in my life. Without Annie sticking by me, I would have fallen beyond salvation. Our wedding was thus shadowed by, and saturated with, their presence. We acknowledged their loss in our programs: I wrote a brief message thanking our guests for supporting us through the loss of my best friend in the fall, and then my dad in the winter. I quoted my father’s speaking points for his engagement toast—one he was unable to deliver, and in our program message, I wrote: “We cherish his words, and have smiled through our tears at the legacy of love left to us. Along with our gratitude, please accept these handkerchiefs: though they may aptly wipe away tears of sorrow, we pray they may only catch tears of joy today.”

We had a spring wedding on May 28. The ceremony was at 5:30pm on Signal Mountain, TN. Signal Mountain is where Jimmy grew up, and the church is where I have wanted to get married for years. It’s affectionately referred to as The Little Brown Church by locals, and for obvious reason. It’s a quaint old church surrounded by pine trees that was built in 1908. Our reception was at Lindsay Street Hall in downtown Chattanooga. It used to be an old church built in the early 1900s that has been restored into a beautiful event hall. Both of these venues seemed like the perfect spots for our vintage wedding! Our rehearsal dinner was at the River Inn, also known as The Old Catfish House, situated on the Tennessee River with a sunset view of the River Gorge. We thought it had a perfect laid back Southern atmosphere with a view to match!

How did the two of you meet? Tell us your story. We met through close mutual friends. Jimmy is an old friend of my best friend’s husband. She and her husband schemed to get us together, thinking we would be perfect for each other. Once we were acquainted, a friendship slowly grew into a relationship that neither of us expected. We seemed so different, but had all the important common interests (faith, family, hair metal and country music, and plaid). In the end, our friends really knew what was best for us!
Describe the proposal: We had planned to go for a short vacation to my family’s beach condo in Clearwater, Florida. I have been going there since birth; it feels like a second home to me. Jimmy had schemed to propose while on this getaway. He hid the ring in his carry-on bag and sweated his way through security. Unfortunately, we arrived to a heavy rainstorm, so we decided to nap after unpacking. Later, after showering for dinner, Jimmy saw the skies beginning to lighten and suggested we take a walk on the beach before eating. He sent up a little prayer for the rain to stop, and the Big Man upstairs was listening! The rain cleared just in time for a beautiful sunset. There was hardly anyone on the beach due to the weather, which was perfect! We walked down the beach a little ways until Jimmy was too nervous to wait any longer and got down on one knee. Of course, I said, “Yes!” We then went to eat dinner at a beachside restaurant that used to be the hotel where my family stayed for years. Jimmy had a table waiting with champagne, and we called our family and friends to share the good news!
Three adjectives that describe the day are: Vintage, warm, loving
How many guests attended your wedding? I think we had just over 200 guests attending.
Bride’s favorite detail of the wedding: There were too many details I loved to choose just one. I loved that we had bluegrass music rather than standard classical music, and each song in our processional was meaningful. We didn’t chose standard wedding songs. My favorites were the Tennessee Waltz for the groomsmen processional and the song for the mothers’ processional. I chose the song “May The Lord” which is to the tune of Edelweiss. It was the lullaby my mother used to rock me to sleep to every night when I was little.
What was your favorite design detail: The programs were one of my favorite aspects of the ceremony. We used handmade and craft paper for the various paper announcements, so we carried the theme over with the programs. I wanted to use an old wax seal on all of our various invites, so we had a seal made that looked like the drawing of the pine tree from the hymnal of The Little Brown Church. The lady who made all of our paper goods also added our initials at the base of the pine tree to personalize it. We used a similar pine tree for the front of the program. Jimmy loves literature, so I wanted the programs to look like a book for him. We made a thick cover out of craft paper backed in an old floral print we used throughout the paper goods. The pages were made from handmade paper we used for our various invitations, and we bound the book with boucle linen thread. We tucked a vintage hanky that my mom and I had collected in each program and tied it with an aged-looking silk ribbon. They were so special and beautiful. My family and friends helped me assemble them all a few days before the wedding.

Our friend Katie, from the popular blog Marriage Confessions, drops by twice a month to share her take on Southern married life. We hope you enjoy, and be sure to visit her at her blog for regular doses of humor and adorable-ness!

The first Valentine’s Day my husband and I shared as man and wife has become legendary to our family and friends. Why? Because Chris gave me Tupperware. Seriously.

His birthday that year was not all that great, either. I gave him a vacuum cleaner. It was a very nice vacuum cleaner… but still. I had a friend whose husband (who shall remain nameless to protect the stupid) gave her a lightning rod for their house for their first anniversary, and I had another friend (who shall remain nameless to protect the cheap) who gave her husband a rice steamer for his 30th birthday.

It’s not that these are bad gifts to give (I had a rice steamer on my Christmas list last year). It’s more that they are such easy gifts to give. Sort of thoughtless, mindless presents. Presents that come out of conversations about budgeting and home repairs, instead of out of conversations about our wants and our desires.

Before we were married, Chris used to give me the most thoughtful presents. Nothing too expensive (we were broke college kids), but always something that took his time and attention. One time in the mail, he sent me an index card that he had taped a bunch of pretzels to that spelled out, “I love you.” I still have that, almost ten years later. Another time, he sent me on a scavenger hunt throughout our hometown for no reason at all. At each stop there was a rose with my next clue. At the twelfth stop (that’s a dozen roses, for all you English majors out there…) he was waiting with a homemade picnic dinner. All because it was a Tuesday and he loved me.

When you get married, you sort of go into business together. You manage your household and your finances, your careers and your heath, your family and obligations. So, I understand the giving of practical presents. Your business has a need, so why not use Christmas or a birthday as a time to meet it? But just like there is a line between your business and home life, there should be a line between your practical needs and your relationship needs in your marriage, and gift-giving, in my opinion, should always fall in the relationship category.

Gifts tell people that you are thinking about them, that they are important to you, that you are proud of them, happy for them, celebrating with them. Vacuum cleaners, while certainly a gift someone would use, don’t really send that message. That’s not to say that you shouldn’t ever give a practical gift. One year, Chris and I were really struggling for money and we both really wanted a new grill. We both love to grill, and our old one was about to fall apart. We decided that we would get a new grill as our present to each other that Christmas, and it was a gift that we both still enjoy together, years later. But in addition to giving that grill, Chris and I also exchanged gifts under $20 each. These gifts had to express something we loved about the other person. He gave me two books I had really wanted to read, and he said he loved watching me read because he knew how happy it made me. Before then, I wasn’t entirely sure Chris even KNEW I read books, and come to find out, it was one of his favorite things about me.

Another trick to gift-giving when you are married is to make sure that the random, just-because-it’s-Tuesday gifts keep coming. In the first year of our marriage, Chris and I used to leave each other little gifts all the time, for absolutely no reason. But as the years went by, that slowly stopped. I was thinking about it a few months ago, and I couldn’t remember the last time I’d bought a card for him or picked up a little treat for no reason at all. With two little kids, a lot of our attention goes to making sure they have everything they need, but I think that it then becomes really easy to overlook the needs of our spouse. And a need we all have is to know that we are loved and thought about.

Now, any time I’m at the drug store or grocery store, I pick up a little something in the check out aisle, just for Chris – his favorite candy bar or a magazine I know he likes or a card. One of his favorites is when I splurge and bring him home the really good, expensive ice cream when I go grocery shopping. None of those things costs too much and I’m already out when I decide to bring him something, so it doesn’t even mean I have to DO anything extra, really. It’s just picking up a little something to tell him that I was thinking about him, even while I was at the grocery store.

Just as in your everyday life you have to learn how to balance home and work, you have to learn how to do that in gift-giving when you’re married, too. There can be a time and a place for practical gifts, but they should never take the place of a thoughtful, unique, personalized gift that tells someone how much they mean to you. Gift-giving, when done correctly, can be one of those little things that make a marriage feel fresh and new and passionate, no matter how long you’ve been married.

P.S. All of these photos are from Josh McCullock, one of our fabulous Blue Ribbon Vendors! See more from this wedding on his blog here!

Yesterday’s lovely bridal shower inspiration inspired me to dust off one of my favorite Southern Weddings features: our Southern Etiquette column!

I had just the query, one that came in from a lovely mother of the bride (oh, how we love that mothers read our blog, too!). Here it is:

Hello, Emily,

I read your post about not inviting people to showers who are not invited to weddings, which agrees with my personal opinion and everything else I find on the same topic, but I want to ask the same question again with my own twist, as I am not completely sure if this principle applies in every situation.

My daughter is newly engaged to a boy who grew up in the small town to which we moved about four years ago. His parents grew up here, as well. The moment their engagement was made public, several women at our mutual church volunteered to be shower hostesses, which is a part of the local generous Southern tradition.

Between the couple, they have over 80 family members who will be invited to the wedding. This includes siblings, parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. They want to limit the wedding to that group and a dozen or so close friends, most of whom will be members of the wedding party.

Should my daughter decline the offers of these women to host a shower, since they will not be invited to the wedding? The groom’s mother feels that the appropriate solution is to have a 300 – 400 person guest list, including people neither the bride nor groom really know, but this is not only outside the limits of our financial ability, it is also not what the bride and groom want for their special day.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts on this matter!

Mother-of-the-Bride

A perfectly Southern table setting, courtesy of Katie Rivers

I think the dilemma of the “church shower” is both very common and uniquely Southern (i.e. I had never heard of this predicament before I moved South, but have since heard of it several times!). A strong church family is such a wonderful thing to have in your life, but it can make things like shower and wedding guest list planning complicated. Hence, why most Southerners don’t bat an eyelash upon hearing about a 400, 500, or 600 person guest list!

However, a monster guest list is not the solution for every bride, and does not sound like the solution in this case. So, if inviting the church ladies to the wedding and allowing them to host a shower is not the answer, what is?

I think the first step is to make it clear to the would-be hostesses that the couple is planning a small wedding and that a traditional shower might not be the most appropriate choice (while you’re at it, get the MOG on board, too, so she can help spread the word discreetly!).

If they still insist on hosting an event, I actually think that’s just fine, and a lovely gesture. I’m sure it’s one borne out of genuine love for the bride and groom! However, I would guide them towards calling it something besides a “bridal shower” — perhaps a “luncheon in honor of the bride” or a “meet the bride breakfast.” I would also insist on no gifts, and make sure that that’s clearly printed in the invitation. That way, the focus will be on surrounding the bride with love and support, and the risk for hurt feelings should be greatly minimized!

Ladies, I would LOVE to hear what y’all think – is this a situation you’ve run up against? What would you do if you were faced with this situation? Would you allow a traditional shower to be held, take a middle road like I’ve suggested, or insist on none at all? I would LOVE to hear your thoughts!

P.S. Have a etiquette query of your own? Feel free to shoot me an email!

P.P.S. Past etiquette conundrums:
Tipping wedding vendors
Wedding rings for men
Formal invitations – necessary?
Clapping at the recessional

It’s spring time, which means it’s time for some Southern bridal showers! (I should know – I’m currently planning one for my future sister-in-law, which is taking place in two weeks!) Over the last few weeks we’ve provided you with some dream shower inspiration, but we thought y’all might enjoy seeing a real life shower planned by a real gal for her best friend. Doable, sweet, and oh so Southern inspiration!

Kelsey (on the left) just so happens to be one of our Southern Bride Bloggers, and when her friend Meredith sent in her monogram-themed shower, we just knew y’all would love it.

From Meredith:

“If I had to pick one thing that Kelsey loves, other than her fiance Brandon of course, it would have to be monograms! So, when the rest of her bridesmaids and I began planning her bridal shower, we thought it would be so perfect to throw her a monogram themed bridal shower. Kelsey loves collecting monogrammed items and we knew it would be really fun to help start her new collection of monogrammed pieces with her new married monogram!

We worked with a seller on Etsy to design an invitation that tied in the feminine pink and gray color scheme with the monogram that I designed for the event. We also included an insert card detailing Kelsey’s monogram preferences so that everything would be just right, and tied everything with a silver bow.”

“On the day of the shower, a monogram K wreath made out of tissue paper flowers, in the script from the event’s monogram, greeted guests at the front door.”

“Guests were led to their tables via escort cards that hung from ribbon with clothespins on a silver mirror. At their place setting, guests found a place card favor box of pink candy tied with a tag that had their own personal monogram on it. Monogramming each place setting was a fun way to tie in the monogram theme!”

“The china on the tables was collected from members of my family and was different at each table. We created the lush low centerpieces using hydrangea, roses, and other pink and white flowers. Each centerpiece had a ribbon band with the shower monogram placed in the center. Table numbers were painted pink and inserted into the middle of each floral arrangement.” The rentals were sourced from Party Reflections in Raleigh!

“We served a lunch with lots of delicious food, including cucumber tea sandwiches and homemade pimento cheese sandwiches, quiche, strawberry spinach salad, and miniature ham biscuits. The menu was written on a chalkboard nearby. A dessert bar was placed under a board with a sign that said “Love is Sweet” surrounded by pictures of Kelsey and Brandon throughout their years together. The desserts were wonderful, including cake balls, lemon raspberry mason jar desserts, French macarons, red velvet cupcakes and a custom monogrammed cake from Sweet Memories Bakery.”

“Sweet tea and strawberry lemonade were served in large mason jar dispensers, with gray and white paper straws to drink from, of course! We also had a super fun Bellini Bar, where guests could create their own Bellini by selecting one of 6 different fruit purees or juices and then mixing in prosecco. Drink flags with the shower monogram were perfect for stirring it all together.”

We played a number of games throughout the event and they went over really well. When guests first arrived, they had the chance to play a “What’s in your purse?” game, and the person with the most points won a prize. This turned out to be a wonderful icebreaker, and it was fun to play while everyone got a drink and mingled!

“To keep everyone involved while gifts were being opened, we played gift bingo! Each person created their own bingo card by filling in the spaces with items that they thought Kelsey might receive, for example: sheets, silverware, cake stand, towels, serving spoon, etc. As Kelsey opened her gifts, people crossed off their spaces and the first person to get five in a row won!

Lastly, we played a game similar to the newlywed game, where Kelsey had to answer 20 questions that her fiance Brandon had already answered. We had to guess how many she would actually get correct. Before we played this game, Brandon showed up, so he was able to see Kelsey try to guess all of the answers he had given!”

Thank you so much for sending over all of these details, Meredith! Belles, I hope you enjoyed this peek at such a thoughtful (and Southern!) bridal shower! Best wishes to Kelsey and Brandon, and best of luck finishing up your wedding plans! We can’t wait to see the photos!

P.S. More bridal shower inspiration:
A honey bee bridal shower
A Southern tea bridal shower
Southern Etiquette: Who’s invited to the shower?