Though Lara has traveled around the world, the South will always be home. She wears many different (cowboy) hats in her current roles of Editor in Chief and Publisher of Southern Weddings, consultant to top wedding professionals through Lara Casey Reps and Making Brands Happen and she is the founder of the Making Things Happen movement. Lara just had her first baby, Grace Austin!

Emily, SW’s Creative Director, is a Southerner stuck in a Northerner’s body (though she can’t kick her New England love affair!). She enjoys the color pink, is obsessed with china patterns and exploring mundane points of etiquette, and could devour French bread all the livelong day. She loves the ocean. As a “wedding nerd,” she’s a sucker for swirly calligraphy, fluffy garden roses, weddings under the stars, and classic white cakes. She lives in North Carolina with her brilliant husband and two pretty kitties, and she wants to be Tami Taylor when she grows up.

Lucky to be living in the Southern Part of Heaven, and appropriately, where Southern Weddings is located, Nicole started out as a summer intern before she became Southern Weddings’ Art Director. Originally a wedding newbie with a well-suppressed love for them, she is now well on her way to filling her laptop’s hard-drive with her favorite wedding inspiration and DIY ideas, along with photos of bookcases and pugs. Nicole is an avid list-maker, color-swatch-collector, and office-supply-lover. She’s Pinterest-obsessed, loves crafting and cooking and can bake a mean pan of apple skillet brownies.

Born in Alaska, but raised in Alabama, Marissa is a true Southern girl at heart. She can’t think of a better way to spend a Saturday afternoon then with her family cheering on the Alabama Crimson Tide. (Roll Tide, y’all!) She’s married to her college sweetheart, Brandon, a bow tie clad professional baseball player. Being a baseball wife has made her no stranger to travel. She can squeeze more than a weeks worth of clothes in one small carry-on, which is quite a feat for this chronic over-packer! Culinarilly challenged, “just add water” mini-muffins are Marissa’s answer to gourmet cooking. She loves of classic wardrobe staples, and anything with a bow on it!

Originally hailing from Lexington, the BBQ capital of Western North Carolina, Kristin grew up across the Carolinas, developing a deep love for BBQ and all things Southern (e.g., front porches with rocking chairs, sweet tea, big pearls, monograms (you can monogram anything, y’all). She currently resides in a sweet little Virginia mountain town with her brand-spankin’ new husband. Admittedly, she loves any excuse to bake, always has supplies on-hand to whip up a batch of chocolate chip cookies, and secretly wishes she had her own show on the Food Network. Kristin is a self-proclaimed bookworm, she will re-write post-it notes if she doesn’t like her penmanship, and she experiences great joy when crossing things off her to-do list(s).