It’s hard to not post these images without squealing a bit. (Don’t we always say that? V5 is just too good!) This shoot (nicknamed our “Pie Shoot”) was born from a whirlwind staff meeting that ended with a list of pies, a rough sketch of a layout and big, fat smiling faces all around. Though the images from this shoot aren’t going up until tomorrow (we like to keep y’all on your toes!), these behind-the-scenes shots from our dear friend Cyn Kain are full of the homey kitchen culture that we were after.

Our first stop of the morning was at PieBird in Raleigh to pick up two dozen delicious pies. Packing them into Emily’s car safely was a feat, but they made it to our office in Chapel Hill in one piece!

Setting the table for this shoot was like preparing for Thanksgiving, y’all! It felt like Thanksgiving, too, when we all sat down to eat. Yummm.

Are y’all seeing these angles? Joey and Jessica were shooting in Lara’s living room, letting us get a little creative with the space.

We were so lucky that Toni and Chris at Heart Stone Films could join us to capture some behind-the-scenes action and that Heidi and Melissa from the Carolina Inn were on hand to do some amazing food styling.

A food shoot ain’t complete without the SW ladies donning aprons!

Are y’all ready for more? Check out this adorable video from Heart Stone Films!



Cyn Kain is a fabulous member of our Blue Ribbon Vendor Directory!

Ready to order your copy? Be sure to place your order here before noon if you’d like to receive your copy this week!

Oh, y’all! What an AMAZING evening we had last night celebrating five years of Southern Weddings goodness! So many dear friends, vendors and readers came from all over the country to toast with us and we are truly overwhelmed with gratitude. We have much more party goodness to come in our official recap, but had to say a quick THANK YOU to everyone who joined us at the Carolina Inn last night! Giant thanks to those of you who joined us virtually via Ustream, too! If you missed the party last night, you can watch the entire thing here. Our speeches are somewhere in the middle if you want to fast forward to that : ) You can also follow party pics on Instagram and Twitter with the hashtag #V5Launch. Oh, what a night!!! We love y’all!!!

Our October was full of pretty leaves, Halloween hype and general fall fun. With the State Fair in town, it was also full of deliciously fried foods and carnival games. Take a look at what the Southern Weddings gals did last month!

1. Emily and John ventured to some waterfalls while taking a weekend trip to Asheville

2. Lara, Grace and Ari went to the McKee Farm corn maze!

3. I waited in line for a fried chicken biscuit from Sunrise Biscuit Kitchen — a Chapel Hill must!

4. Lara surprised Emily and I with some Krispy Kremes as we made our final edits on V5.

5. I ran the Color Me Rad 5K with my sister and Dad.

6. Emily, in the thick of the name change process, gathered up materials for the social security office.

7. I went to the State Fair and got to the top of the Ferris wheel just just as the fireworks show began.

8. Kristin celebrated the start of fall with some homemade chicken vegetable soup.

9. Emily, also in the mood to celebrate fall, whipped up some pumpkin chocolate chip muffins on wedding china! (She gladly shared the recipe with us here.)

10. Kristin celebrated her eighth first-date anniversary (photo from first date weekend, October 2004).

11. Marissa unpacked from Bridal Market and repacked to move! Yes, that is peanut butter in her suitcase.

12. Kristin spent a gorgeous Saturday morning at the State Fair tasting a pile of yummy (mostly fried) Southern treats: ham biscuit, fried pickles, fried snickers, roasted corn and more!

13. One of the one million gorgeous gowns Kristin saw during Bridal Market in NYC. This one is by Ines Di Santo.

14. Emily and I spent a couple of days proofing V5!

15. Marissa had dinner in NYC with Kristin, Kat Harris and former SW editor, Whitney. Once an SW girl, always an SW girl!

16. We carved a Southern pumpkin, y’all! This guy even has a dapper bow tie.

17. Lara went on a trip across the U.S. for Making Things Happen and flew over beach, canyons and snow.

18. Emily painted some golden pumpkins as her crafty project of the month.

Tell us: What did you do in October? What were the highlights of your month?

See what happened in past months:
September
August
July
June
May

We know many of you come here just for the wedding goodness, and we love that! Feel free to skip right over this post if that’s you :)

However, we also know that others of you come because you love what we do, and maybe even hope that you could do something similar one day. I know, I’ve been there! We have a group of magazine journalism students from UNC visiting our offices today, and we thought it would be great time to share some of our best job tips with a wider audience than we can invite into our space. We hope this helps a bit! Feel free to leave questions or additional tips in the comments!

1. Know the company to which you’re applying. Be over prepared. Depending on the company you’re interested in working for, this can be harder, or easier! Here at SW (and at most wedding businesses), we make it quite easy for you. You can find out all our names, you can see some of our likes and dislikes, you can read our FAQ section, and you can get to know us, our company, and what we believe in every day through our blog posts, Facebook, and Twitter accounts.

The more you know about a company, the more aware you’ll be of what they need, and the more ready you’ll be to show them what an asset you could be. For example, before my first interview with Southern Weddings, I went through V1 line by line marking up the entire copy with thoughts, ideas, things I loved, and things I hoped to help improve. Overkill? Possibly, but I wanted to be ready for anything!

In this same vein, if you’re lucky enough to get an interview at whatever company you’re interested in, ALWAYS have questions ready for the interviewer! It shows that you’re interested in the opportunity, and that you’ve thought critically about the company and what they do. This is often the make or break portion of an interview for me!

From our last visit to a CAFME (Carolina Association of Future Magazine Editors) meeting!

2. Know the industry inside and out. SW is a small company, and there’s not as much time to get a new employee up to speed as there might be at a larger company. We have the luxury of choosing from many talented candidates, and odds are, 9 times out of 10 we’ll go for the one that truly LOVES weddings simply can’t get enough of them. The type of person who thinks about and talks about weddings even after the work day is done. If you’re interested in a job in the wedding industry, I’d suggest becoming familiar with all of the major magazines, and reading a number of wedding blogs and developing an opinion on all of it. A personal perspective is something we definitely look for at SW!

Soaking things up from the outside is awesome, but hands-on experience is by far the best thing you can do for your resume and job prospects. Take on as many meaningful internships as you possibly can, and learn everything you possibly can from them! Make as many contacts as you can, too, and don’t leave them behind once your internship is over. You’ll never know who you might meet, or who might be hiring (or who knows someone who is hiring) down the road.

3. Remember that details MATTER. Spell our names correctly. Spell everything correctly. Punctuate your sentences correctly. If you’re not taking the time to spell check an email as important as this one, why would I assume you’d spell check any other email as an employee? Most importantly, be sure to use “wedding words” correctly, like stationery v. stationary and aisle v. isle. Yikes!

4. Be aware that we look at everything. You may have only sent us your resume and a cover letter, but if we’re seriously considering you for a position, we will evaluate everything we can get our hands on: Twitter account, Pinterest profile, personal blog, etc. These extensions can be an asset to you (your Pinterest boards can show us what great style you have, your personal blog can show us your writing skills and grasp of current trends), or they can cross you right off our list (yucky language or unprofessional posts on Twitter, a blog that reflects a lack of familiarity with the wedding world).

Nicole and me in the office last week!

5. Keep in mind that the traditional rules don’t always apply. This is where it gets tricky, and where I think there’s a very fine line to getting it right. For a company like SW, which does not have a corporate environment and is a very personal brand, we like to see who you are in your application, because who you are determines, in part, who we as a company will be. When we issue our call for interns, we invite you to be conversational and creative in your application. Don’t, however, fall into the trap of thinking we’re looking to hire a new best friend… which leads to my next point:

6. Be careful if you’re a superfan. I can’t tell you the number of emails I get from gals who LOVE, LOVE, L-O-V-E Southern Weddings, or weddings in general. Obviously, I understand! I was (and still am!) one of you! The truth is, though, I’ll be able to tell very quickly if you’re really a superfan, or if you’re just saying you are because you want the job, but really you’re telling that to every publication :) One easy way for me to tell? Whether or not your name is already familiar to me when your resume lands in my inbox. True superfans have been commenting on the blog and interacting with us via social media for months, if not years! So if you really are a superfan, awesome! If you’re a fan, but maybe not a superfan, that’s okay, too! There are many other assets we look for in potential employees, and we’d always prefer you be honest about who you are and what you bring to the table.

Of course, authentic face time is always helpful, which superfans thrive on! We actually met Kristin for the first time at last year’s gingerbread barn event (which we’re repeating this year, FYI look for details soon!), and though there were MANY other reasons that contributed to her eventual hire, us having met and loved her in person did give her a leg up!

7. Get really good at emailing. Finally, if there’s one tip I could pass on not only for the job search but for life after the job search, it would be to get really good at emailing. My job is 90% emailing. Though the SW ladies all have widely varying skill sets, I would say one thing that unites us is our ability to craft a good email: personal and friendly while still being professional, tuned to our audience and our relationship with the addressee, and striking the right tone through grammar, word choice, and the perfect sprinkling of exclamation points (something Marissa is still working on – ha!). Emails MATTER, especially when they are the way you communicate with 95% of your relationships. It pays to get good at them!

We so hope this was helpful! Keep in mind this is simply our perspective, and that the “rules” vary widely from company to company and industry to industry! If you have additional questions or tips, feel free to leave them in the comments. Because I know someone will ask, yes, we do gladly offer internships to current college students: generally 1-2 interns in the spring and fall, and one intern in the summer. If you’re looking for other opportunities, I would highly recommend FindaWeddingJob.com, a job board geared specifically to the wedding industry.

Hello again, friends! You already saw our Halloween costumes of years gone by, but we just had to pop in with a little pumpkin update. We took a mini break from work to carve one very special SW pumpkin (complete with bow tie, naturally!), and thought we’d show you the results!

Our creativity was fueled by Callie’s Biscuits (cinnamon is the office favorite!). Seriously, y’all, those things are out of this world!!

Happy Halloween, friends!