Features Archives - Page 10 of 17 - Southern Vintage Table

Vintage Feature – Our 3 Reasons to Host a Family-Style Reception!

Plated, buffet, family style – how will your guests enjoy that delicious meal at your party or reception? There isn’t a right or wrong answer, of course, but let us share three reasons you should consider family-style!

Reason 1 – Family-style dinners can feel more intimate.

A lovely memory most of us share is sitting down to a family meal. Home-cooked food, presented on platters and in bowls, are passed down the table as everyone fills their plate. Conversation flows and folks feel connected. This sense of communion is the first great reason to consider a family style dinner!

Reason 2 – Family-style dining is casual yet elegant.

With family-style dining, guests are all seated rather than standing in line at the buffet table, and eating at the same time. But, in contrast to a plated dinner, your guests can make their own selections and portions. You might also consider a combination plated/family-style dinner by plating the dinner salad or first course, and then serving the remaining menu items family style. Be sure to consult with your caterer about how the menu fits the type of reception dinner.

Southern Vintage Table Vintage China Rental NC — Photo by Scott Faber

Reason 3 – Southern Vintage Table has a great inventory of vintage serving dishes!

Presentation is part of the dining experience and our vintage bowls will definitely add flair to any meal. We have more than 120 vintage bowls and platters (china, ceramic, & glass) in our inventory, not including our 12 deviled egg trays and we know how important that is on a southern menu!

Give us a call or send an email – we’re ready to help you plan your family-style dinner!

After a good dinner one can forgive anybody, even one’s own relatives.
-Oscar Wilde

Vintage Feature – Making Progress on our Linen Inventories!

We’ve been quite focused on our vintage linen collection and can proudly announce that 5 inventory slide shows are now available under our Vintage Linens tab. Yay!

Vintage Lace & Crocheted Tablecloth Inventory
Vintage Table Topper Inventory
Vintage Napkin Inventory
Vintage Doilies & Runners Inventory
Vintage White/Cream Tablecloth Inventory

An interesting thing happened along the way of our sorting, counting, and measuring – we discovered that we have amassed a very nice collection of vintage table toppers! These are small tablecloths or large doilies usually placed over a base cloth in the center of the table as an accent. Embellished with embroidery, lace, and/or colorful designs, these toppers add a dash of style to your table design!

Most are square but we also have a few round and rectangular ones. As an alternative to our vintage lace overlays, you may want to consider these lovelies as a backdrop for your table’s centerpiece.

Vintage Toppers - Southern Vintage Table — Photo by Katherine Miles Jones

There’s much more to add to our linen inventory – colored tablecloths, printed tablecloths, and placemats – so stay posted. We look forward to sharing these with you soon!

Vintage Feature – 6 Things You Want to Know About Napkins!

Vintage Napkins at Southern Vintage Table — Photos by Katherine Miles Jones

We’ve been sorting, counting, and photographing napkins this week and though we have made progress, we still have more to do. In the meantime, we did a little research about this seemingly ordinary household staple, but like everything, the napkin story is very interesting.

~ Here are 6 things we thought you’d like to know about napkins! ~

1 – The first “napkin” was not made of cloth but were nuggets of bread. The ancient Greeks used soft bread inside the crust to clean their fingers during a meal.

2 – Cloth napkins date back to the 14th century while paper tea napkins were invented by the Chinese in the 2nd century BC.

3 – Scott Paper was the first US company to sell paper napkins and, although they were produced in the 1930s, they didn’t become popular until the 1950s.

4 – Napkins come in different sizes, colors, patterns, and styles. The rule of thumb as far as the size of the napkin is this – the more food being served, the larger the napkin.

5 – Yes, napkin etiquette does exist. If you have good napkin manners you know when to pick up your napkin, how to place it in your nap, and where to put it when you’re finished the meal. You also know what not to do with a napkin.

6 – According to some sources, the expression “to make ends meet” is a reference to the use of a napkin. The origin of this phrase actually has many theories but this is our favorite. In the French court of 1729 men wore shirts that had stiff, ruffled collars. As the story goes, to protect their clothing, napkins were tucked in the neckline and around the neck so as “to make ends meet.”

There’s so much more to share but we’ve got to get back to our napkin task.
Have a nice week!

Sources:
Napkin Folding Guide
Clise Etiquette
Wikipedia – Napkin
Food Reference

Vintage Feature – Lovely Lace & Crocheted Tablecloths

We have long appreciated the romantic beauty of vintage lace and crocheted tablecloths. Our admiration for these delicate table coverings has been renewed this week because we have been working on sorting and photographing these lovelies for our recently published Vintage Lace & Crocheted Tablecloth Inventory page. Hooray!

As we pulled out them out of the bins our first decision was categorizing. We thought about arranging them by color but they are slightly different hues of creams and whites. Then we considered size but few of them have the same measurement. But, we noted three different weights – Crocheted, Medium-Weight, and Light-Weight – and that’s how they are presented to you. When mousing over the image on the Inventory page, the dimensions of each of the cloths are shown underneath. And, to further help, below the slideshow are two table listings by size.

Right to Left: Crocheted, Medium-Weight, Light-Weight

Take a look at our beautiful and unique collection. If you have any questions, please email us!
Now, onto the napkins…

Vintage Feature – A Night at the Museum

What a night! We were invited to take part in the Museum of Life & Science‘s Wedding Expo with our flower farm friend, Carrie of Fernrock Farm. Our evening was filled with meeting lots of sweet couples, along with mothers and friends, and a cadre of terrific vendors who offer individual services to help make a wedding day special and unique.

Here are 4 takeaways from this special evening.

1 – This wedding venue is super cool! Imagine how much fun it would be to host your wedding at a
science museum with all the dinosaurs, exhibits, and animals. Oh, my…

2 – Wedding vendors are friendly, dedicated, and truly enjoy their profession.
We really were impressed with everyone we met.

3 – Meeting two people who have chosen each other as their forever partner
is an incredibly joyful, wonderful experience.

4 – Everything can be made even better when you share it with a friend.
Thank you, Carrie, for being my vendor partner.

Thanks, Lyndsay Putnam and all the folks at the Museum of Life & Science,
for orchestrating a terrific event for all of us.

Vintage Feature – Vintage Postcard Love

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Ahhh, the sweet elegance of vintage postcards. Aren’t these just wonderful?

Love is not just a sentiment.
Love is the ultimate truth at the heart of creation.
~ Deepak Chopra

Vintage Feature – 1 – 2 – 3 Reasons to Be Grateful this Week

This first week of February has been notable because we have
three reasons to celebrate!

~ ONE ~

We finished ONE inventory slide show under our Vintage Linens Collection!
Take a look at our wonderful collection of vintage doilies and runners.

~ TWO ~

Our Facebook page received TWO new “Likes” this week.
As a small business, every single “Like” is so very much appreciated!
(Update – we received one more yesterday – yippee!)

~ THREE ~

Southern Vintage Table Vintage China Rental NC We have THREE new clients for upcoming weddings
and our calendar is filling in for the 2016 wedding season!
Now, this really makes us smile!

So, these are 1 – 2 – 3 reasons we are grateful this week!

Vintage Feature – Progress on our 2016 Goals!

Here in North Carolina many of us love snow! This weekend, with a mixture of snow and sleet, our landscape is now bedecked in white. In between watching the endless snow reports on tv and cat-napping on the couch, we are pleased to share that progress has been made on our 2016 goals!

First, as displayed above, we created a wonderful photographic splash of some of our vintage stoneware patterns. We pulled these cool dinner plates for a couple as they plan their barn wedding coming up in the fall. More to be done – organize, count, and photograph – but it’s a start in our quest to showcase the sub-collections of our vintage dinnerware.

Our style for tackling tasks is to work on several projects at a time. So, we also unpacked our collection of vintage doilies for our Linen Inventory page. We now have stacks of petite, medium, large, and grand vintage doilies. Tablecloths, overlays, and placemats are next on the list. Here’s our stack of 50 petite vintage doilies!

Our biggest accomplishment is the recently pressed Vintage Planters Inventory page. We love these planters that come in all colors, materials, and shapes! With a gorgeous bouquet or small plant tucked inside, they will add drama and color to any table.

That’s our week! The snow will soon melt, which is why we love it in NC, and we’ll continue focusing on our goals in the upcoming weeks. Robert Collier perfectly captured this week’s progress with this quote…

~ Success is the sum of small efforts repeated day in and day out. ~

Vintage Feature – One Down & Two to Go for 2016!

It’s the annual ritual most of us follow – setting goals at the start of the new year. To help motivate and keep us focused, we are officially, and in print, announcing Southern Vintage Table’s top 3 goals for 2016. Here they are!

√ Goal 1 – Participate in a bridal show.

ForeverBridal Show - 1870 Farm - Southern Vintage Table — Here’s a photo of 1870 Farm’s booth at the Forever Bridal show, courtesy of owner David.

Okay, we might have cheated on this one because it was this past weekend, but it was just inside the new year calendar! (When you see our second goal you’ll understand why we wanted to have one checked off – it’s a doozy.)

Several months ago, Lauren, the event coordinator for 1870 Farm, a lovely Chapel Hill family & wedding venue, asked if we would set the sweetheart table at their booth. It was for the annual Forever Bridal show in Raleigh, an event many newly engaged couples attend to plan for their upcoming wedding. We set the table with our vintage china, goblets, silverware, candle holders, and linens while Filled & Flooded Creative Solutions provided the Mr. & Mrs. signs on the chairs. With the wonderful photograph of the venue in the background (isn’t that red hen so sweet!), the booth looked terrific. We are grateful to David, the owner of 1870 Farm, and Lauren for inviting us to play a part!

Goal 2 – Continue creating inventory slideshows.

Now, as we hinted, this one takes grit, commitment, and persistence. We have made much progress but we still have many lovely treasures to show you – notably our linens and lace overlays, colorful ceramic planters, chic ice buckets, and sub collections of our dinner plates. Whew! This one will definitely keep us busy.

Goal 3 – Create a logo.

We have been playing around with this for a while and just haven’t experienced that ah-ha-we-love-it moment. The one above is our first draft but it still needs tweaking. We have found a couple of apps that may help us but our antennas are up and ready to receive that perfect message of inspiration. One thing is certain; we have a sincere appreciation for the creative talents of graphic designers!

So, that’s our list! Got one checked off (te-hee) and only two more to go.

Have a terrific week and year ahead!

PS – Thanks to all for the kind words and congratulations regarding our Wedding Wire Couples’ Choice Award for 2016! We are both grateful and excited to be recognized! Now, that was the perfect start to our new year!

Vintage Feature – Happy New Year!

Southern Vintage Table Vintage China Rental NC