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Southern Vintage Table Event – Allie & Steven’s “We Do” Day!

The sweet ceremony was over. Guests were mingling and enjoying appetizers and drinks as we waited for the bridal party to return from their photo session. As I was sitting beside my cousins and looking around at folks gathered near the barn, I sensed that warm, wonderful, fuzzy feeling of familiarity and family love. In that moment of pure contentment, I felt such gratitude to be present on this beautiful day, with family and friends, celebrating the marriage of Allie & Steven.

It was an absolutely gorgeous October day at Stonewall Farm in Youngsville, NC. With the tables and chairs already set up by the venue’s terrific staff, the morning began with a cadre of friends and family, ready to decorate the reception area. Our design included burlap runners, uniquely decorated Mason jars filled with baby’s breath, pinecones, and a sprinkle of red carnations, tree rounds, and our eclectic assortment of vintage metal and glass vases, small doilies, and votives. Since the meal was to be served buffet style, the cutlery, wrapped with burlap and red string, became part of the decor at each setting. As the magnificent chandelier was hung over the bridal table, a creation by friend Rose, we all stepped back and admired the charming loveliness!

In addition to the guests’ tables, we arranged the other reception stations. A table fashioned from a spool was used as the welcome table so guests could sign their names on hearts to be placed in a shadow box as a memento for Allie & Steven. The vintage Stonewall Farm carriage was perfect for the gift area, to which we added a vintage suitcase for gift cards and a barrel topped with advice cards for folks to share their marital wisdom.

With 150 cupcakes and 100 mini cupcakes in 6 different flavors to present, Southern Vintage Table created a rustic, vintage look for the dessert table. Featuring wood, pewter, and woven stands, our rustic decor fit their farm theme perfectly. We especially loved the floral-filled duck at the top of the wicker tiered stand and the vintage red scale!

With everything set and the ceremony over, the evening celebration commenced with food, drink, dancing, laughs, toasts, and cheer for our beaming, beautiful couple. We all had a grand time. Tracing back that day and weeks of preparation beforehand, I am struck by the excitement of friends and family for this wedding. Folks were so happy to lend a hand – design centerpieces, cut trees, create a chandelier, shop, take photos, share and decorate Mason jars, set up, load and unload, cleanup – you name it, there was someone who wanted to help. That’s exactly what made this wedding so memorable and delightful – the blending of two families with the loving support of friends and family alongside.

Congratulations, Allie & Steven! Wishing you a lifetime of joy, happiness, & love together!

Along with many dear friends, here are the vendors who helped with this wonderful day!
Venue – Stonewall Farm
Decor Rentals – Southern Vintage Table
Florist – Brandi’s Botanicals
Caterer & Linen Rentals – SDB Catering
Cake & Cupcakes – Party Delights
DJ – Top Notch DJ Parties
Photographer – Anderson Studios (Photos to be shared soon!)
Wedding Directress – Jenny Rowe
Hair Stylist – Taylor Mitchell
Officiant – Chris Sharpe
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Vintage Feature – Feeling Joyful!

Each week we wait, calmly and confidently, for an inspiration for our Sunday post. Sometimes it comes easily because we have lovely photos from a recent event or we’ve been adding new features to our website. Other times it’s a cool vintage treasure we think folks will love to see. But, this time, our inspiration was special – we believe it was a message from the cosmos!

Earlier this week, as a couple of ideas were stewing in my head, I received an email from Wedding Wire that we had a terrific new review from a client – we were thrilled! Two days later we hear from the caterer who hired us to help with a surprise retirement tea party – the client loved our china! Then, as the saying goes, “good things come in threes,” the next day we receive notification of a comment on a blog post from the bride’s mother with a thoughtful note about our services. Dang! Three wonderful compliments in less than a week – indeed, a cosmic signal to share these gracious sentiments!

So, gosh & golly, here are the kind words from recent clients that pleased us oh-so much!

~ Wedding Wire review
“She was wonderful to work with and her products were beautiful. Probably the best money spent for the wedding! She always responded within 24 hours of an email (often within a few hours). Highly recommend.”

~ Comment shared by caterer about a surprise retirement tea party
“Everything went great and looked beautiful! She was so surprised and absolutely LOVED all the china that we had!”

~ Blog post comment
“It was a perfect combination of country vintage. Thanks to Southern Vintage Table for the beautiful vintage china, glasses and silverware. It was very impressive and received lots of compliments… What a sight it was. Everyone together made the Bride’s vision come true. Thank you so much-Mother of the BRIDE”

“…it is not joy that makes us grateful; it is gratitude that makes us joyful.”– David Steindl-Rast

We are feeling joyful!

Quote Source: Keep Inspiring Me

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Vintage Feature – More Inventory Slideshows are Up!

Decor Collage Very, very brief post today – we’ll let the uploaded slideshows take center stage but with one short explanation. One page with all the inventory slideshows just wasn’t going to work so we made an adjustment. Take a look at our Inventory menu tab – we are making progress and more adjustments are pretty likely!

We’re almost ready for our Friday wedding deliveries to our two couples. Calli & Nathan are setting their tables with our blue & white dishes (yep, we have 80 in our inventory) and using marsala and amber accents – can’t wait to see photos! Allie & Steven’s farm wedding will feature our rustic decor – and we get to set up their cupcake station!

Have a lovely week!

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Vintage Feature – New Inventory Page Going Up

Southern Vintage Table Vintage China Rental NC I’ve been musing, thinking, problem-solving, photographing, counting, editing, and thinking some more all week. The problem? How to cleanly and efficiently share our inventory counts with our clients. Even though we have many lovely photographs on our website and on Pinterest, a more detailed description was still needed so clients could know more precisely what vintage treasures we offer. The solution had eluded me until I started mucking around in WordPress and its accompanying widgets.

Then, a most wonderful thing happened…

I discovered how to make a simple slideshow that can exhibit more than one image on the screen with individual descriptions. Ta dah! Now, please appreciate that this did take a bit of trial and lots of errors, but admittedly, I am pleased with myself. 🙂

I figured out pretty quickly that each photo needed to be standardized as far as size and look. Gulp. This meant that many, if not most, of our photos would have to be re-edited at the very least and probably a lot more would need to be retaken. The magnitude of this task took a while for me to accept, but with a long, deep breath, I resolutely began with the recently-published-but now-defunct Vintage Glassware Inventory page.

After revising this slideshow and fine-tuning the settings, our teapot collection was next in line. I pulled each off the shelves, matched them with their lids stored in a separate container, organized them on the table to get an idea on how to order them in the slideshow, created a backdrop, and then photographed each one. After measuring the capacity of several pots, and deciding on how much a teacup would hold, I also had a serving estimate for each.

With the more tedious part done, I created the slideshow with the new photos and added it to a new Inventory page along with the new glassware slideshow. Check it out – the page is called Inventory and now housed on our main menu. Whoop whoop! But this is just the beginning!

The upcoming set of inventory will be our Large Decor Collection. I’ve got a good start and hope to add this slide show sometime soon. What’s after this? Still pondering that one – there are so many to choose from! 🙂 🙁

In the meantime, I’m also getting ready for a retirement tea party this week and two weddings the following weekend. Lots to do and enjoying every bit of it!

Thanks for visiting and have a terrific week! Looks like the sun will be coming back to NC mid-week – thank goodness!

(For those who are interested, I will share two secrets about taking photos. The first secret is that I use my iPhone6 camera. The technique for taking this kind of photo is a bit tricky but not rocket science. After taking the image, I first use the iPhoto app on the phone to straighten and crop the image. The second big secret is that I edit the image with an app I just love – Camera360. It’s free and amazing! (Thanks, Cat, for sharing this with me.) These photos are magically uploaded to iCloud and I then open them on my computer in iPhoto, name them and make a few minor adjustments, and export to a folder on iCloud. The final step is to import them into the WordPress library. None of this is difficult but it does take time and lots of it.)

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Southern Vintage Table Event – Before the Guests Arrive…

The venue was wonderfully historic and rustic, the decor details created by the bride and family were perfect, and we were very pleased to be a part of this wonderful day! After months of designing and planning, the Boondocks was ready for the celebration of Jennifer & Jesse’s wedding. Here are some of our photos – and it was so hard to pick out just a few – of the pre-celebration. As you can see, it was going to be a beautiful, sweet affair!

Congratulations, Jennifer & Jesse, and wishing you enduring love, happiness, and fun!

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Vintage Feature – Our Vintage Glassware Collection

Southern Vintage Table Vintage China Rental NC An exciting trend at Southern Vintage Table is an appreciation for our vintage glassware, and especially our colored goblet collection. Our assorted vintage mix has traveled to many venues this past year, delighting guests with their variety, color, and beauty.

Southern Vintage Table Vintage China Rental NC

As our collection has grown, we recently tallied up our goblets and tumblers. With today’s post we are sharing our numbers on our updated Vintage Drinkware page which includes our vintage goblets, teacups, punch cups, pitchers, and more!

PS – Check out an older post about our glassware, The Feel of Vintage Glassware and our Pinterest Board, Sparkling Vintage Glassware.

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Southern Vintage Table Event – A Photo Gift from Five Copper Creative!

What a wonderful surprise! Amanda from Five Copper Creative graciously shared her photos of our vintage china and glassware from Travis & Chasity’s wedding with us and, of course, we want to share them with you. Elegant, rustic, and romantic – a fabulous combination for a beautiful day! f

2015

Thank you, Five Copper Creative, for these lovely photographs!

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Vintage Feature – Revisiting Our Vintage Silver Plate Collection

It’s time to showcase the additions to our vintage silver plate collection! In a previous post, “From Elegant to Rustic, Vintage Silver Plate is Chic,” we introduced our silver treasury but since then we have added so much more. Today’s pictorial post features these shiny, timeless, and versatile lovelies – please enjoy!

At present here is our silver collection inventory.
Large & Medium Trays – 20+
Small Trays – 8+
Sugar & Creamers – 20+
Cake Stand – 1
Coffee/Tea Pots – 3 (+one lidless that is a beautiful vase!)
Pitchers – 7
Bowls & Serving Dishes – 8+
Ice Bucket – 1 large with handles (champagne), 1 large tub (4-5 wine bottles), 1 small (1 wine bottle)
Candle Holders – 20+
Bouquet Bowl Candelabra (3 Candle Holders) – 3
Bud Vases – 6+
Goblets – 6
Silver & Glass Coasters – 20+
Flatware Place Settings (Knife, Dinner Fork, Salad/Dessert Fork, Spoon) – 150+

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Vintage Tip – Cleaning Stains from Vintage China Part 2

Update! Crazed plates are usually not suitable for food but stained plates without the crazing should be fine. We are removing crazed plates from our inventory.

It works – it really does! Regular household hydrogen peroxide is terrific for cleaning stained china! I’ve used this cleaning trick many times now and it has worked almost every time. All you need is regular hydrogen peroxide, soaking time, and a warm oven. It’s pretty remarkable and very easy.

I had a chance to give it another try with a set of salad plates gifted to me from my dear friend, Cissy. I immediately loved this vintage Homer Laughlin pattern with the edging and gold florals. Although the exact pattern name is unknown, the mark says “Homer Laughlin Colonial.” These stained, slightly crazed pieces needed a little time and effort and I knew just what to do.

With a tray underneath to catch spillage, I poured the H2O2 onto the first plate and filled it almost to the edge. Then I carefully placed the second plate on top, filled it, and continued until all the plates were soaking. After soaking for two days, I poured off the H2O2 and put them in a cold oven. With the temperature set to 200 degrees, the plates baked for about an hour. What happens in the oven is the heat evaporates the H2O2 that has seeped into the china pores, bringing the stains up to the surface.

Here are the incredible results – before soaking, after being in a warm oven, and then cleaned.

So, give it a try with any stained china you might have or find. It’s definitely worth the effort! Check out my previous cleaning post for some more incredible before-and-afters! One thing I have learned since that post is you don’t need to use anything stronger than the standard concentration of H2O2. It just takes a little more time and may take a couple of soakings, but it works just as well and much cheaper, too. Voila!

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Southern Vintage Table Event – A Perfect July Day for Chasity & Travis

It was a beautiful Merry Hill Farm wedding and the late July weather was picture-perfect. After months of planning, new careers, and a relocation to the NC coast, Chasity and Travis were so excited their day had arrived!

This beautiful affair was more than their wedding day – it was time to rejoice with family and friends. From grandmother Jean’s stunning centerpieces and floral arrangements, to the decorating talents of the couple’s mothers and aunts, these two families made certain Chasity and Travis’ celebration was filled with memories to cherish for years to come.

The gorgeous purples of the centerpieces against burlap created a splendid backdrop for our vintage tableware and we loved the napkin/silverware lace burlap pockets with their floral accent! It was all so lovely and befitting of this couple’s love and devotion.

Thank you, Chasity and Travis, for inviting us to help with this beautiful affair! Wishing you love, happiness, and joy on your new life’s adventure together!

Here are the fantastic folks who helped make this a beautiful, joyful day!

Venue – Merry Hill Farm
Photographer – Five Copper Creative
Florist – Mews Designs
Floral Designer – Grandmother Jean
Decorators – Aunts April, Paula, Mary, Ruth
Director – Aunt Bonnie
Table Settings – Southern Vintage Table
Caterer – Clyde Coopers BBQ
Tents, Tables, Chairs – Hayden Tent Rentals
DJ – Big Boy Productions
Bar Tender – Raleigh Bartending School

PS – Chasity, thank you for being such a delight and for helping me with this post. Travis and your mother, I am so appreciative of your help unloading and loading. Lastly, Joni from Merry Hill Farm, you did an extraordinary job packing up from the evening’s festivities!

Also, sincere thanks to Amanda of Five Copper Creative for allowing us to feature several of her photos with ours. Be sure to check out her post for more photos of the family and celebration! Such a pleasure meeting you all!

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