Getting ready for the holidays? We have just begun at home and have pulled out some of most treasured decorations collected years ago. On the dining table are some of our nesting “dolls”. They are so fun to open to find the smaller ones inside. The greenery came from the back yard.
Below is the mantle-scape which features a collection of vintage cats, crates, trays, books, and thrift-store petite trees. The tall wooden kitty in the middle is very special – it was an 18th birthday gift from my boyfriend who is now my husband. (He hit the mark on this one and we are definitely vintage!)
We also played around with a couple of holiday tablescapes at the studio. The green and deep red layering of plates are a nod to the holiday colors but with a bit of vintage swag. Our favorite decor items are the little trees that are nestled in the vintage milk glass vases but we think the grass chargers are not needed after all. Too bad we didn’t get that photo!
That’s it for today’s post! We need to dig out a few more holiday decorations, go online to do a little shopping, attend a dinner party with friends, and meet with two potential clients this week. Just the right amount of busy for us!
Next year’s calendar is filling in nicely as we finish out this year. Today we will introduce you to two wedding clients who have designed very cool tablescapes for their guests and one client who offers tea parties, complete with speciality hand-crafted teas and treats.
First, here are Natalia and Sharon, her future mother-in-law. It didn’t take long for us to see how much affection is felt between these two. Natalia and Trent, who will be married next September, wanted a fall inspired look but with a twist. Oranges, greens, pink, and peach are found in the assortment of vintage plates, goblets, and even the bottle bouquets. We are excited about crafting these for their tables!
Meet Trista, owner of Ora Teahouse. This delightful business woman first rented from us this past spring and this November she hosted two more tea parties. With her speciality hand-crafted teas and delicious savory and sweet treats, her tea parties are heavenly. What a honor for us to help with her tea-centered gatherings! For more information about Trista and her business, go to this article on Shoutout North Carolina.
Our third client is Margot, accompanied by her cheery planner, Rebs, owner of Events by Reb. They both came to the studio with an open mind, ready to explore our offerings. This was her first stop in her wedding planning because she loves vintage and wanted her reception to work off the choices she would make here. How nice for us! They landed on a vintage blue and white theme, with glass salad plates, green goblets and tumblers, clear wine goblets, and silverplate flatware. Her decor will include a wooden centerpiece, brass elements, and brass-framed table numbers. Blue and green are a favorite color combination for us!
It was such a pleasure working with these clients and we have more coming over this month. Looking forward to our creative meetings!
Being an eco-friendly business is almost a necessity in today’s environmentally conscious society. Which is a good thing, right? Without tooting our horn too loudly, our business wins big in this arena. Here are some of our environmentally safe practices.
Our inventory is a collection of treasures from the past. Dishes, goblets, flatware, linens, and decor have all been found items – in thrift stores, second-hand stores, some estate sales, flea markets, auctions, and online resources. Almost every trip we take involves a couple of side visits to the local thrift stores or flea markets where the goods might be unique to the area. The most treasured resource, however, were the gifts from friends, acquaintances, and even folks who were looking for a place where their family collections would be appreciated and used. We especially love these additions.
Most of our shelving, tables, chairs, and some of our carts were previously used. When we first moved out of the house and into a business location, we got lucky and found the most sturdy set of shelves from an auto parts store that was going out of business. These are the ones we use for the dishes and glassware and they can hold a lot of weight. Wooden shelving from our home and thrift stores were collected one by one and pieced together to hold vintage books and assorted decor. We did need to buy wired shelving that will last almost forever.
Our studio walls are decorated with vintage artwork and trays either found at thrift stores while some were generously gifted to us. Their florals and botanicals suit our inventory beautifully!
We have also upcycled a few items – boxes from old wooden fan blades, “vintage” cigar boxes, decoupaged vases from bottles, and dried floral bouquets in bottles.
The workhouse of a dishwashing machine came second-hand from another location. It’s energy efficient, recycles the sanitizing rinsing cycle water to wash the next load, and cleans a load in about 3 minutes once the water heats up. The dish detergent we use is Mrs. Meyers, which is “made with essential oils & other thoughtfully chosen ingredients.”
To protect our clean dishes for our clients, we use a food-safe plastic which is made with “eco-friendly bio-assimilating plastic.” And, when a crate comes back to us unopened, we will reuse the plastic bag as a garbage bag. Surprisingly, we have little garbage but the bags on used crates are definitely trashed.
The crates and racks used to hold and transport dishes and goblets are used over and over again. Some of them were found secondhand but many had to be bought new. When ordering these, we try to make the order large enough to justify the packing and shipping.
For items that need some protection, we are now using pillow cases and napkins to wrap them. These were found at a thrift store and are washed after every use. This transition from bubble wrap has created a more secure wrapping and is reusable.
Of course, we recycle cardboard, bottles, paper, and cans. It’s easy to recycle the cardboard with a bin on the property, but we take the other home to put in our home recycling bin. To save paper, we use email and phone meetings to correspond with clients. Rental orders, contracts, and packing lists are all attached to emails.
Have we bought anything new? Well, we have. We love block napkins made in India and we have purchased several sets to complement a boho tablescape. Miscellaneous supplies, such as plastic containers for linens, teacups, and coupes, are needed to keep our studio organized.
That’s a wrap! It may be more information that you ever wanted to know, but we wanted to emphasize that being eco friendly means a lot to us and our business. We hope you appreciate our commitment!
We’ve like to introduce three different sets of clients with their own unique story and design. Olivia and Trevor, who will be married next October at her family’s farm, are serving soup and salad, which will be their guests’ choice. At first, they thought about only having bowls for the soup, but then realized that they could be used for the soup as well! Our vintage soup/salad bowls will be placed over a dark colored plate from another vendor. We love this idea!
Cameron and Ben visited our studio looking for vintage green goblets and candleholders. After we toured the inventory, Cameron fell in love with the green themed vintage plates and decided to go in a different direction. With vintage clear goblets, different sizes of brass candleholders, and glass dessert plates, their intimate wedding will be beautiful!
A dinner party for 70? Yep, a women’s group in Durham plan two events each year and this time they came to us to find some vintage color. The table design was spectacularly detailed and our vintage luncheon plates with decorative rims, the mix of green, amber, and purple goblets, and champagne coupes fit right in. The dinner was last month and, from the few photos we saw, the affair was amazing!
Our calendar is opening up for the rest of this year and next. We’d love to help you with your dinner party, wedding, holiday, or any other event you’d like to make a little special for your guests! Contact us here.
The close of a busy, fun fall wedding season is upon us and today we are in limbo between cleaning up from yesterday’s two weddings and getting ready for two. We thought you might want to see the organized chaos of this juncture.
Knowing we’d have a lot to do in a short amount of time to get ready for our new weddings, we started assembling the items as soon as we had everything ready for the weddings that happened yesterday. The photo above includes clean and packed plates for the first new wedding and cleaned crates of champagne coupes for the second. The blue crates on the table are holding an assortment of clear vintage vases and candleholders. The vintage plates below were sanitized and now need to be covered with plastic. They are going with the second new wedding.
Now our focus switches to washing the vintage plates and goblets from this weekend. These sets of vintage salad, dessert, and dinner plates were picked up today, washed, and drying for them to returned to their shelves. We also picked up the tableware from the 2nd wedding and left them in the car overnight. Tomorrow we return to the studio to unload and wash them.
What is fun about these four weddings is that they all have their own unique vintage design – large and petite floral patterns, wildflower stoneware, cream and white with gold, and the last is a mix of browns, greens, and gray. Below are the mockups from their studio visit and we can’t wait to see the finished reception tables. How lovely they all are!
It’s the year to elevate your holiday dinners with vintage tableware and decor! Take a look at these vintage tablescapes to ignite your inner creativity. Whether you love traditional red and green, fall browns and golds, or classic blue and white, your guests will feel super special when they sit down at your vintage-designed table.
Have an idea of where you’d like to start? Want to explore options at our studio? Contact us and we’ll set a date for you to see our extensive inventory as you begin realizing your vintage holiday vision.
Lauren and Greg tied the knot on a destination wedding, but wanted to celebrate their new marriage with family and friends once they returned. Here’s a great story as to how she found our company – they booked the Chapel Hill Carriage House and were invited to see the table setup for one of our clients’ wedding. Well, they loved it and here she is – selecting her vintage eclectic look for their wedding party which took place in late September. Yay!
We love tea party baby showers and so does Valencia and her daughter. Sometimes we have so much fun at our client meeting that we forget to take photos. Ugh! This happened with Valencia and Maurice and we were bemoaning the lost opportunity for some great photos after they left. Lo and behold, Maurice returned to get something he had forgotten and we implored him to return with his wife to get that photo, and guess what – they did and here it is! The baby shower was yesterday and we look forward to hearing how it all went!
These two had the sweetest vibe about them. Lauren and Richard are preparing for their wedding next August at the Honeysuckle Tea House. At the Honeysuckle’s open house, which we participated in, the two saw our table and decided that we had the vintage look they wanted. We think they love their vintage tablescape!
We’ve said it before, probably many times, but seeing vintage tablescape designs always delight us! After picking up the rentals from Sydney and Kayden’s wedding today, the venue owner said the guests were enamored with the vintage tables, especially the brown and green mix of plates. How awesome is that!
Note – Maria and Jonathan’s wedding took place in late September, 2014. We’ve made updates to the photos and layout but the text was kept as written ten years ago.
When I met Maria last spring, I felt this instant connection as she shared her wedding vision with me. She and Jonathan were getting married at Bass Lake and, like all couples, they wanted their wedding to be memorable for themselves, their family and friends. Even though we all appreciate the look of delicate, elegant, vintage china, Maria’s vintage wish for their wedding was whimsical, cheerful and vibrant. I was certain our casual vintage china collection with vintage jewel-toned glasses would fit perfectly!
The mid-century vintage collection at Southern Vintage Table is wonderfully eclectic – some patterns are bold, some are demure, and others are just charming – and seeing them all together is delightful. The spectacular sparkle on the tables was our gold, green, pink and blue vintage goblets. With our vintage stainless collection and vintage napkins, the final look was so lovely!
Maria artfully designed her vintage-inspired welcoming station. Along with our vintage suitcases, crate and books, Maria created a collage of photos clipped to framed chicken wire, decorated a mailbox for cards and displayed a welcoming sign for her guests. She also used a vintage window to frame the seating charts which stood on our large easel. This happy wedding ended with a dazzling sendoff with the sparklers ready to go in our wooden bucket.
The prominent feature of the dessert table was the stunning cake with its vintage record player pedestal. The dark vintage wood against the creamy cake icing and vintage overlay created a dashingly dramatic look. The vintage dessert plates and dessert forks in vintage silver trays completed this gorgeous display.
Vintage is a style with many interpretations. It can be romantic, elegant, shabby chic, retro, bold, charming, quaint or any combination thereof. For Maria and Jonathan, vintage meant sharing a vibrant, memorable experience, filled with love of family and friends. Thank you for inviting Southern Vintage Table to be a part of your wedding day. Wishing you endless love, joy and fun!
These folks helped make this a memorable wedding for all:
Monique, owner of Keys Events, had a truly special event to both plan and host – her mother’s 60th birthday! As the creative genius of her company, she knew all of the elements for a successful party and, with this one being so personal, she excitedly started planning.
The Parlour at Mann’s Chapel was the ideal venue for this intimate gathering. After its booking and during the months before the October date, invitations were customer designed, menu planned, tablescape chosen, florals contrived, and photos gathered. Enjoy these spectacular photos from Samuel Holt and please note the vendor list at the end of our post.
Monique designed the birthday dinner table with our vintage retro dinner plates, wooden salad bowls, and silver-plate flatware. Vintage brown, amber, and red goblets were the perfect complement to the season and florals. We absolutely adore the final look!
When the date arrived everything was ready – a welcoming sign, a charming display of photos, scrumptious cake on display, tables set with our retro place settings, gorgeous florals in place, candles lit, and food ready.
Family and friends arrived early for the surprise celebration and then Michelle, her husband, and mother arrived. The expressions on everyone’s face beautifully portrays this joyous, sweet moment!
Happy birthday, Michelle! Kudos to Keys Events for creating such a memorable evening for your family and friends!
What occurs every March, brings folks from the community together, and is always delightful? Yep, you are correct! It’s the annual Rolesville’s Chamber of Commerce Awards and Recognition Dinner!
We love helping with this grand affair for so many reasons. One reason is these business leaders are incredibly gracious and, second, they really enjoy creating a fun, unique celebration for their members. This year’s theme, Mardi Gras, cleverly fit their mantra for the year, “Unmasking the Power of Community.” How cool is that?
The table design was created by members of the chamber, led by Executive Director Rachel Morris, and we happily helped them execute their flawless plan. The final result was colorful, fun, and inviting – a wonderful fit for the exceptional leaders of the Rolesville community!
Thank you, Rolesville COC, for inviting us again to help with this festive affair! It’s always a pleasure!
