Vintage Rental China NC Archives - Southern Vintage Table

Vintage Adventures – Repost of a Great Vintage Saga

Did you know a humble set of four spoons helped launch one of the most iconic names in home canning?

In 1911, Alexander H. Kerr, founder of the Kerr Glass Manufacturing Company, introduced a revolutionary wide-mouth mason jar. But before that invention made its way into nearly every kitchen in America, he funded the company with the profits from—yes, really—four silver-plated spoons he used as a promotional giveaway for his first business venture.

Those spoons were part of a brilliant marketing strategy to encourage sales of his “Kerr Home Canning Book.” It worked, and that spark helped light the path to Kerr becoming a household name.
Photo from Kerr Jars Healthy Canning

We know you’ll enjoy the fascinating tale of canning jars made by Kerr Glass Manufacturing Company. A little preview to get you hooked!

“From fruit jars, to the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, a scandalous divorce and marriage, free teaspoons, centers to help orphans and children with developmental needs, and one of the first women executives in manufacturing – whew!”

Vintage Adventures – The Story of a Teaspoon & a Jar

Next time you spot a Kerr jar at a flea market or tucked in a family pantry, remember—it all started with just four spoons and a whole lot of ingenuity.

Feature – Sweet Spring Decor & Table Setting Inspiration from Our Archives

Spring is a season of renewal, and what better way to celebrate than with a beautiful Easter gathering filled with vintage charm? Over the years, we’ve styled some truly lovely spring tablescapes and seasonal vignettes, and today, we’re taking a little stroll down memory lane.

From soft pastel china to dainty glassware and whimsical bunny touches, our Easter decor pieces bring warmth, nostalgia, and timeless beauty to your celebration. Whether you’re planning a brunch, an outdoor garden party, or a sweet family dinner, these looks are full of inspiration.

We adore adding playful elements like ceramic bunnies, egg cups filled with florals and moss, and vintage postcards to our place settings and centerpieces. These charming details bring out the childlike wonder of the season—and guests always notice them!

Looking to host your own vintage-inspired spring brunch or celebration? We’d love to help you bring your vision to life with our curated collection of china, flatware, linens, and seasonal decor. Let’s make this one to remember—with timeless beauty at every place setting.

Thankful for Family, Friends, and You

"Give thanks for each new morning with its light,
For rest and shelter of the night.
For health and food,
For love and friends,
For everything their goodness sends."
– Ralph Waldo Emerson

Vintage Feature – From Elegant to Rustic, Vintage Silver-Plate is Chic

Southern Vintage Table Vintage China Rental NC

Note to Readers – We’re back to updating older posts, redesigning the layout and updating photos/descriptions. This post, from February 2014, needed more editing that the previous ones since our silver-plate collections have become more extensive.

No doubt, we love vintage china, glassware and linens – the patterns, colors, and beauty all inspire us. But there’s another category of tableware from the vintage table to rediscover and admire – silver-plated dishes, flatware, and accessories. Whether elegant, casual, or shabby chic, the gleam of silver adds sophistication and richness to the table.

One cool feature of silver is the gradient from really tarnished to really shiny. We love shiny silver but I also appreciate the rich patina of the darker, tarnished pieces. This metallic range of colors translates into versatility and style!

The first silver we started collecting for Southern Vintage Table was flatware. We remember finding several in a bin at the thrift store and making that decision to bring silver flatware into the inventory. I knew it would take some time to build up a collection for a large gathering. Fork by fork and spoon by spoon, we now have beautiful, gleaming collection of vintage silver flatware patterns. How delightful that each guest may personally enjoy the beauty of silver with every bite!

Since we posted this back in 2014, we have added to the flatware collection. Vintage serving tongs, sugar tongs, butter knives, and cake knives and servers are available!

Along the way, we also have collected large beautiful vintage serving trays with handles, pitchers, a variety of teapots, bowls, and platters. Some unique pieces include a vintage silver-plate lazy susan, chip and dip round platter, wine coolers, and cake stands.

Want just a few accent pieces? We have a little bit of a lot – bud vases, small trays, goblets, candle holders – even a vintage hairbrush.

As you plan your next gathering consider adding touches of this precious metal to your table. Whether a little darkened with tarnish or gleaming with sheen, vintage silver will dazzle your guests! Be sure to check out more pieces on our Pinterest Board and our Silverplate Gallery page.

Vintage Silver at Southern Vintage Table

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Vintage Feature – A Woodsy Vintage Tablescape

Wood, soil, coffee, pine cones, walnuts, peanuts, chocolate – all brown. This earthy, natural shade is rarely selected by our clients. Occasionally, our vintage brown goblets are chosen for their neutral color but the vintage brown plates are often overlooked. Today, we are elevating this woodsy hue in this simple vintage tablescape to show how brown is quite modern while being vintage.

This vintage brown tablescape is warm, eclectic, and lovely. Although we don’t believe that certain colors belong to any season, this earthy look would be perfect for fall. We have more vintage brown patterns of plates and goblets in our inventory in case you are interested in hosting a dinner, Thanksgiving, or fall party!

Scenes from SVT – A Magical Vintage Tour of Southern Vintage Table’s Studio

Ready for a magical stroll through the main room of Southern Vintage Table’s studio? There’s lots to see!

Here’s your first look past the front space – two tables, one rectangular and round, which clients use to design their vintage tablescapes. To the right of the door is this beautiful display of colored glass, vintage floral artwork, and two vintage chairs. We love this view1

Hidden in the corner at the front is a door to a secret little closet. Now filled with bins of teacups and saucers, tiered stands, creamers and sugars, this small space holds a lot of cool stuff.

Across the vintage colored glass shelves is this sweet vintage desk. It belonged to my brother and we love its presence here. Poised on top is a wonderful vintage typewriter, aluminum hammered tray, and desk rack holding magazines in which you’ll find us mentioned!

On the side walls our vintage colored goblets glow and twinkle under fairy lights. Our inventory is quite extensive!

Moving to the back of the room are shelves and shelves of vintage plates, clear goblets, teapots, and teacups. Our vintage plate collection includes blue and white, white stoneware, gold on cream/white, red and white, bold florals and browns, retro, wildflower stoneware, and delicate botanicals in greens, pinks, purples, yellows, and blues.

On the top shelves we have vintage blue decor, various sizes of white pitchers, dessert and cake stands, punch bowls, decanters, pitchers, and coffee pots, some of which you can see here.

Our stroll is over for the main room. We’ve accomplished a lot with Sarah and Elizabeth’s help and the organizational fun continues here in the main room as well as the linen and decor rooms. Hosting an Open House is the goal and hoping by late winter or early spring we’ll be ready!

Come see us by completing the Contact form and we’ll set an appointment date for you to browse our vintage collections. It’s truly magical in here!

Scenes from SVT – Four Couples, Four Fabulous Vintage Tablescape Designs

Today we have four great vintage designs from four clients! The first couple styled a wonderful take on the classic blue and white. Notice the layout – mostly blue dinner and mostly white salad in the center and then mostly white paired with a colorful floral salad on either side. Vintage blue, orange, and amber goblets and mixed napkin patterns enhance this colorful tablescape. Finally, their vintage table decor will include brass candleholders with peg votives, vintage books, and table numbers in vintage frames. Jenny and Andy’s spectacular wedding is set for this October at the Parlour at Mann’s Chapel.

Our next couple, Anna and Garrick, have another unique take on vintage. They have combined vintage retro green dinner plates with crisp white and gold china plates, a mix of gold and stainless flatware, and vintage brown and dusky blue goblets. Both love vintage and will be incorporating a bunch of cool decor items – a vintage sewing machine and a pair of scissors (Anna is a seamstress!), telephone, bird cages, black-framed mirror and window panes, brass candleholders, and brass vases. We look forward to their wedding next March in Madison, NC!

Here are Anna and Matt and their design demonstrates that vintage can be elegant, quiet, and beautiful. They have chosen vintage white stoneware, clear salad plates, and clear patterned goblets. The silverplated flatware completes this lovely tablescape. (Their venue, Lavendar Oaks, will be providing wooden chargers so we used our wooden plates to imagine how everything will look on a white tablecloth, just in case you wondered.) These two will be married next June!

Another colorful splash of vintage will be coming to Savannah and Andrew’s wedding next October at the Carriage House of Chapel Hill. Their vintage look includes a mix of brown patterned plates with large florals. Amber, pink, green, and purple goblets and mixed patterned napkins add more fabulousness to their reception tables. We love how much these two loved their final design!

Four couples with four vintage designs getting married at four venues – your vision, creativeness, and imaginativeness continue to inspire us!

Scenes from SVT – Creative Client Vintage Tablescape Designs

The fall wedding season is here and our latest visitors have had fun visualizing their reception tables. Everyone loved the vintage colored goblets and you’ll see them in each of the following designs; however, each has their own unique combination. Here are 5 happy, smiling clients with their vintage tablescapes!

Let’s start with Amy and Nathan who will be getting married this month at the beautiful Carolina Grove. This fun couple set their table with a mix of floral china patterns and added a set of cool colored vintage goblets. With a mix of green napkins, their tables will dazzle their guests!

Edna, who will marry Douglas this month at The Cloth Mill, was looking to create a peaceful feeling for her tables. With help from her planner, Lorne of Carter Creations, the design emerged. The vintage plates are a mix of white stoneware and white/cream plates with gold. The vintage goblets will be a mix of dusky blue, light blue, and clear. Green napkins will enhance the peaceful feeling. This combination of blue and green is one of our favorites!

Lily visited the studio with her mother to create a romantic look for her wedding to Caden at The Cornealius Properties in Goldsboro next March. She chose vintage plates from our gold white/cream collection and then layered them with colorful salad plates. The array of vintage colored goblets are beautiful with the place settings. This romantic, sweet tablescape will be stunning!

Joined by her mother, Sydney wanted to design a fall-themed tablescape for her wedding to Kayden next month at the Barn of Valhalla. Vintage brown and white plates along with amber goblets are classic fall colors and mixed in are lovely vintage plates featuring green. This design will look stunning with brass candleholders with clear peg votives along with a vignette of petite brass vases on each table. We think this will be amazing!

Lastly, here’s Sydney. She’s selecting teacups and coordinating salad plates for her own birthday tea party. Isn’t that amazing! She gifted herself a tea party to celebrate with close friends on her 21st birthday. We heard it was totally fun!

Five clients and 5 different looks with vintage tableware. The process is always fun and we totally love seeing their smiles when their tablescape design is realized. But, we have more to share – next week we’ll have 4 more clients to showcase!

Southern Vintage Table Events – Something Blue Wedding Shower

We had the extreme pleasure to help Kortney with a wedding shower she hosted for her sister-in-law, Autumn and beau, Elisha. To say that Kortney is a talented designer states the obvious and we’ve seen her marvelous design skills on another occasion – her own Baby Reveal Party held in 2020. She’s a natural!

This shower revolves around the color blue for a couple of reasons – to honor the adage “something blue” and blue is the color Elisha sees best. With vintage blue and white dishes, blue goblets, blue and white teacups, and two tiered stands the table looks spectacular. Kortney filled the vintage silver teapot and milk glass vases with stunning bouquets, and filled our blue and white heart dishes with her speciality sugar cubes. How adorable!

Congratulations, Autumn and Elisha! We truly enjoyed viewing the photos shared by Kortney – they beautifully portray your love and joyfulness!

There’s so much more to discover about this lovely gathering. Go to Kortney’s blog, Garden Brunch Wedding Party in which she shares both Autumn’s and her own perspective on the event, followed by more from the gallery of photos.

Designer – Kortney Sue Jacobs
Vintage Tableware Rentals – Southern Vintage Table

Southern Vintage Table Events – A Wedding at Two Silos

We all enjoy a sweet love story and today’s couple, Savannah and Sam, especially embody this sentiment. The two come from farming families in eastern NC and grew up on opposite ends of the same road.

Early on they became friends, dated in middle school, and then as high school seniors. Several years later, with their lasting love, they married at Sam’s property that had two silos on the former dairy farm, once owned by another family. After a year of restoration, the wedding site was ready.

The reception was held under a tent at the farm. Our vintage colored goblets and floral plates “tied it all together, ” remarked Savannah. We are so pleased to have provided these for their celebration.

Well done, Savannah and Sam! Your gallery of beautiful photos was so fun to browse and we almost feel like we were there, celebrating along with you and your many friends and family members. Best wishes for a wonderful life together!

Vendors
Photographer –Mak’s Makings (@maksmakings)
Florist – Madelyn’s Flowers and Gifts (@madelynsflowersnc)
Rentals –Chair & Equipment Rentals
Hair and Makeup – Melanie Nelms Baker (@allthingsprettybymelb)
Vintage Tableware Rentals – Southern Vintage Table (southernvintagetable2)

And, thank you for your kind words! It was truly our pleasure and honor.

“Shelly helped make our wedding day perfect! We rented floral dinner plates, silverware, and various colored goblets and they were absolutely beautiful. Shelly was very helpful and enthusiastic, would work with her again.” Savannah, The Knot