Plated: Southern tradition

I've been really blessed lately to have some friends with amazing taste that are on their way to walk down the aisle, and they've chosen me to help them with their invitation and design needs. (lucky girl!) So when my friend Lauren who I traveled to Africa with last summer asked me to design her invitations, programs, etc I was honored and excited. She showed me a few invitations that she liked and I could see that we were going for something somewhat simple, close to traditional and definitely southern.

The fonts were easy to pick, just had to be something ornate and beautiful yet still readable. (I hate those curly fonts you can't even read!). And the colors were even easier since I could swipe the right shade from her bridemaids dresses. But the icon image that Lauren wanted to be associated with her wedding weekend was just a little bit trickier. We played around with the idea of a magnolia or their initials or something similar, but then one day I got an email from her saying she liked the idea of a nest and wanted three eggs—one to represent each child that she will become the mother of after her nuptials are complete.

Yes, Lauren is incredible and will soon be the official mother of three, though she has been pretty much playing that role since she and Sam have been dating. It is a long and beautiful story of redemption, just trust me on that.

So I loved and fully embraced this idea and went to work trying my best to draw a nest image with eggs similar to the one she sent me for inspiration. We had a few drafts back and forth until I got the bridal gasp of "Oh how I love it" that we designers can't wait to hear and voila! Here are the final products (invitation, reply card & accommodations), with names changed to protect my clients, of course.

I think I love the whole package almost as much as Lauren does. Now let's just hope the bride finds a different dress to wear other than this one she found in Uganda!