Southern Weddings

Y’all know we have a hard time keeping secrets over here. As soon as we know something good, we want to share it! We share on the blog, we share on social media… in fact, I practically have to muzzle the other gals to keep our biggest secret every year: our cover! Because you all have been so encouraging from the beginning, rooting us on at every turn, we especially love sharing our lives and the life of Southern Weddings, the company, with y’all.

So you can imagine it’s been pretty difficult to keep what has to be our biggest announcement ever under wraps for a full seven months, but somehow we did it. And today’s the day we get to let y’all in. We are really, really thrilled to share that we’ve partnered with the most iconic brand in the South: Southern Living. Our time together has already been so very fruitful, and we are excited to tell you all the details!

Landon Jacob

Mercy! How did this all come about?
We certainly didn’t expect this to happen, and we definitely weren’t looking for it. Lara received an email from the Associate Publisher at SL back in May, asking for a meeting to discuss “possibilities for the future” and offering to come to us for said meeting. After a minor (okay, major) freak-out and confirming the SL team knew we weren’t based in New York, we set a date. A flurry of preparation ensued, mainly focused on what to wear and what to serve these discerning gents. We ultimately decided to call in the big guns and ask our friends at Fearrington to come out and cater, and oh my, they laid out a Southern spread: eggs benedict with tomato jam, yogurt parfaits, biscuits, muffins, smoothies, fresh-squeezed orange juice… the works. You’ll have to check out Lara’s blog post today to read some of our other hilarious preparations.

The meeting lasted about two hours, and probably the most memorable moment was when the Associate Publisher’s egg squirted right out from under his fork and onto his pants and binder full of notes. Oh well, nothing four Southern hostesses can’t handle, and still something we laugh about to this day :)

Lara actually shared this photo from the big meeting day on instagram way back, with a cryptic caption. See what I mean about not being able to keep a secret??

Lara and I traveled to the Birmingham headquarters of Southern Progress a few weeks later to meet Lindsay (Southern Living’s Editor in Chief) and other members of the SL team, and it was quite the experience! We of course immediately had to update the other gals as soon as we arrived at the airport at the end of our whirlwind two days of meetings:

After many conversations internally and between our two teams, we settled on an arrangement for our partnership.

What does “partnership” mean? What can I expect to change or stay the same?
It’s really very simple — we are sharing content. We have no formal ties to SL and nothing is changing on our end except sharing what we already do with more people! We are still just six ladies (see our recent office tour here!) making a magazine and running a small shop and shipping orders from Lara’s garage. For this, we are so grateful.

Today, we posted our first blog post on The Daily South. Going forward, you’ll see us post there a few times a month, sharing real weddings and highlighting beautiful Southern wedding details — much as we do right here. Come over and say hi! :)

We have a special weddings page on the SL site here with lots of goodies. We also have a joint Pinterest board where you can find even more great Southern wedding content.

The most exciting part of this partnership: three times in 2014, we are providing 18 pages of Southern Weddings content for a special weddings section in Southern Living. We’ve already sent our first one to print. We couldn’t say anything at the time, but we were designing TWO magazines at once this season. This was us trying to learn the SL style guide and do layout for our section in October…

You won’t be able to find the insert on newsstands, but it will go out with their January issue to about 400,000 subscribers who have been earmarked as being in the marrying (or mother of the bride!) stage of life. If you aren’t a subscriber, there will still be a way to view it digitally. Details coming soon!

Remember this instagram? That was Lara and I being photographed for the editors’ letter in the insert! Lindsay was photographed in Birmingham, and then the three of us got sandwiched together by the Photoshop wizards at Southern Living HQ!

And that’s it! :) We haven’t been bought by them, and have no plans to do that. We are still producing our own gorgeous magazine once a year. We aren’t changing a thing. We just have new folks who believe in us, and want to help us spread the word about the beautiful, meaningful celebrations that are happening here in our neck of the woods. For us, that is the most exciting part of all of this — we consider it a huge opportunity (and honor!) to spread our heart for strong marriages and meaningful weddings farther and faster. THAT is something to celebrate!

Friends, we are so grateful for you. We are grateful for the way you’ve followed us and encouraged us throughout the years, and we are so grateful to be taking this step alongside you. We know you might have questions, so please, ask away! And if you feel so moved, take a moment to do a little happy dance in honor of our announcement sometime today — you know we will be!!

Landon Jacob is a delightful member of our Blue Ribbon Vendor Directory!

Written with love by Emily