You Are My Sunshine....{Emery Turns One!}

When you make the decision to launch an event planning company, and your sister's only child turns one shortly thereafter, it's sort of a given that you'll be in charge of devising something special. Lucky for me, I come from an amazingly talented family and Emery's party was a labor of love for just about everyone.

Here's the birthday girl. {GOSH} Doesn't she look like she needs a spectacular birthday party?



My sister and I narrowed down themes months in advance. She lives in a historic neighborhood in Ruston, Louisiana and I really wanted the party to reflect the area we were in, and work with a chosen theme since we were having the party at her home. We infused a "You Are My Sunshine" theme with a lemonade soiree combined with a ton of vintage details.  I really didn't develop a full on "inspiration board", but here's a list of buzz words we factored into every decision we made:

Dainty

Southern

Vintage

Fresh

Fun

Feminine

I wanted it to feel Southern cozy from the moment someone parked the car and walked up the front walk.

I think these guys did the trick......

In the dining room, we moved all the furniture to the edges of the room, worked with the large windows in the room rather than covering them or creating any sort of backdrop for the dessert table. It was a last minute decision to add pops of hot pink to the all yellow & white gingham palette and I couldn't have been more pleased with the result.

The cake was one of my favorite details of the party. My sister worked with Jaime from The Cake Barn on the cake design. My sister is so much more of a free spirit than myself and gave Jaime very little direction, used the word "dainty", "our lil sunshine", and gave her free reign. For a planner, had I not completely trusted Jaime's work, I would've been an absolute wreck. She couldn't have nailed the cake any better than she did. It was stunning and absolute perfection.  

Emery's invitations featured the lyrics to "You Are My Sunshine" and Jaime worked them onto the cake.

The dessert table was super special to me. Nearly everything on it was vintage. The lace tablecloth, the metal cake carrier, the glass cake stand, the bubble glasses of lemonade that were my grandmother's. If every event I planned would let me infuse vintage, I'd be a happy girl.

I even worked the birthday girl onto the dessert table, because well, she's just so darn cute!

We kept the food really simple. Sunny sandwiches, crawfish dip, chips and crackers. I used the same antique window pane I used in Lucy's party, and just updated it with an E my sister had. 

 My sister has an old church pew that functions as a bench in her dining room that normally sits under the large windows. We made it festive by tossing some pillows on it and attaching an applique I purchased from The Sewing Loft.





The picture of the applique monogrammed banner really didn't photograph well, but my mom did such an incredible job on it. It's going to be adorable in Emery's room.  

Then we moved outside for lemonade, and man oh man did we have a lemonade stand.

Emery's Lemonade Stand!

I gave my sister a photo of a rustic authentic stand, she gave it to her husband and father in law, and voila!

And yes, I could be found an hour before the party hanging poms and an obsene amount of ribbon in the trees. I absolutely loved the way it blew in the wind as people sipped their lemonade. I'm not sure if you're keeping count but we're now on Mason Jar usage number 2. Number 1 was the hanging vases that lined the front walkway.

Me with my only sister taking in the "sunshine".

For the patio tables, we kept it really simple and fresh. I used antique milk bottles filled with fresh flowers and a handpainted canvas my sister made with the "You Are My Sunshine" lyrics.

For favors, my sister liked when I did the cupcakes in a jar around Christmas time, so we gave them a pop of gingham fabric and tied some ribbon on them. It was really nice to have something to snack on for the ride home as many of her guests were out-of-towners.

Mason Jar usage number 3. {GOSH} Can you tell I'm from the South yet?

 Happy Birthday Emery Jordynn!!!!

Thank you brightening my day!!