I began putting the phrase "Big hair, bigger mouth" on my social media in college and have strived to live up to it every day since. But if you really know me, it would come as no surprise that I often use my big hair or bigger mouth as a wall to keep my fears, emotions, and insecurities at bay. I started this blog when I was 21 years old and over the past six years it has seen many changes much like myself. The more I blogged the more blogs I discovered. I would sit in bed after work and scroll blogs such as
The Sweetest Thing,
Southern Curls & Pearls,
Pink Peonies, and
Sequins & Things for hours. I began to imitate their outfits with pieces I already had in my closet and eventually developed my own adult style. About two years ago I started posting #ootd Instagrams from the work parking lot and the likes and comments started rolling in. That was the first time I toyed with the idea of photographing my outfits and launching Monograms and Media into the world of fashion blogging. But I got scared and chickened out. The word FAILURE flashed before my eyes. What if no one looked at my posts? What if rude comments were left? What if, what if, what if.
When I moved to Knoxville I turned one of my "social media" friendships into a real life friendship with Katie Lee from
Pearls and Twirls [and Caroline Gillem too!] Katie is a co-owner of
My Kind of Lovely and by total coincidence ended up being my downstairs neighbor. This past July I was asked to join the My Kind of Lovely #girlgang handling the marketing for the Greek line they carried. I was over the moon! These are the kind of women that radiate confidence and success and in September I was in my first My Kind of Lovely photo shoot. As soon as the pictures went up the comments and texts started rolling in. I once again toyed with the idea of posting outfit pictures but work went into overdrive and took priority over passion projects.
A couple weeks ago when I was home sick I received a text message from an old friend who said "The Sweetest Thing is you." For some reason this comment stuck with me for the whole next week. So, I took a night and scrolled my Tumblr and all my go-to blogs and pulled outfits from my closet that were similar to what they were posting. With momentum [and confidence] on my side, I texted Katie and asked if she would be willing to guide me on this adventure and take some pictures for me. And here we are. Am I nervous? Yes. Am I seeing FAILURE flash across my laptop screen? Maybe. Am I more excited than anything? Completely.
There's a "catch all" dish that sits on my coffee table that reads "She who doesn't risk never gets to drink champagne." So in a sense, here's to risk and drinking champagne.
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