Low Country Lifestyle

We awoke from the night before to the sounds of birds chirping and rain lightly pattering against the window.

Doing our best to maintain a curl in our hair and dress for the weather, we headed downstairs to find breakfast on day two of #SBSCon at the Belmond Charleston Place.

With rain pouring down from the clouds, we nervously ate breakfast and wondered how we were going to cope with the weather.

Luckily, with enough hairspray and an umbrella, we were able to make it the 100 feet across the street to where our conference was being held where we were greeted with coffee, mimosas and adorable notebooks and planners created by Whitney from Heart and Arrow design. First three photos via Kim Graham Photography After 4 hours of learning about branding, photography, content and one hell of an inspirational speech from Allison at ESPN W, we got a quick break before networking with all the brands.

It was so nice meeting some of the faces behind my favorite brands such as Lilly Pulitzer, Vera Bradley and Kendra Scott but it was equally as nice meeting some new brands like IT cosmetics, DL 1961 Denim, Dermalogica and much more! I can’t wait to introduce you guys to some of these brands in the coming months, it’s going to be a really exciting year on this blog!

When the madness of sorority recruitment style networking was over, we raced back to the hotel to change, fix our hair and search for some lunch. But not before we snapped a few pictures of what we wore to the conference.

Dress|| Shoes (old) similar || Purse || Sunglasses || Necklace

I know I’ve worn this dress once before on the blog, but when you go to the most beautiful Southern city, you just have to bring some Lilly with you. Since this is my most versatile Lilly P. piece (and it’s incredibly comfortable due to the stretchy material) I decided to bring it along and pair it with my vintage Coach Wedges. As you can see the humidity reeked havoc on my hair, and sucked all the curl and bounce out of it. So after a quick nap, change of hair and clothes, we started off searching for tacos by the beach.

We took the long way to lunch, which at that point was really almost early dinner. Walking down cobble stone street after cobble stone street, we passed houses of all colors and shapes, all with palm trees or vines peeking out the fronts of them. Until finally we came upon the house I had set to find: 17 Chalmers Street. More beautiful in person, even the cloudy day couldn’t keep us from admiring it’s flamingo pink posterior and perfectly unkempt shingles nestled on the roof. I imagine this is where Dolores Umbridge would live if she had to live in the Southern Muggle world. Turning the corner we happened upon a shortcut to dinner via a hidden alley way. Google maps said it would knock off 1 minute and add an extra adventure to our detour so we took the street less traveled and turned down the narrow alley.

Skirt (crazy on sale!) || Top || Shoes

We popped out on East Bay Street and found ourselves staring at our destination: Minero. Truth be told, tacos were a complete accident for dinner, but ever the lover of a chic Mexican restaurant, we stalked instagram for a good taco recommendation and landed on Minero. A small studio restaurant hidden in plain sight, we were lucky to get there early and were seated in the back in a large booth and friendly neighbors. As any good dinner starts, we had margaritas and sangria to kick off the tapas style tacos and grilled corn that soon made their way to the table (but unfortunately not to the camera). Blame the hunger or the lighting, but we failed to grab a picture of our food (#Horrible Blogger Status) and indulged our bellies in spicy steak and cheesy corn dishes. For under $20 each we were able to get a margarita, two tacos, an appetizer (split 4 ways) and some of their unbelievable Mexican street corn. It was a helluva bargain and they are even opening a location in Atlanta this year! *Cue the excitement!

When dinner was over, we took our full bellies down to the bay to enjoy the seabreeze and walk along the wharf of fisherman reeling in their daily catch. We decided to head down to Rainbow Row and walk off more of our meal. Perfect doors and colorful beach facing houses surrounded us. It was as if each house was telling us it’s personality from the color it donned. Surprisingly enough, I drew a lot of inspiration from these houses; my favorite piece of architecture was probably this blue door. I love how the powder blue stands out against the light mint. The front had ivy crawling down the windows, and the teeny bits of exposed brick added the perfect texture. This house was my spirit animal and I’d move in a heart beat to call this one mine.
It was an architecture’s dream walking tour to pass all the rod iron balconies, painted houses, Gothic cathedrals and Romanesque columns. It makes you wonder where the original owners drew inspiration from to paint their houses pink, yellow and turquoise.
And at the end of the day, there is nothing more satisfying than seeing the sights with great friends and watching the sun dip behind the city as you head back to the hotel.