Photos by Drew
Polka dot dress and bag: thrift stores
Cropped sweater: H&M
Shoes: Madewell (birthday gift from Drew)
Saturday was cool and cloudy and perfect for doing indoor things, so Drew and my parents and I went to the tiny little town of Bell Buckle, Tennessee for some antique store shopping/exploring. As much as I love visiting Nashville, I think I might like going to the small country towns more; Bell Buckle is exactly the sort of thing I picture when I think of Tennessee towns. It’s a tiny train town with a general store, lots of antique stores, an ice cream store, and even a little restaurant that broadcasts live country music over the radio. The general store was definitely the best thing we saw, though. The owner told us all about how he bought the place in the 1970s and how it came with lots of original stock, like the ’30s dresses and hats he had hanging on the walls. He told us about how back in the day the town did pretty well and even had a big hotel across from the main square, but that like a lot of small train towns it pretty much quit growing during the Depression. These days the place is filled with antique stores. The old hotel looks like it was converted into apartments, but it’s still there.
Also there: Moon Pies! Lots and lots of them, in every flavor you could imagine. Apparently there’s a Moon Pie festival in Bell Buckle every year, and if I didn’t eat way too much sugar that weekend already I would have bought one.
20 Comments
I imagine this is exactly the sort of place I would thoroughly enjoy. The moon pies sound super yummy!
oh wow, i just love little wonderful towns like this one. almost didn’t see you in the last photo, too!
I hope I’m not being annoying, but whenever I see a post about TN I just can’t help but think what pretty pictures you would take with Sewanee (my school) as your background! You should come during the spring when everything is beautiful and green! Love your blog SO much!
Love that skirt! I’m having a blog makeover giveaway that ends this Friday, if you haven’t entered already, head over there! Really great stuff!
Kori xoxo
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So lovely! Your outfit is adorable.
ok, now you are seriously making me homesick! i grew up in murfreesboro and my cross country team used to run the rc cola & moonpie 10K! and then stuff ourselves on moonpies, ha!
I would love to go here. I really enjoy all your pictures of weekend trips, as I’ve never been to the Southern US, or even known that I wanted to go… but it is amazing discovering it through you. I especially love the picture of the main street curving away…
What a charming place! It’s lovely to see these places through your eyes Rhiannon.
Ale
Oh how neat! I think those old, kind of “stuck in time” towns are the most fun to explore. There were a couple in MD and VA that I liked to visit that are similar to Bell Buckle. Love your outfit too–that polka dot skirt is fantastic!
♥ Casey
I’m dying to relocate to Tennessee & you keep giving me more reasons hehe. Looks amazing! :)
What a beautiful little town … so charming – your words and photos paint a lovely scene.
I adore the name, ‘Bell Buckle’ … it sounds sweet and musical all in one.
Moon Pies? Surely they would make the perfect excuse for another visit? ;)
Oh yay! I love little towns like there. We sometimes drive over to Snohomish when I visit my parents near Seattle – it looks a lot like this and is full of antique stores and cool little watering holes. I bet there is a wealth of them here in the South and around Atlanta – I need to explore more!
These pictures are so pretty; I love all these small Southern town posts you’ve been doing lately. I hope you snatched up some of those deadstock 30s dresses; that sounds amazing!!
Oh, I have such a Moonpie craving now, haha; have you ever microwaved one? It’s sooo delicious.
Ooh, Bell Buckle sounds like a wonderful place. I even love the name. Moon pies are so delicious (especially with RC)–they’re one of the things I miss most now that I’m a vegan.
I really do love your hair in the first picture :)
I love exploring little towns and the name of this one is fantastic! Its downtown reminds me of the area where I grew up (in Fayetteville, Arkansas). Did you find anything in the antique shops?
i love these charming small towns too. thanks for sharing these cool little adventures with us.
oh!! i would love to shopping there, is so magical the pic!!
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I found your blog while browsing for books about / with fashion and I instantly fell in love.
It’s like my perfect place – fashion, vintage stuff, books, good food, photography…. and you live in Atlanta. Wohooooo! I really wanted to meet fashion bloggers from this area and you sound like such a cool girl ;) And I so love old things, I could spend all day every day browsing through antique stores… I feel so connected to certain epoques…. don’t even know why.
Oh and now I wanna go to Bell Buckle myself. My husband is from North Georgia, really close to TN so maybe we’ll go see those cute places soon….
Well, I feel really happy that I found your blog. Gonna have to read it all now :)
Just stumbled across this when I was looking for research on Bell Buckle for a paper I’m writing- I actually graduated from The Webb School, a tiny boarding school located right in Bell Buckle in May. I pretty much fell in love with the town in my time there! Thought you might like to know that a friend of mine’s family actually owns the old hotel you mentioned. His grandparents live there but don’t use the majority of the house because they think it’s haunted (it was also used to house soldiers in the civil war).
You should check it out again in October/November some time. That’s when they usually hold the craft fair, the biggest social event of the year for Bell Buckle residents. Thousands of people come and squeeze in the tiny town. Seriously, it’s a little crazy but there’s some wonderful shopping and some even more wonderful kettle corn. (: