Southern Weddings

This is such an Emily Ayer wedding.  How do I know this?  The bridesmaids are wearing J. Crew dresses and cardigans – in fresh melon, no less!  (EA is our resident J. Crew diva, for those of you who don’t know.)  Akil Bennett photographed Emily + Will’s wedding at the Woodlands Resort in Texas.  The bride wore an embellished La Sposa gown and an elbow-length veil borrowed from big sis, but my favorite accessory – surprise, surprise – is Emily’s purple Kate Spades.  (Our Em’s vote goes to the grapevine-wrapped bouquets, courtesy of The Blooming Idea.)  Come back soon for shots from the reception!

How did the two of you meet?  Tell us your story.  Will and I met at college as environmental studies majors. Will says he first remembers me supervising his geology lab exam, watching him with a stern, threatening eye, but I don’t remember that – or being so intimidating! Our major only had a few students in it, so I remember meeting Will in the first (and every subsequent!) class we had together, and we soon became great friends. After three years of being my best friend, he told me how he truly felt, and we have been together ever since. After we graduated, I moved to NYC for grad school, while he stayed back in Houston.  I guess absence does make the heart grow fonder, because when I flew home for Spring Break, he asked me to marry him!

Describe the proposal.  Before I flew home for Spring Break, Will said he was going to give me a huge bouquet of flowers (I LOVE flowers!) so I started to suspect something was up. But strangely, when he picked me up… no flowers. And then the next day … still no flowers.  I was starting to get pretty confused.  After dinner the following day, I started to confront him about the lost flowers, when he turned to me, got on one knee, and said, “I have something better than flowers.  Will you marry me?”
Three adjectives that describe the day are: Beautiful, floral and fun!
Our favorite detail of the wedding was: We loved so many things: the paper pomanders we made together, the bird theme we used throughout the day because of Will’s love of birds, and, of course, our gorgeous flowers! I was also particularly fond of our musical selections, because we chose only songs that were meaningful to us. I walked down the aisle to our song, “Your Hand in Mine” by Explosions in the Sky.
Tell us about finding your wedding dress: I had an idea in my head of what I wanted, but nothing I tried on was perfect. After a terrible appointment at another salon (I won’t name names!), I called one of my bridesmaids and she recommended I look at Maison de Mode. She was so right! I tried on the dress and new instantly it was “the one”. I still had other appointments that day, but I just couldn’t stop thinking about that dress. I came back into the store after all my appointments just to try it on again, and then purchased it later that week!