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!

Holy hot shoes, Miss Brooke! (RSVP, FYI)  The bride paired her embellished heels with a traditional Maggie Sottero gown and lilac rose bouquet inspired by the mother of the bride’s own rose garden.  Could those bouquets match the bridesmaids’ belted Jim Hjelm dresses any better?  We think not.  Smitten Photos shot Brooke + Steve’s Georgia wedding at the River Pointe Golf Course.  What do you think of the “church” the bride and her father handmade for her ceremony?  Brooke insists it was her favorite part of the day, and we have to cast our votes for the wooden steeple as well!!

How did the two of you meet?  Tell us your story.  We are both from really small towns in southern Georgia, and we both went to the same very small high school in Perry. I vaguely knew of Steve, but it wasn’t until a night in September of 2003 that we officially met. My parents were having a big dinner party for ten couples, and for some reason a family friend invited himself and Steve to this party.  We ended up talking the whole night!  I found out he was actually only 2 years older that me, and that we had a lot in common. I was so shy at fifteen, and Steve was a freshman in college, so I couldn’t have been more surprised when he called to ask me out a week later.  Our relationship has been a lot of growing up together. We learned to cook together, got a puppy, together, I taught him how to ski, and he taught me about music. We have seen and learned so many things traveling all over the South and throughout Europe. More than anything, we just really enjoying doing things together.
Describe the proposal. Because I knew he had the ring, I thought there was absolutely no way he could surprise me. I just knew I would be able to tell something was up. Steve was pretty clever, though, and proposed with breakfast in bed. Anybody who knows me knows that I LOVE sleep. I am a heavy sleeper, and it takes me a while to actually wake up. So when he came in that morning (which was actually Christmas Eve), I was just excited about breakfast in bed. It took me a while to wake up and notice that he was totally nervous and fumbling with a box in his hand. I dropped my fork when he opened it, and he said the sweetest things. Of course I said yes, but I still couldn’t tell if the proposal was for real or just a dream! I was completely and utterly surprised!
Three adjectives that describe the day are: Romantic, creative and eclectic.
Our favorite detail of the wedding was: This is a hard one. I think it has to be the “church” that my dad and I built. It just made everything so special. But I really liked all the elements of the ceremony, especially the mason jars we sprayed like mercury glass, and the drop cloth and burlap chair covers.
Tell us about finding your wedding dress: I really wanted to wait to go dress shopping with my mom and sisters, but I couldn’t contain my excitement and gathered some girlfriends to hit the local stores. My only direction was that I didn’t want a corset back. I had made it almost all the way through my first appointment with little success, until Zoe (our helper) brought me a Maggie Sottero. It was beautiful, but she said the reason she hadn’t brought it before was because it had a corset back. Honestly, I knew even before I walked out of the room that I was in love. It was the first time I actually felt like a bride instead of like a little girl trying on the wrong dress. Of course I didn’t think it could be that easy so I continued looking for months, but after four trips back to the first store I had my dress.