REAL BRIDE: Emily

Emily + Tyler

10.9.21

Grab your tissues - today’s blog is a good one and sure to cue the waterworks. These lovebirds kicked off their newest chapter of life together with a fun-filled celebration inspired by a deep earth toned color palette, dried florals and vintage flare. Emily planned her entire wedding on her own and she didn’t skip a single beat.

Featuring a beautiful outdoor ceremony and an epic wedding reception, the images and details you see below will melt your heart. Accenting the autumn boho vibes is Elizabeth McKenzie Florals, whose incredible florals have us wondering if we should replan all of our weddings to incorporate dried florals and orange blooms. Honestly, not a terrible idea.

You know the drill - keep scrolling for all the goods!

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How did the two of you meet?

"The short story of how we met is in college at K-State. The longer story is that before starting at K-State, all the incoming freshmen for the class of 2020 were put into a Facebook group to start to get to know each other, ask questions, and find roommates. From there, a GroupMe was made where we all communicated. In that group we all exchanged social media handles and followed each other on Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat. So both Tyler and I started following each other the summer before our freshman year. I had kind of taken notice of him in the group chat and thought he was pretty cute based on the few pictures I had seen. So I knew that I needed to come up with a reason to message him one-on-one. Then one fateful night, on the 4th of July, Tyler's best friend messaged in our group chat that Tyler had almost blown off his hand with a firework. I took this as my opportunity to message him and see if he was okay. We have not stopped talking since that 4th of July in 2016. We talked the rest of that summer and I got to meet him for the first time on move-in day at K-State (which was my birthday) - and the first thing Tyler ever said to me was "Happy Birthday, Emily" and that was all he said all night because he was so nervous, but we immediately hit it off and have been together ever since. Our first official date was on Labor Day, so you could say we have a thing for holidays and special days hahaha!”

Tell us about the proposal!

“The proposal was absolutely perfect! Tyler really shocked me and threw me off which I really appreciated because I knew it was coming since we had been talking about marriage for a while and getting engaged. Tyler proposed to me during the middle of a photoshoot we were doing for Christman gift photos. I had told him that for Christmas, I wanted to get some nice photos of us done as my gift. He agreed to it and I set up a date for two weeks later. Since I was the one who had planned the entire shoot and was the one in contact with the photographer, I didn't expect him to take the initiative to plan a proposal during the photos. But Tyler ended up finding the photographer I had hired on Instagram, contacting her, and let her know of his idea. They sneakily planned the entire thing, and our photographer, Camryn, did a great job leading me to make decisions that fit with Tylers plan, such as the time and location. So in the middle of our photoshoot, Camryn had us go back to back, take a few steps away from each other, and then we were supposed to turn around and make a funny face at each other to make the other laugh and then come together and hug. So I fully committed to the funny face idea and turned around to Tyler on one knee; the pictures were hilarious and so special because the shock on my face was so obvious. It was such a perfect moment and so us, and we will cherish those photos forever.”

How did you know your gown was the one?

“Going into dress shopping, I had a really big wish list of what I wanted in a dress. I didn't think that I would be able to find a dress that had absolutely everything I wanted, but I was completely wrong. Something White literally had my most perfect dream dress that checked off every box. I knew from the minute I saw it on the rack that I would be walking out with that dress, but I saved it for last to try on and explored other styles and options. The minute I put it on I could not stop smiling and my mom told me I was beaming. There was just a certain special feeling I got when I put on the one and I knew I had to walk down the aisle in it on my wedding day.”

How did you decide to get married on October 9th?

“Tyler and I got married on October 9th, 2021. We picked this date pretty easily because our dating anniversary is October 10th, 2016 so we wanted to try and keep the date as close as possible. This worked out perfectly because I had always dreamed of having a fall wedding. It was very special because we got to spend the day before our anniversary with all our friends and family talking about our love story and what had got us to our wedding day. Then the next day we got to celebrate 5 years together as husband and wife for the first time. We had a big brunch party with all our friends and family to open wedding gifts and celebrate. It was so special and something we are really glad that we did! I don't know how we will ever top that anniversary haha!”

What was one of your favorite moments from your wedding day?

“Probably my top favorite moment of the day was the end of our ceremony when we were announced as Mr. and Mrs. Laflin for the first time and we got to have our grand confetti exit. We were both so happy and filled with joy and it was so amazing to look out into the crowd and see how happy all of our loved ones were for us as well. Plus walking through a huge storm of confetti was super cool.”

What advice would you give to other brides in regards to dress shopping?

“My biggest advice would be to go in with an open mind and try on all different styles of dresses. You never know what you will like and something you may have never picked out on your own might surprise you. Another great piece of advice I would say is to keep your group small. Bring who is most important to you, but not too many people because sometimes having too many opinions can be really overwhelming. Remember that having others input is nice, but always go with what you love the most and what you are most comfortable in; never settle to make others happy.”

Did you have a specific theme in mind while planning?

“When planning I knew I wanted a fall wedding so I really wanted to play into that theme. My favorite color is orange so I wanted to do a lot of different shades of orange and go for a very boho, dessert, and earth toned theme. I knew I didn't want any greenery to be different and do almost all dried florals with pops of fresh flowers with bold orange colors. To keep with the boho theme, a big thing I really wanted was rugs going all the way down the aisle and I wanted all the decor to be very miss matched and eclectic. I am a HUGE thrifter so I wanted my wedding to have that thrifted, vintage feel. I spent over a year thrifting almost every week for different pieces for my wedding and I would say I definitely achieved my eclectic look!”

Where did you draw your inspiration + ideas from?

“A lot of my inspiration came from Pinterest and some bloggers I follow on Instagram. I am huge into earth tones and warm tones so I looked at tons of those types of photos on Pinterest and drew from that. My favorite blogger who's wedding and home is very similar to my theme is called Sarah's Day. I looked at a lot of her wedding photos and watched multiple of her wedding YouTube videos to see where she got some of her decor or how we DIY'd it.”