Emily and Lyle’s Seven Springs Virginia wedding was romantic, colorful and wonderfully personal. Against the historic Virginia property’s gardens and greenery, they brought together warm florals, soft shades of mauve and plum, and Lyle’s incredible deep plum suit for a celebration that felt elevated without losing any of its warmth.

More than anything, though, this was a wedding day that felt unmistakably like the two of them.

A Love Story That Started With Boxing and Cats

Emily and Lyle met through a mutual friend at their boxing gym in 2022. Emily surprised Lyle by showing up to a class he wasn’t expecting her to attend, and Lyle eventually followed up with an Instagram DM about cats. Obviously, excellent material for the beginning of a love stor

They started dating that December and built a relationship around both adventures and the little rituals of ordinary life: traveling, working out, taking walks, doing puzzles, and starting their mornings together with Wordle, Connections and the Spelling Bee. 

Lyle later proposed during a walk through Maymont before dinner, but Seven Springs became another meaningful part of their story before the wedding arrived. I photographed their engagement session there, giving us the chance to explore the property together and get comfortable in front of the camera before returning for their wedding day.

Returning to Seven Springs for Their Wedding Day

For their wedding, Emily and Lyle described their vision as romantic and cottagecore, a direction that felt completely at home among the historic architecture, gardens and wooded landscape of Seven Springs. 

Emily spent the beginning of the day getting ready inside the manor house while Lyle prepared in the tavern. They chose to share a first look and complete many of their portraits before the ceremony, giving us plenty of time to wander the property and create photographs without making the day feel like one long photoshoot. 

The details were beautiful, but some of the smallest ones carried the most meaning. Emily wore her mother’s pearls, and they even made sure to leave room in the wedding-day plans for a visit with the animals at Seven Springs. 

The Way He Looked at Her

One of the things I remember most about Emily and Lyle’s wedding day is simply the way Lyle looked at her.

It was something my second photographer and I both noticed throughout the day. There was such an unmistakable tenderness in the way he watched Emily, and once you notice it, you can see it again and again in their photographs.

Before the wedding, Lyle had described Emily as loving, funny and warm. Emily described Lyle as kind, generous and patient, someone who makes people feel like they’re the only person in the room. She also said that he makes life feel “very easy and very silly.” 

Those words feel especially fitting when I look back through their gallery.

An Outdoor Wedding Ceremony at Seven Springs

Their ceremony began at four in the afternoon, surrounded by the greenery of Seven Springs and the people closest to them. Afterward, guests moved onto the lawn beside the pavilion for cocktail hour before everyone gathered for the evening reception. 

This is always one of my favorite transitions to photograph on a wedding day. The carefully planned pieces begin giving way to hugs, reactions, movement, laughter and all of those wonderfully unpredictable moments that make the photographs feel alive.

A Warm, Joyful Evening at Seven Springs

As the evening moved into the pavilion, the celebration loosened into exactly what a wedding reception should be: people they loved gathered together, plenty of laughter, a full dance floor and the little unscripted interactions that could never be recreated later.

Those moments matter just as much to me as the beautiful portraits.

I want to give my couples enough direction that they feel comfortable and confident in front of my camera, but enough freedom that the photographs still feel like their actual life. The goal isn’t perfection for perfection’s sake. It’s beautiful photographs in which you can still recognize yourselves.

Emily described that experience afterward in a way that meant so much to me:

“She really ‘got’ us and perfectly captured the love between my husband and me.”

She also shared that she appreciated the gentle guidance during both their engagement and wedding photographs, the communication throughout the planning process, and feeling cared for as people rather than simply another client.

That is exactly what I hope my couples feel when they look back on the entire experience, not just the finished gallery.

Photographing Weddings at Seven Springs

Seven Springs offers something I especially love as a photographer: variety without needing to leave the property.

The manor house, tavern, gardens, wooded areas, lawn and pavilion each create a different visual chapter of a wedding day. For Emily and Lyle, that meant moving naturally from getting ready inside the historic spaces, to portraits among the trees, an outdoor ceremony, cocktail hour on the lawn and an evening celebration under the pavilion.

Their Seven Springs Virginia wedding was romantic and thoughtfully designed, but the photographs I love most are the ones that hold onto something more than how everything looked.

They hold the way Lyle looked at Emily. The laughter. The movement. Their people surrounding them.

All the pieces that made the day theirs.

Emily + Lyle’s Seven Springs Wedding Vendors

Venue: Seven Springs

Photography: Emily Bartell Photography

Wedding Coordinator: Tracy Gilland

Wedding Gown: Lillian West

Bridal Boutique: Urban Set Bride

Florals: Weddings by Vogue

Hair + Makeup: FBJ Weddings

DJ: 196 Events

Videography: Draped in White

Catering + Cake: Blue Atlas

Groomsmen Attire: Generation Tux

Officiant: Rabbi David Greenspoon