(Photo by ArjunBalaPhotos)
A coffee shop is often where a day begins, a conversation unfolds or two people meet. For one Orlando couple, Austin’s became the place where they began a new chapter together, exchanging vows in a space that had played a special role in their relationship.
In an Instagram post, Mylo and Emorie Barry-Leggett announced they had exchanged vows at Austin’s Coffee and Film in Winter Park in June.
“If you would have told us at 17 that we were going to get married in front of all our friends AND family at 22, we would’ve laughed,” Mylo wrote in the caption.
The couple met when they were 17, during their senior year at Cypress Creek High School, after joining the same poetry club. During an interview, Emorie joked that their creative writing teacher had “forced” them to join the club.
Through the student-run organization, Emorie met Mylo, whose appearance immediately caught their attention.
“I met him, and he had bright pink hair, and was really cool,” Emorie said. “And I was like, ‘Wow, I am kind of obsessed with this thing’.”
After some time, the two soon went on their first date, which included an escape room, a road trip to Jacksonville and a stop at Walmart to buy cereal before sharing their first kiss.
“We had our first kiss in your driveway. It was so gay and cheesy,” Emorie laughed.
At the beginning of their relationship in 2022, during a Senior Signing Day event, Emorie asked Mylo if they wanted to get married. Mylo replied, “Ask me again in four years.”
Emorie took the answer seriously, adding a reminder to the calendar to ask the same question exactly four years later.
When the date arrived in 2026, Emorie asked again, and the couple moved forward with their plans to marry.
The engagement-to-wedding timeline was short, with only two months between the proposal and the ceremony. The couple joked that their decision to move quickly was influenced by their excitement to marry, practical considerations to get health insurance and concerns about the political climate surrounding same-sex marriage.
“It’s easier to get a divorce than fight for marriage equality,” Mylo joked.
Austin’s had already been part of the couple’s relationship long before they considered it as a wedding venue.
According to Emorie, poetry nights at Austin’s were the only way to spend more time together.
“It was the only way I could break curfew to hang out. My curfew extended to midnight on Wednesdays,” Emorie explained. “So we started going to Austin’s so that we could hang out for longer.”
Over time, the coffee shop became more than a place where they could spend time together. It was where their relationship grew and where they could share their mutual love for poetry.
The idea of holding their wedding at the coffee shop came while the couple was sitting in their kitchen, looking at potential venues and comparing prices.
“We were like, ‘What if, what if we ask Austin’s?’ They host events on Saturdays, and they have a form in their bio. What if I just beg in their form to let me have two hours to have a wedding?” Emorie said.
The business accepted their request, and the couple began preparing for the big day.
As the business worked on decorations and preparations for the ceremony, Mylo and Emorie spent the morning together writing their vows, with help from family and friends as they got ready.
“We played rock-paper-scissors to see who was going to do our vows first, and then our officiant was Milo’s freshman-year math teacher,” Emorie said.
For the couple, one of the most important parts of the day was being able to celebrate their relationship with the people closest to them.
The wedding also marked the first time their families had been formally introduced to one another.
Mylo and Emorie said their families have different perspectives, making the opportunity to bring everyone together especially meaningful.
“My grandmother, who is 75 years old and doesn’t fully understand the gay thing, she is a deeply Christian woman. She’s always like, ‘I don’t know if I understand it. I don’t even know if I like it, but I love you.’ And to me, that means the world,” Emorie said.
For them, getting married at Austin’s meant celebrating their relationship in a place that had been part of their story from the beginning.
Surrounded by friends and family, they said the day also reminded them that hate does not have a place in the community.
“It reminded me that, just because the people in power in Orlando are so full of hatred for us and our community, doesn’t mean our community is at all built in that hate,” Emorie said. “We showed up, and we shout out to love each other.”
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