Before beginning graduate school, Kasey Ellrich and her best friend promised themselves that if they each did not match with a guy who could be a future husband that weekend, they were going to delete their dating apps and focus only on school. “Well, we both met our future husbands during that time!” smiles Kasey. “We talked like we had known each other forever,” remembers Andrew Tyler Obenshain – who goes by his middle name – of their perfect, laid-back first date. “Everything just flowed so easily.”

While they were laughing together at dinner one night, Tyler realized that he wanted to keep having nights like that for the rest of their lives. After asking Kasey’s mom and grandparents for their blessings – just before the bride’s beloved grandmother passed away, he asked her to marry him at the Dallas Arboretum, where they would later host their wedding welcome party. “Even though the day of the engagement was so special, the moments leading up to it mean the most to me,” shares the bride.

Though the pair had originally discussed a destination wedding, they ultimately chose to get married where they reside, so their grandparents could attend. They were married at a lovely church and selected a historic hotel in Downtown Dallas for the reception that had hosted the bride’s prom, which she also planned. To their delight, it had been beautifully renovated since Kasey’s high-school days, creating a sentimental venue that felt new to them both.

To enhance the beauty of the sanctuary, the aisle was lined with florals in pink and white, and lush arrangements of the same blooms were placed at the entrance and altar. The bride and groom were married by a lifelong family friend and minister, Jim Barnett, who also did their premarital counseling. After the vow exchange, it was important to the couple that they share their first communion in front of family and friends before recessing up the aisle to Mendelssohn’s traditional “Wedding March.”

“It warmed my heart seeing all of our favorite people dancing together.”

As guests arrived at the reception venue, they were first greeted with a memorial honoring the pair’s late grandmothers at the entrance. “These women had such an impact on our lives, and it was important to us that they were included at our wedding,” says the bride. Once inside, loved ones were met with thousands of pink and white roses, with no greenery whatsoever – the bride’s main request. “I wanted everything to be timeless,” she notes of the classic look. “Bella Flora of Dallas ran with my idea and turned my vision into a floral dream!”

Velvet chairs and settees fitting the romantic color palette adorned the cocktail-hour space, where guests found their seating assignments on escort cards arranged on a massive flower wall. They were then seated atop translucent garden-inspired chairs surrounding sophisticated tablescapes covered with vanilla-toned linens and topped with lush floral runners and large centerpieces of blush and ivory roses. Towering floral arches were situated over the six-tier cake and champagne tower, and an exquisite floral installation was suspended from the ceiling over the dance floor.

“I wanted our first dance to be something we looked back on for the rest of our lives as this amazing moment,” shares the groom of their memorable first dance to “The Wonder of You” by Elvis Presley. Other special dances included a mother-son dance to “My Wish” by Rascal Flatts and three dances for the bride: a father-daughter dance to “In My Life” by The Beatles, a mother-daughter dance to “You’ll Always Be My Baby” by Alan Jackson (see Alan Jackson's daughter Ali's wedding!), and a dance to “Grandpa Told Me So” by Kenny Chesney with her grandfather.

The dancing and revelry didn’t end there – a conga line with all 300 wedding attendees wrapped around the venue with “guests from 14-years-old to 85-years-old… It warmed my heart seeing all of our favorite people dancing together,” muses the bride. An after-party continued the merriment, complete with the drum line of the groom’s alma mater performing and the University of Oklahoma mascots, Boomer and Sooner, dancing with everyone – along with Pistol Pete from Kasey’s alma mater, Oklahoma State University.

After such a special celebration, the groom urges other couples: “Take everything in and enjoy the moment with your wife every chance you get. It’s an amazing day that you get to share with the person you love most in the world, and you want to savor every moment you can.”

This real wedding was originally published in the Summer 2025 issue of Inside Weddings magazine. 

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