Meet Emily Babb of Louisiana Bride {blogger interview}

Emily Babb is an American blogger whom I’ve had the privilege of meeting through my internship with 5 Minutes for Mom. She blogs about food, weddings, and southern living as Louisiana Bride. I love hearing Emily’s southern accent when we’re chatting online. Her blog is about more than just brides, so read on to find out more about Emily!

TKM: Tell us a bit about Emily Babb.

Emily: Hi, I’m Emily Babb and I’m the blogger behind Louisiana Bride. I am an elementary school teacher, but  you’ll rarely see that on the blog. I mainly focus on my love of food and share our weekly meal plan as well as recipes.

I love Target, DIY projects, traveling, live music, and coffee. Oh, and my husband Jeremy. We can’t leave him out.

When I’m not writing about my love of food, I share stories from our lives—about the craziness of being a graduate student’s wife and all the trouble our nutty dachshunds cause. Trust me, two little 10-pound weenie dogs can cause a lot of fuss.

TKM: When and why did you start blogging?

Emily Babb: I started blogging on Halloween of 2008 as a way to share our upcoming wedding details. At the time, all of my bridesmaids were in different states and this was the only way to get their opinions on dresses and details, because getting together just wasn’t doable.

During our engagement other people started reading and I was approached at our wedding about whether or not I would continue blogging. With encouragement to keep on (my great aunt thinks I’m hilarious LOL) writing, I changed my name from Louisiana Bride & a Mississippi Wedding to just Louisiana Bride and made the tag line “& life post wedding.”

While I’m no longer a newlywed, and don’t totally like the idea of being known as Louisiana Bride, I feel like it’s become my brand. I’ve been noticed in public a few times and asked if I was Louisiana Bride, and my sister has even had people ask her if she was Louisiana Bride’s sister.

So after years of blogging I just keep the name.

TKM: Do you have a schedule or do you post whenever you feel like it?

Emily: I do have a schedule; a few months ago I was posting every day, but during the spring I decided to knock it down to only week days.

Mondays I post my Meal Pinning Monday linkup post, Tuesday is a new recipe, Wednesday is Insta-Video Wednesday linky, Thursday is wide open for whatever I’m feeling or a guest post, and finally Friday is High 5 For Friday where I link up to another blog.

TKM: What’s your favourite and least favourite parts of blogging?

Emily Babb: My favorite part of blogging: I love the community and the opportunities blogging brings.

For the past two years my husband has been in a pretty intense graduate school program and I’ve been the only income. The small income my blog brings in has allowed me to have some fun money, redecorate the kitchen, buy clothes, and just partake in all things Target. Shopping is my therapy, and while I’m not excessive about it, it would have been entirely cut off outside of groceries these past two years. The blog income has helped me feel sane and not so caged into our small budget.

Least favorite: When I have multiple deadlines and my actual job is in the way. This could be a full-time job, but because I teach I have to use weekends or evenings. Sometimes the pressure gets to me and I have to step back—if this ever stops being fun, I’m out.

TKM: What advice would you share with other bloggers?

Emily: My advice to other bloggers is to own your brand. You may not immediately get noticed, or ever really get noticed, but when you do, you need to have a solid brand. Make sure your names matches on all your social media, as well as your photo. Splurge and buy your dot com from Google; it’s only $10 a year.

I’ve had in-real-life people try to pick at me for being LABride on everything because they don’t understand why I’m doing it. I used to get a little embarrassed when people would mention the blog and act like I was weird for having one. However, the joke’s on them when you’re getting paid to tweet or post on Facebook.

You can find Emily Babb on Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and Facebook.