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I like Emilie. It looks more "dainty" than Emily. Like an Emily would maybe be a cheerleader, while an Emilie would be an artist or a poet and probably have a more whimsical personality. I can see the appeal of Emily too though, in the more classic sense. I'm just slightly biased against it because of how popular it was in my generation. Emilie also reminds me of Emilie Autumn. (I like her but if you don't, or have no opinion, it still works because the association isn't so strong that it's the only thing I can think of when I see the name. It's just the name primarily.)
Emilie seems more feminine and maybe more "pale". If they were both little girls hanging out in someone's backyard, Emilie would be the one sitting there drinking tea under a parasol while writing poetry and Emily would be skipping around, rolling down hills and picking flowers.
I like Violet Emilie, but not Marlowe. Marlowe is the opposite of dainty, so I don't think it goes all that well with Emilie.
I'd use alternate spellings of a popular name, as long as the spellings weren't too unknown. Vivienne (although I pronounce that different from Vivian), Elisabeth, and Brook are good. And Aeron / Aron for boys. Plus with something like Emilie, it's less of an alternate spelling and more a translation (like Eric, Erik, and Erich.) It's a lot nicer to say "My name is Emilie, spelled the French way" then "My name is Emmili, with 2 m's and an i". When it's a translation it just feels more 'legit' (and is more likely to be common, even if it's less common than the other form).