Julie & Carl || Rhinegeist Brewery

We met a year ago through a mutual friend and have simply loved life together. About 3 months into dating, Julie realized that as a result of Carl’s fantastic cooking, she could no longer sustain eating meat and dairy products… her body didn’t have it (!), so he decided to also partake in a vegan diet. In June of 2021, because Carl is a super researcher, we learned about Eleven Madison Park (EMP) – a 3 Michelin Star restaurant that decided to go entirely plant-based – and knew we absolutely had to try it, despite the price tag.
Fast forward to September 2021, and we were off! We made a pitstop at a friend’s wedding in Philadelphia and then made our way up to The Big Apple to enjoy a fantastic dinner and all the sights to see there. Unbeknownst to Julie, Carl had additional plans for this trip. He made plans for us to go to The Edge – a 100+ story building boasting views of all of NYC – a few hours before their dinner at EMP. While Julie indeed wondered, she was confident this would simply be a romantic day and that a proposal would come at some point a few months later. It didn’t help that Carl was cool as a cucumber that day and gave no hints about what was coming. Once we reached the top of The Edge and made our way outside to fantastic views, Julie was quickly concerned that Carl was going to be sick and suggested they go inside. He blamed his nerves on the heights, assured her he would be fine, and told them to take a photo before moving inside.
Carl kindly asked a random stranger to take a photo of us with beautiful city views in the background. It was evident at that moment that his nerves resulted from wanting to propose. Julie’s thoughts immediately switched to how horrifyingly awkward this must be for the stranger who was being inadvertently thrown into taking photos of someone’s engagement. Trying to shove her social anxiety down, Carl mentioned how she makes him absolutely speechless and incredibly happy. He then asked if she would be his wife (he doesn’t remember the actual question, given his immense nervousness, nor the fact that Julie said “yes”). After saying yes and embracing each other, Julie told Carl to PLEASE get his phone from the poor woman who was forced into this unanticipated photoshoot. At that point, he let her know that Susan was there to take photos of us for the next hour, and he had arranged everything. We then spent the next hour enjoying the beautiful views of NYC while Susan captured all of these breathtaking moments to enjoy and share with our family and friends.

Carl and I had a beautiful wedding over two days. We intentionally wanted a small ceremony, so we married on a Thursday with 28 of our closest friends and family and then had a reception with all of our other loved ones the next day at Rhinegiest. The day of the wedding was effortless and relaxing. Carl and I got a manicure together at Spruce in the morning (he’d never had one, and it was amusing to experience his experience of it). At that point, most of my vendors came one at a time to get things taken care of between my hair, makeup, and then the photographer. We did a first look in Covington for the wedding itself and had photos taken of us. I was smitten at how good Carl looked, and he was very taken by my dress. The ceremony was held in Bouquet. I will never forget my dad starting to narrate us walking down the aisle in his nervousness: “Okay, and now we’re starting to walk, and we’re strolling, and we’re starting to go down the aisle…” and I had to tell him to stop before we got to where people were sitting and could hear him. The ceremony itself was short and sweet – a quick five minutes. Though we got a laugh out of everyone when Carl handed me the vows to read, and I said, “why are these wet?!” As soon as the ceremony was over, we had a cocktail hour with a fantastic charcuterie spread, courtesy of Bouquet and Harmony Plant Fare. We dashed off to take family photos and came back in to enjoy the spread ourselves. We then had a fabulous 6-course dinner – all vegan (because we’re vegan) prepared by Bouquet. We wanted 2 courses at each table to spend time with everyone at some point in the evening. Overall, it was just a wonderful and fun time.
The next day, we had a few close friends over for some of our amazing homemade vegan pizza before heading off to Rhinegeist for the reception. The Uber driver was surprisingly chill for having a bride and her gang in his car. Our one-hour cocktail hour turned into two because of some snafus – which, what wedding is without one? But everyone enjoyed a great open bar from Rhinegeist and an incredible charcuterie spread from Boardful Cincinnati with Mad Cheese cheese. We had a small cake and lots of cupcakes from Chubby Bunny, which we cut right before moving into our first dance. After that, everyone just danced the night away! We didn’t want any traditional wedding stuff – we skipped all the speeches and bouquet tossing, etc., and enjoyed spending time with everyone. Carl even managed to play a game of chess (which he loves) because a friend brought a chess board along.
Overall, our wedding was perfect because it was exactly what we wanted. We kept it intimate, left out all of the fluff, and enjoyed having so many wonderful people in our lives to celebrate with.

My experience with Bridal & Formal was AWESOME! I was in and out in an hour, which was shocking, considering I wasn’t sure what I wanted. Mariah, my sales consultant, was great at helping me pick out dresses that fit what I wanted, and she helped me feel so relaxed and at ease. Mariah was the one who ended up pulling my dress, which was absolutely gorgeous. Dress shopping was such an easy and fun experience, and I appreciated all of Mariah’s help.

Wedding Location – Cincinnati, OH
Ceremony Location – Bouquet
Reception Location – Rhinegeist Brewery
Bridal Gown – Maggie Sottero, style Aidan (style has been discontinued)
Bridal Headpiece – Bel Aire Bridal, style 6963
Flowers – Rustique Creations
Hair – Twelve. Eleven. Bridal Hair
DJ – Party Pleasers
Cake & Cupcakes – Chubby Bunny Bakery
Hors d’oeuvres – Boardful Cincinnati & Mad Cheese