Wedding at Belvedere Castle

A New York-based couple plotted their nuptials in the Austrian city where they fell for each other—and for the place.

By Kaitlin Menza, August 22, 2025

It was on their first big trip together in December 2018 that Ian and John King Oppermann realized they were serious. After meeting a few months earlier on Bumble, the New York City-based pair spent two weeks road-tripping from Zurich through the Swiss Alps, across the length of Austria ending in Vienna. Amid stops to hike and bike, “We fell in love with the Austrian countryside, we fell in love with Vienna, and it’s where we fell in love with each other, because we realized we have the exact same interests,” says Ian.

Those interests include classical music and history, for which Vienna is, of course, a dream destination. “Ian really loves opera and classical music, so this was really a pilgrimage for him,” says John. “But it also has modern nightlife and great restaurants and parks. It’s a walkable, bikeable, livable city that is just so beautiful.”

By the time they got engaged in February 2024, the couple had been back to the Austrian capital five more times—and within minutes of John’s proposal to Ian, they were already discussing holding their wedding there. “It wouldn’t just be a random destination. This is special for us,” says Ian. Ahead, the couple share how they plotted an ornate, emotional wedding in June 2025 for 50 guests across four venues, featuring traditional wool outfits, classical music, and loads of schnitzel.

Ian and John's ceremony took place in the Upper Belvedere Palace's Octagon—an eight-sided former chapel— and guests were led on a private tour of the gallery immediately after the couple were pronounced married.

 Ivory Rose Photography

Check out venues that could only exist in Austria

Within their partnership, Ian tends to all of the administrative and practical needs (he's the “house manager,” as John says) while John himself is more of the social coordinator who’s great at planning outings and nailing party vibes. As such, John immediately leapt into vendor research, finding a photographer in Austria whose style he loved via Instagram. Polly Rola at Ivory Rose Photography shared a list of her own favorite colleagues, including their planner, Sandra Wimmer. “It opened up a further ecosystem of vendors that all work together,” says John.

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In July 2024, they planned a trip to the city to scout venues. They knew just what they were looking for: opulent spaces swathed in history. “We wanted every space to remind our guests of where they were, whether it was an interior with Viennese character or an outdoor space with amazing views of the skyline,” says John.

Ultimately, the couple held the “soft opening” of their wedding weekend with a low-key event on Thursday night where around 30 guests met for drinks at the Strandbar Herrmann, an open-air bar with lounge chairs on the banks of the Danube. On Friday night, they hosted a welcome dinner at Hotel Sacher, the storied 19th-century space frequented by European royals. The dining room was wrapped in green velvet, and the inspiration the couple shared with their planner for this family-style meal was Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette, a fun hang set against a really opulent room. “We wanted people to be dressed up, but not feel like they had to be stuffy and proper,” says Ian.

It houses the world’s largest collection of works by Gustav Klimt, among many other artists.

The wedding itself on Sunday was hosted at the Belvedere, a historic museum complex of two Baroque palaces that houses the world’s largest collection of works by Gustav Klimt, among many other artists. The ceremony took place in the palace's Octagon, an eight-sided former chapel space located immediately next to Klimt’s masterpiece “The Kiss;” guests were led on a private tour of the gallery immediately after the couple were pronounced married. Cocktail hour and dancing were held in the Hall of Grotesques, so called for the fantastical murals hugging its walls, and dinner was served in the Marble Gallery, with its white-on-white stucco reliefs and ribbon-like wood paneling.

Finally, on Monday, a goodbye brunch was held at the rooftop bar of the luxurious Rosewood Vienna Hotel. The guests who weren’t too exhausted by then—about 30 in total—attended an opera, Richard Strauss's "Der Rosenkavalier," at the Vienna State Opera that night.

Anticipate Type-A attitudes

Coordinating these swanky venues and their regulations required local knowledge, German language skills, and on-the-ground adaptability—none of which the couple possessed. They were thrilled with their planner Sandra, and her network of contacts and no-nonsense, highly proactive demeanor. “She is the most organized person you’ve ever met, exactly what we needed,” Ian says. She helped, too, with poorly translated contracts that didn’t make much sense to two Americans.

While friends who had married elsewhere in Europe had warned that response times could be a bit more relaxed compared to American customer service, Ian and John found that the Austrian style overall was very prompt. “They are very Type A there, and the way that they do business is very Type A, so they were actually very responsive to things,” Ian says.

On Monday, a goodbye brunch was held at the rooftop bar of the luxurious Rosewood Vienna Hotel.

Sandra wound up recommending their caterer (Motto Catering), florist (Ulrike Siegl-Kospach), and officiant (Susanne Schöndorfer). Toward the end of working together, she had a firm grasp on their aesthetic and overall vision. “Flowers were funny, because we knew what we wanted but had a hard time communicating that to a florist. We wanted them to look alpine, but not rustic,” Ian says. Sandra found an image of a bouquet that the couple loved, and they signed off on her taking the project from there. “We were like, We trust you. You can make it happen. And she hit the flowers out of the park. John and I were astounded,” Ian says of the blooms; wild arrangements in purple and maroon that echoed the decorative curls and scrolls along the Grotesques’ walls.

Embrace the culture from every angle

In keeping with their goal of celebrating the destination, the couple’s other vendors leaned hard into the Austrian brief. Food throughout was heavy and traditional, featuring dishes like wiener schnitzel and tafelspitz (boiled beef with root vegetables). “It’s one of the things we like about Austria: That part of the world has very large portions and very hearty meals,” says John. Their wedding cake was a beloved local dessert Sachertorte, a chocolate cake with layers of apricot jam coated in a dark chocolate glaze.

The pair opted for a traditional ceremony style facing their officiant for the proceedings.

Despite focusing on each other and away from their guests, the entire room was emotional.

Go for an intimate style of ceremony

The couple’s devotion to local tradition carried over to their ceremony, in which they sat side by side in chairs facing the officiant. “It made it very private between me and Ian, because we weren't looking at our guests—as opposed to American weddings,” John says. “I didn't really see our guests the whole ceremony, which made it private and emotional and personal.”

What might have been a touch more American was the outsized emotional reaction displayed throughout. “Ian just completely fell apart when he walked into the room. I saw him sobbing, so I started crying, and then our guests were crying, and we basically spent the entire hour almost convulsing from how much we were sobbing,” John laughs.

Celebrate yourselves, too, with a taste of home

Thorough as the couple’s Viennese vision was, they still found ways to celebrate their own style. While the welcome dinner, ceremony, and cocktail hour had all featured classical music, it became a party once they transitioned to John’s favorite genre, which he says “skews more toward hyper pop, with Charli XCX, Slayyyter, Cobrah, and that kind of stuff,” thanks to DJ Robert Klimo. The signature cocktail for their party also came straight from the heart. “Margaritas were the drink of the night, because we basically exclusively drink margaritas,” John says.

Something they were unable to borrow from home was American-style air conditioning. “We had visited the museum when it was much cooler, and it got pretty hot, considering there were dozens of people dancing around,” John says. “But you felt like you were at a club with your friends. Everyone was super sweaty and singing along, and it was so fun.”

Bowls by Gmundner Keramik served as favors for guests to bring home as a souvenir.

Create an unforgettable keepsake (or two)

In case the photos of their favorite people dancing against the backdrop of priceless art weren’t enough to seal the memories, the couple also planned very special favors for the guests and for themselves. Their loved ones each took home a small bowl produced at the 500-year-old ceramics foundry Gmundner Keramik, which is known for its white pottery with slim green bands. “You can only get it here, and it’s culturally important to Austria,” Ian says. “We wanted everyone to be able to take a piece of that home.”

As for the couple’s own memento, they got an idea while touring venues with their planner. The Hotel Sacher has a decades-old tradition of having famous guests sign their tablecloths, then embroidering over their signatures and displaying the cloth along its corridors. The couple decided to have their guests sign a tablecloth as a kind of guestbook, and then sent the fabric off to an Austrian artisan to have the signatures set in thread. When it’s done, they are planning to display it in John’s parents’ home. “We'll have that as a wedding keepsake,” says John. That, and the memories of ugly-crying and wiener schnitzel, of course.

Kaitlin Menza is a writer and former editor at Teen Vogue, Glamour, and Seventeen. She covers food, travel, health, pop culture, and everything else wonderful the world has to offer. She lives in New York City. You can find her work at kaitlinmenza.com.