Amanda and Kristina at Asbury Biergarten & Festhalle

amanda-kristina-asbury-biergarten-festhalle

How did you meet?
Amanda and I met about 7 years ago at a bar in Asbury Park. She was dating someone at the time but I was always interested in her. I put in my time as friends and two years later we started officially dating after a misinterpreted text message!

How did you get engaged?
Amanda was stationed in Germany for a few weeks for the Army. I flew out to meet her and proposed to her at the tail end of our trip at this cute little town built in a fortress in Germany called Rothenberg. It was a surprise and I wanted to make sure I proposed during the sunset but Amanda had other plans (she wanted ice cream). Luckily enough, we were able to make it to a small park overlooking the side of a mountain right outside of the fortress right as the sun was going down.

Details of the day!
The theme for this day fell right along with the theme of the Biergarten – rustic, dark distressed wood, wine barrels, etc. Our colors were jade, gold, and silver.

Why did you choose your venue?
We love going there for dinner and it fits our personalities well – aka not a traditional wedding venue – it also represented the place where we got engaged (German-style restaurant).

What was on your menu?
We had stations of the venue’s best food and nothing too fancy – sliders, kielbasa, german potatoes, mac & cheese, crab cakes, oysters, and more.

All about your gown!
Our gowns ended up being very similar. They were both understated and simple from a distance but very pretty, detailed, covered in lace and beads up close, and form-fitting. My dress was champagne colored and hers was ivory.

What was your favorite moment?
First look – we waited a very long time to see each other in our wedding dresses thanks to Covid and it was well worth the wait!

One detail you couldn’t live without?
The flower wall on the roof of the venue. It had just bloomed and had so much color and it was absolutely gorgeous to look at and perfect to take pictures in front of. I wish we had more!

Did anything go wrong?
This is an absolutely loaded question. We are Covid brides so the entire wedding story is filled with “what went wrong” which makes the story so much more interesting. 1. Our original wedding was slated for August 22, 2020 in Playa Mujeres in Mexico, and we were supposed to stay there 10+ days for our honeymoon as well. Obviously, this had to be canceled. 2. We postponed our date with the Biergarten 3 times because of Covid 3. There was a tornado warning on July 1 so we had to move the entire ceremony and cocktail off of the roof and inside. This also made us not be able to take as many pictures in front of the flower wall as we would have liked to. 4. Amanda’s brother disappeared before the ceremony and we had to go on without him adjusting the way everyone walked out last minute. Turns out he decided to go exploring Asbury via electric scooter with her cousin and thought the ceremony started 30 minutes later than it did. Our wedding coordinator from the Biergarten, Regina Paolella, helped us navigate all of these mishaps and made our day perfectly imperfect.

First dance song?
Eric Clapton – Wonderful Tonight

Any advice for future brides?
Something will always go wrong. In our case, literally, almost everything went wrong. Don’t focus on that, no one will even notice or care besides you and it always makes for a better story.

Honeymoon Location?
Oahu, Hawaii We originally planned it for a week after our 2nd changed date but moved it once again to July first so our honeymoon happened before our wedding.