Love Flows at Louisville Water Tower Park

“The ceremony outside in front of the tower is just iconic to me. Looking back at the pictures, I still get emotional. It created an incredible backdrop for it.”

Louisville Water Tower Park is where Allie and Abbey Bowman-Rogers said “I Do.” October 20, 2018 is a day that neither dreamed was possible in their first few years of dating.

That changed on June 26, 2015 when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled same-sex couples had the right to marry. A landmark ruling that happened to fall during Pride month.

Fast forward three years to 2018 and Allie and Abbey were in the early stages of wedding planning. They found themselves on a tour of Louisville Water Tower Park where they quickly learned the venue hosts weddings and other events.

Allie remembers, “When they told us that, we both just kind of looked at each other because we had just gotten engaged at that point. And I think, I think we were both pretty much sold on it from the beginning. We looked at other places, but it was never really a competition. We kind of had our hearts set on it from the beginning.”

“It just felt right with the history and with it being a National Historic Landmark right by the water,” Abbey added.

The couple’s first experience at the Water Tower was running our signature race, the Pure Tap® 5K, years earlier. Now they were back to plan their walk down the aisle. “At the time, it was refreshing that it was one of the first locations we went to talk about weddings and they weren’t, the folks there weren’t thoroughly confused why two women were asking about a wedding (both chuckle). I know that sounds like it’s the bare minimum, but it really wasn’t, that meant a lot to us,” Abbey said. Allie recalls from dress shopping to picking a cake to the fine details of the wedding ceremony and reception, it was more than they could’ve hoped for. “We felt like we, we really got to feel like brides.”

Tap image below to view photo album. Photos courtesy: Megan Hilaire

Allie said working with the event staff helped take away some of the stress that can come with wedding planning because they were flexible and offered ideas on how to make the couple’s vision a reality. “They made the day exactly what we wanted and I can’t think of any moment of our wedding day without thinking of the beautiful backdrop and the location and just how warm it all felt. It really felt like it was our space for the night.”

A night they both remember fondly and couldn’t imagine anywhere else but Louisville Water Tower Park. “It kind of feels like a piece of it is ours because we hold so, the most important day of our lives happened there,” said Abbey.