Real Wedding: Grace & Chris
It was Rochester, New York, that brought Grace Vangeison and Chris Johnston together. They first met as students at the University of Rochester, where Grace served as coach for Chris’s swimming team for her sorority’s annual fundraiser, which combined synchronized swimming and relays, with hilarious results. The crush was instant and mutual. But it wasn’t until almost three years later, when they were getting ready for graduation, that Grace and Chris admitted they’d been attracted to each other for years. It might have seemed like an inauspicious time to start a relationship, but the couple was determined to make it work. After eight months apart, with Chris employed and Grace doing the coursework for her Ph.D., Chris came back to Rochester for his MBA, and the two have been inseparable ever since.
Still, Chris made Grace work hard for a proposal. While on vacation in Ocean City, New Jersey, the athletic couple found themselves huffing and puffing in 100-degree temperatures and overbearing humidity on a seaglass-hunting expedition. Exhausted, windblown, and sweaty, Grace looked up when Chris said, “Oooh, look.” But instead of a piece of seaglass, he was holding a diamond ring.
“To this day, I have still not actually said ‘yes,’” says Grace. “I just stuck out my left hand and let Chris slip the ring on my finger.” It’s become a running joke that when Grace wants a new piece of jewelry, she suggests another seaglass-hunting trip to Ocean City, Maryland.
“The only bad part was that we had to hike and bike the whole way back home to tell our families,” says Grace. “The adrenaline helped — that, and the fact that the wind was at our backs!”
Chris was from Pennsylvania and Grace from Maine, but after eight years of living there, Rochester felt like home. It was where they had met, where they’d fallen in love, where they’d built a life together — and it was where they wanted to get married. They immediately knew that the Inn at the Old University Club was the perfect setting — intimate and welcoming and connected to their alma mater, which had been such an important part of their lives.
When it came to planning the wedding, Grace took a relaxed approach, finding a planner who understood the kind of ceremony she and Chris wanted and trusting her to bring their vision to reality. That gave Chris and Grace the opportunity to focus on the little things that would make their day special. Grace had the idea to use her great-grandmother’s recipe for sugar cookies to make leaf-shaped cookie favors, and carried her bouquet with one of her grandmother’s old handkerchiefs wrapped around it. Grace had been named for her great-grandmother, so those touches had special meaning for her. Chris and Grace chose “J” wine for the reception, both for its symbolic meaning as their new, shared name as well as for its flavor.
Grace opted to rent everything, from the reception tables to the china, instead of going with the venue’s party stock, to give the wedding a truly one-of-a-kind feeling. And because she couldn’t choose between them, she ended up with two wedding dresses: a flowing Vera Wang for the ceremony and a dance-perfect number by Reem Acra for the reception. The couple and their friends and family kept the dance floor packed all night, except for when two of Chris’s goofy high school buddies took the stage to serenade the newly married couple with a hilarious rendition of a romantic tune.
Having a wedding planner helped Grace and Chris enjoy everything about the wedding without having to stress about the details. And the right vendors made all the difference, Grace says, because she knew she could relax and let them do what they did best while she and Chris soaked in the experience.
Special Touch: Grace used her great-grandmother’s sugar cookie recipe to make leaf-shaped cookie favors.
Photography: Gary Ventura
Other Professionals: Cake: Premier Pastry | Floral Design: Arena’s Florist | Hair & Make Up: Jason Ripple / Joan Lincoln Transportation: Park Place Limo