11-04-2025
NKY bride's venue cancels 1 week before wedding due to flooding. How she made it work
Many a bride has tossed around the affirmation that rain on your wedding day is good luck. But what about several feet of flooding?
The Greater Cincinnati region is still recovering from record flooding after the Ohio River rose to its highest level in 28 years on Monday, submerging local businesses in several feet of water, wedding venues included.
The river crested at 60.79 feet Monday evening, according to the National Water Prediction Service. And over the weekend, on Saturday, floodwaters overwhelmed the river's tributaries in Northern Kentucky, when Brittany Schwartz, a local bride, was supposed to be wed at Morning View Meadows, about a mile from a flooded Licking River.
Amy Walker, the upscale barn venue's co-owner, told Fox 19 she woke up to several feet of floodwaters in the reception hall on Saturday, which was already set up for Schwartz's wedding. About half of everything inside the venue was ruined.
'Definitely could have cried a lot, but we laughed because what else can you do? No tears are going to change anything except add to the flood,' Walker said.
The bride-to-be and Walker waded through freezing floodwaters for hours to salvage what they could of the Schwartzs' special day. Around the same time, another local bride, Adrianna Osburg, received a phone call from Walker informing her her April 12 wedding booking would need to be cancelled.
"We were expecting to possibly have our wedding inside due to the rain but the chance of the venue flooding did not cross our minds at all," Osburg told the Enquirer in an email.
"I gave myself an hour to be upset over what happened but knew that we at least had a week to make plans," Osburg said, adding that her heart went out to Schwartz, a fellow flooded bride.
Osburg said Walker was sincerely apologetic about the cancellation, and even offered a full refund or the option of postponing the wedding. Osburg, 24, said she and her fiancé, 27-year-old Zachary Osburg, knew that they didn't want to reschedule the wedding, so the only option was to find a new venue and find it fast.
"April 12th, 2025 is actually our 6-month anniversary mark as our anniversary is on October 12th," Osburg said. "We love our vendors and some of them are booked out 2 years in advance, so we knew that we did not want to lose them being a part of our big day."
An hour after Osburg learned her wedding venue was underwater, she sent out SOS messages in the Cincinnati Girl Gang and the Cincinnati Wedding Community Facebook groups.
"The response from both groups was amazing, both posts had nearly 100 comments within a few hours before I turned them off. We had several venues reach out across Kentucky, Ohio, and Indiana," Osburg said, adding that friends, family and even her wedding DJ, Doug Ziegler from Douglas Adam Entertainment, joined the hunt for a new venue.
Crystal Raines, co-owner of The View Event Center in Williamstown, KY, happened to see Osburg's message in the Cincinnati Wedding Community group merely hours after it was posted. The next day, the Osburgs toured the venue and had a contract signed by 3:30 p.m., about 24 hours after Morning View Meadows' cancellation.
"I have the most amazing vendors, every single one of them has had the 'we will make it happen' attitude," Osburg said. "I had a few sleepless nights to get things flipped to a new venue but everything has gotten done!"
The bride-to-be said everything has worked out the way it should.
"We knew that we were getting married on Saturday no matter where it was at. We tried to not stress and knew that it would all work out," Osburg said.
Despite the complications, Osburg still gushes about Morning View Meadows and its co-owners.
"Morning View Meadows was the one and only venue we toured due to falling in love with it," Osburg said. "Amy Walker and her husband Jamie built the venue themselves a couple years ago."
"When talking to Amy and Jamie, they truly wanted the best for their couples and were by far some of the best people we have met during the wedding planning process," she said.
The Walkers have launched a GoFundMe to help restore the venue following thousands of dollars in flood damage.
"We didn't realize that flood insurance wasn't included with the insurance we have and we lost 50% of everything inside the venue and have also returned money back to brides that are not able to have their wedding at the venue due to the floods," Morning View Meadows stated on its GoFundMe page.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: NKY wedding venue cancels on bride after significant flood damage
