On New Year’s Day in 2017, Elizabeth Neukirch and Brad Snyder went on their first date after meeting on a dating app. Coffee at Intelligentsia (3123 N. Broadway) turned into a stroll along Diversey Harbor, which turned into dinner at DryHop (3155 N. Broadway). “We parted ways with a plan for a second and third date,” says Snyder, 37, who works as assistant inspector general for the Office of Inspector General for the Chicago Board of Education. “I told my childhood best friend that I wanted [Snyder] to be my new best friend,” adds Neukirch, 35, vice president of the Silverman Group. A year later, Snyder proposed on a trip to Barcelona celebrating the anniversary of that first date.

After taking first-look photos at the Lyric Opera (20 N. Upper Wacker), they married Aug. 31 at the Library (190 S. LaSalle) in a celebration inspired by their mutual love for literature, complete with invitations they crafted by hand to look like library books. The bride’s friend Mark Kelly, commissioner of the City of Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, officiated the ceremony. After the reception, guests lingered in the bar to share poems typewritten for them throughout the evening by Poems While You Wait.

Photos by Elena Bazini Photography