So we asked the people of Vienna on our Facebook page to tell us their love stories, which resulted in hundreds of people writing in with beautiful stories telling us how they met the love of their life. From the hundreds, here are the 13 Vienna love stories that gave us goosebumps, and made us go ‘Awwwww! (plus, check out the fun infographic showing how Vienna is falling in love!)
Love found 7,5000kms away
Emily McCormick’s love story
By some chance of fate, we signed up for OKcupid in the summer of 2014. I was in Canada and she was in Vienna. It was hopeless for both of us. Pages of ex’s, and our ex’s ex’s. I was about to give up until one morning, “Tamara is viewing your profile.” I was at work at the time and after checking her out, my colleague convinced me to write her a message. 7,500 kms away, but nonetheless, I sent it. “Vienna? I’ll be right there.” We hit it off instantly. We talked all day and all night, Facetime, emails, handwritten letters, flowers, everything. This went on for six months until Tamara booked a flight to Canada. From the moment we saw each other in person for the first time when I picked her up from the airport, we both knew that this was real love. I had never been to Europe before. I travelled to Vienna for the first time in the spring of 2015 and fell in love a second time, with the city. The architecture, the history, the culture. It was unlike anything I had ever seen before in my small town upbringing. Tamara and I travelled back and fourth for another year. Something had to give. After my second trip to Vienna, I decided to apply for my dual citizenship with the UK. It was approved! We started the planning for me to move to Vienna. Tamara visited me in Canada in January 2016 and we decided it was time to make it official. We got married in my apartment on a sunny morning in the company of two witnesses. In April I packed my life into two suitcases and made a one way trip across the ocean. It’s been one year since that day! Our relationship has never been easy, now the challenges that come with learning a new language and starting a new life. But we get to fall asleep beside each other every night. We believe in each other and that is a love strong enough to conquer any distance.
Short and sweetly told
Daniel Lantos’ love story
I saw my love in Cafe Europa for the first time and since that time I am walking on clouds.
She met her knight in shining armour, literally
Monika Kanik’s love story
I met my sexy lover at a medieval market in my small village in Upper Austria. He was taking part in the knight tournament organised by our local brewery. After the fights (and after I’d been eyeing him off for some time) he came up to me and invited me for a cup of hot chocolate with rum. Unfortunately, he had to leave the next morning since he lived in Prague, but we kept in touch on FB and a month later he once again came to my little village. This time, it was to see me. We took our first trip to Vienna that weekend. Back then, I never would have thought that now, 3 years later, Vienna would turn out to be our first common home. That’s how i met my knight in shining armour. Literally.
It started with a pink cup
Alecia Labuschagne’s love story
How I met my Austrian Monkey: He just arrived at the project we both worked at and I was hungry. He only had sweets and shared them. The next day I could not find my coffee cup and used his, not knowing that this was a bad thing. After a huge screaming match about the stupid mug, he drove 45min to the nearest shop to buy me a coffee cup, a pink one (I hate pink), but he said, seeing that I was one of 6 women out of 350 people working there, the chances that one of the guys would steal my cup was small. Because it’s pink. I still have that cup and it has travelled everywhere with me, even when I went to go visit Austria. And now here we find ourselves with our first born due to arrive in 2 weeks. So it all started with a wrapped candy and a pink cup.
Winner!
Love was just next door
Anna Weismann’s love story
Admittedly, our small love story is very 2015ish – one word: Tinder. A tinder date (my first, and last one, btw), on December 3, 2015. Ever since then, the two of us have been inseparable. But our story can not be told all that fast. It happened in the following setting – first date, very nervous, but still after one week of messaging back and forth, we had the feeling of already knowing each other. At some point in the evening, our conversation topic switched to favourite bands. His: Incubus. Naturally, I had to toss in my personal Incubus-anecdote – rewind to July 13, 2012 please – that’s when I randomly ran into the Incubus guys at the airport, Wien Schwechat. Philip, who’s mine by now, only said: “Oida, where did you go?” It actually turned out that we had shared the same flight to Istanbul back then. He had gone on to Tokyo, I had continued on to Capetown. But for about 2 hours, we had shared the plane back then! Until today, we’re stil trying to work out, how many rows had separated us. But it the uncanniness doesn’t stop there – back to December 3, 2015 again – by now it is late, a Thursday, and we both needed to go home. “I have to go to the fifth,” I say. “Yeah, me too. Let’s share a cab.” We then found out that we’d been living next door to each other for 6 years – his apartment on the top floor, that me and my best friend had kind of been admiring from afar for years, when we find ourselves waiting at the red traffic light downstairs one day, saying: “Eventually …”. Long story short: “Eventually” became “now”. I don’t want to hear the cliched term: “Oh, that must be fate!”. But maybe it just really was meant to be.
The cute guy on the bus
Andrea Buhl’s love story
Our love story started the day my 3-and-a-half-week marketing internship at a big company began. I came out of the U3-station Simmering and hopped on the bus. In one of the back seats sat a cute guy, smiling. It just so happened that me and said cute guy got off the bus at the same stop and he walked a few steps ahead of me (turning his head twice), and I remember thinking, “ah, it would be funny if we worked in the same place..” My first work day started in the human ressources office and 30 minutes later I entered the marketing area, and guess who was sitting there 😉 Right, the cute guy from the bus. We hardly spoke a word during my first day. The other day I just went out for a few minutes to get a coffee. When I returned to my computer, I checked my sent mails, because I wasn’t sure if I had sent an email. But wait .. what’s that? An empty e-mail from my account to cute-guy? I didn’t send that! A few minutes later I received the first e-mail from cute-guy, from the other side of the room, and we started chatting and went for our first coffee shortly after. This was when our story began. It turned out, that he didn’t know my e-mail-address, because interns always got the same old address from a intern from 2 years ago named Barbara. So he sneaked to my computer when I was out of the room and sent an empty mail to his account. That’s how it started. It turned out that we’ve spent the last 7 1/2 years together. We always laugh when someone asks how our love story started. Because when my love tells our story, he starts with, “one day on my way to work, the most beautiful woman got on my bus…” 😀 I love it.
Volkstheater, a creeper and roofies leads to love
Lacey Ahlemeyer’s love story
In the depths of a quarter life crisis, I decided to “find” myself by backpacking through Europe for 40 days in December and January. Everywhere I went, I stayed at least 5 full days, except Vienna where I only stayed 3 days. Vienna was going to be my base for a quick in and out to see Mauthausen. The first night I arrived was New Year’s. After meeting up with some girls, we headed out to the Rathaus. While we were there, a drunk Austrian girl approached us saying that her wine tasted like flowers and we should try it. While the others took advantage, I was sure it was roofied and we would be sold into some kind of sex slavery. Her group of friends approached us when we were outside the Volksgarten. I immediately spied a tall, bearded and handsome young man. I went up to him and asked if he spoke English. Of course he did, and we began chatting. We realised we were both going to the school for economics, and we really connected. At the same time his a friend of his was throwing up on the street corner, he helped us ditch a creeper. As his friends were leaving and the other girls and I wanted to stay out, he took us on a grand tour of Vienna, promising us that a open bar was sooo close, but all the bars were closed, and the girls and I were exhausted. We all went back to his place, drank a bottle of wine and passed out. Before I left the next morning, he asked for my email. I texted my friends that night that I had met the perfect man and wanted to marry him. The next couple of days are a blur of museums, restaurants, and talking to each other until dawn. On the last night/early morning, as I prepared to go to my next city, he FINALLY kissed me. We made out all over Vienna as he took me to the airport. We kept in touch, he visited me, I moved to Vienna, and we’ve been married two years in April.
We met when we were 16
Julia Andritz’s love story
The thing is, we met each other when we were oh so young, at only the age of 16. We chased each other through Prater, captured our first glances on analogue cameras and I had my first drink with him at a run-down billards place in Simmering. Ever since those days, our paths have been entwined. Just kids then, almost grown-ups now… and still madly in love after seven years. To quote emily brontë:”he’s more myself than I am.”
When we got married, we skipped the cake and cut Blunzn together
Lucy Giller’s love story
I first met my husband 10 years ago when he cut my hair. About 4 years later, after a breakup, 2 drastic haircuts, numerous trims and untold hours of boring my friends with my sighs of, “my hairdresser is soooo handsome,” we finally went out on a date. We bonded over beer and Blunzn (blood sausage), and when we got married in 2011, we skipped the cake and cut a Blunzn together instead.
Fasching romance
Elisabeth Böhm’s love story
It is Fasching (carnival) in Vienna – and I’m at Gschnasfest at the Sofiensäle. I walk down one of the great sweeping staircases and a guy pulls at my hair. His friend is flirting with me, and we spend a funny and enjoyable Faschings evening together. The next day, after work, I find him standing outside the bank where I work. He’s there to pick me up. I tell my parents that I met a hideously ugly guy, who is, however, very nice. Meanwhile, he became a handsome older man and we’ve been married 27 years on March 23, 2017, and have a daughter and a grandson of 8 years. The Sofiensäle burnt down in the meantime, but are now shining in our old age.
It all started with a bad sausage
Natalia Budulchieva’s love story
Like so many Viennese couples, we met somewhere else. But hey, we all live under the same sky. He was a singer of the band I’d just discovered. When I found out the band was playing in Moscow for the first time, I was really excited. The day before the gig, I had a bad Vienna sausage and got food poisoning. Having spent quite a miserable 12 hours sick and still feeling weak, I tried to give my ticket away so that it wouldn’t be wasted. All of my friends were busy, or not interested, so, I braced myself, and got ready. The cold October wind made me feel much better. I got to the club as one of the first and ‘hung around’ on my own. In this kind of situation, I would usually feel awkward. But the bad sausage swept all insecurities away – I just didn’t have the energy to care. I started chatting up a guy when I noticed two of the band members. I went to say hello and tell them how much I admired their music. No, it wasn’t love at first sight. Ross bought me a drink and left to get ready for the stage. The concert was great and so was the after party. I sat next to Ross and chatted away. We agreed to keep in touch and I left. 5 years on we’ve been married for a year. We moved to Vienna, got our own place and our own cat. And it all started with a bad sausage.
‘I was impressed by his ability to roll cigarettes while riding a camel’
Katie Stamerjohn’s love story
After teaching English in South Korea for over two years, it was time to head back to the US, but not before my best friend and I took a trip along the Trans-Siberian railway, from Beijing to St. Petersburg. In Ulaanbaatar, our hostel host asked if we wouldn’t mind traveling around Mongolia for the next two weeks with two guys from Europe. That evening, my friend and I met Arnold, from Austria, and his friend, from Germany, for the first time, and we all agreed we would get along just fine. My initial impression of Arnold was that he had the same humor as me. I was also strangely impressed by his ability to roll cigarettes while riding a camel, even though I detested smoking. Four days later, Arnold and I shared our first kiss atop the sand dunes of the Gobi desert. We went day after day without showering (seven in total) and still we cuddled up at night to keep warm. I remember the moment I knew I wanted to marry Arnold: we were stuck in a Russian army van traveling for hours across the country and he played cats cradle with me almost the entire time just to keep me occupied. It was hard to say goodbye, but I knew it wasn’t the end. A month later, we met each other in Europe and we decided to date. After one year of long-distance dating, trans-Atlantic travels, and visa-runs, we got married in May 2015. We’ve been living happily-ever-after in Vienna. ever since.
A teenage crush on the other side of the world
Johanna Leary’s love story
I met Bastian in New Hampshire in 2004 when he was my older brother’s exchange student. He was a tall, handsome, Austrian and I was a gawky 13-year-old. He was my first big crush. It was the kind of crush that makes your heart beat faster and make you stumble over your words. I followed him around during his two week stay and jumped at any chance to hang out together. According to my dad (I am not sure if its true) I exclaimed “I am going to marry that boy.” After he left, we exchanged a couple of emails and eventually became Facebook friends. Flash forward to 10 years later. I moved to Vienna in 2014 to pursue my MA at the University of Vienna. While planning my move, I remembered my teenage crush and wondered if he lived in my future host city. It turned out that he did. Basti and I exchanged a couple of messages over Facebook, and in true Viennese style, we met up for a beer on one of my first nights. We ended up running all over town that evening: a drink at Museumsquartier, an Ottakringer on the rooftop of his apartment building in the 8th district, and a friend’s birthday party near Yppenpaltz. Somehow, even after all that time, it felt like I had reconnected with an old friend. At the end of the evening, we kissed each other good night and he asked if he could see me the next day. We have spent almost every day together since and we got married at Mirabell Palace in 2015.
‘Laughing together with her is a slice of heaven’
William Morrow’s love story
I accepted a work assignment in Vienna and we arrived feeling unsure of ourselves. Amidst the excitement I noticed that she was down, and I discovered it was because she had waved goodbye to the country of her birth. She is a positive soul and this sadness was so out of character. I soon see two opposing forces in Vienna which effect her. First the not so good: the stairs in the Donauturm, Haydn cinema, Artiscinema and Burg Kino, old trams, Heuriger, the Schönbrunn apple strudel demonstration and out of order elevators at the U-Bahn stations. And so the list goes on. I watch her struggle up steps and my heart breaks for her. But then the good force: we begin to discover glamorous Vienna together. On Fridays, we visit new coffee shops, and Cafe Ulrich quickly becomes her favourite. We stand in awe at Leopoldsberg, absorbing the stunning views. She loves swimming and a smiling swan swims past her in the Danube river. We take a walk in the Labau Reserve and stumble into a colony of people dressed only in their birthday suits. Laughing together with her is a slice of heaven. We cut pumpkins at the Kürbis festival, eat Krapfen, play Scrabble at la Chile, drink Punsch on cold winter’s nights, marvel at the Philharmonic Concert at Schönbrunn and absorb the amazing exhibitions at the Museum of Natural History. Every weekend in Vienna now sees love grow between 2 people. I watch her sadness change into joy and I love her with all of my heart. As you can see, my wife is disabled, but in Vienna she has shown me every day how to embrace life, accept change and conquer the odds. I have loved her for 32 years, but the last 3 in Vienna cement my love forever.
Here’s some fun facts we took from the hundreds of Vienna love stories we received.
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