How, when, and why did you start your business?

We officially opened Until Ink Do Us Part Tattoo Gallery on February 13, 2024. Our name came from not only our love for tattoos, but the fact that 5 years ago, tattoos brought us together. Our decision to start a tattoo gallery here in Wausau was a simple one, we want to provide award winning art at a price that our community can afford. Starting our business was very demanding when it came to not only remodeling, but fully introducing ourselves AND our business at the same time. With how amazing the Wausau community is with local businesses, we couldn’t have found a better city.

What makes your business unique?

Our personal approach with tattoos and our clients is what makes us unique. We both strive to show people that a tattoo “shop” can feel like home. We dress up a bit fancy every Friday to further remove the stigma around tattoos, then we do a shop dinner at one of the local restaurants. Since day one we have viewed our clients as family. If we see someone out in town, we always make time to say hi and catch up. Without them, we would be nothing. Working hand in hand with other amazing shops in town also helped the community understand that we are not trying to compete, we just want to see people get the artwork they want and to be happy.

What product/service is your most popular, or what you are known for?

Aside from tattoos, the way we treat our clients and our lobby has been one of our biggest compliments. Friendships and business relationships have developed — all over art.

Why did you locate your business in the Wausau River District?

We absolutely fell in LOVE with not only the historic Landmark building, but Concerts on the Square. All the amazing community events that we have seen just really made us want to be apart of the River District. Watching businesses come together and help each other really drew us to the area.

What motivates you as a business owner?

Knowing that we can make someone smile, and finding new ways to provide for our community. Our business has grown so much this last year and we’ve met so many amazing people! It makes everyday worth coming in and turning on that “Open” sign.

How do you measure/define success?

The amount of smiles we can get out of people who walk through the door. It could be someone getting a family member or pet memorial tattoo, something their kids drew, fixing old tattoos, covering past work — every time someone trusts us with their art it has been a successful day.

How do you generate new ideas?

We listen to our clients. Sometimes, they have amazing ideas that we are able to run with! Everyday we talk about how our day was and try to see if we could somehow make the day better. Then we use each other as a sounding board, and of course we both call our parents to get their thoughts on our ideas. They are a large part of our business too when it comes to ideas.

Talk about your staff.

We have Scout Holstead who is not only our award winning artist, but the Co-Owner of Until Ink Do Us Part Tattoo Gallery. He was born in Odessa Texas, moved to the Panhandle of Florida and finally moved up from Pensacola Florida after marrying his wife. Scout originally went to college for music. While in high school and college he played baseball where he joined a minor league. Right before he was about to be drafted to MLB, he decided to tattoo instead. He has been tattooing for 15 years at conventions, shops, and as a guest artist in many high end and well known shops around the United States. During his apprenticeship, he learned every style of art, the science behind skin and ink along with a copious amount of tattoo history. Scout loves to learn as much as he can and also educates people to stay safe. He is a child at heart, and loves to make people laugh any chance he can.

Nicole Holstead is Scout’s wife and the Co-Owner of Until Ink Do Us Part Tattoo Gallery. She grew up on a small dairy farm in Colby. She then joined the Marine Corps. After her time in service, she moved back to Colby, and then to Wausau. She helped her dad milk cows, and at night attended school to be a Paralegal. During her schooling they started working on opening the tattoo gallery. After graduating with a degree in Paralegal studies, her dad retired from farming. Until Ink Do Us Part is now her full time passion, but she will never say no to being around cows or helping people. Nicole not only does the booking for the shop, but she is also working on ways to improve the tattooing community, and ways to reach out to our local community as well.

We have recently added Megan Oemig to our family. She has started tattooing, and is doing amazing! Megan has done many forms of art over the years, and has a heart of gold. She used to work in a factory and was stay at home mom; tattooing and becoming a tattoo artist has always been a dream. One of our clients actually suggested her when we were looking at adding an apprentice to our shop. She has an amazing family, and we are so thankful that she has such supportive people around her so she can achieve that dream.

We do also have guests artists that will be visiting throughout the year and in the coming months. Wausau has shown our guest artists so much love and trust! It blows our minds every time we have a guest artist — the community is just so loving and amazing.

What excites you most about the future of downtown Wausau?

More mom and pop shops! We were very excited as we were watching the new boutique and record store preparing to open this last summer. We of course adore the owner of Inner Sleeve next door. Wausau makes it easier for people to achieve their business owning dreams. We both cannot wait to see who else comes to the River District, and hope we can help them be successful too.