BEER!

We need your help!

Please take a moment to take this extremely short survey and tell us what beer you like. We met with our caterer yesterday and are super excited!

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=pN6Hl2xclIr72_2bspgs1GNQ_3d_3d

Thanks!

P.S. We made this list after thoughtful consideration of what we see our friends drinking. There is an option to enter another choice. And, we're not going to have 12 different beers.... just sayin.... and yes we will have wine, but we'll get to that later.

Hotels and such

We got a few messages yesterday in regard to hotels in the area, commuting, etc. We are working on creating a list of places for folks to stay and we will post that soon. Not to worry... we're not going to leave anyone on the street, or let you stay an hour away from the fun! Stay tuned!

Best Ladies in the House!

Our best chicks/ladies are going to be Val's sisters! Maureen and Catherine both excitedly accepted the duties of.... well, as we said we really not sure what the wedding party is going to be called and what they are going to do. It's always nice when people agree to doing something without knowing what they are agreeing to do. We love you guys!

(Lindsay and Cate/Val and Maureen)

Where it's at?

We finally nailed down where we are going to have our ceremony. Woo hoo!!

We are going to be married on the stage of the Hoover-Leppen Theater at the Center on Halsted. Our reception will be in the reception hall outside of the theater.

(for those who do not know, as you’re reading… LGBT = lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender)

After looking at MANY, MANY venues, we came back around to wanting to give our monies back to the LGBT community. We could spend a large amount of money for a for-profit event space that just puts a load of money in a CEO/President’s pocket, or spend that amount of money in a non-profit that supports our community.

Center on Halsted opened in 2007 to provide social services and outreach programs to the LGBT community. It is the largest such organization in the Midwest. As we both grew up in an area that did not let us be “us”, it’s important to us to support this mission of the Center and hope to continue its mission by our monies and the donations we hope to get through out registry.

We are thrilled that we get to celebrate our big gay wedding in a gay establishment!

For more information about Center on Halsted, please check out this website.
http://www.centeronhalsted.org/home.cfm

** photo of rooftop garden outside of reception hall

Our best Men!

So, while we don't know *exactly* what we're going to call our wedding party, we did ask our best friends to be our best men.

Brett Mannes and Jeff Robinson were married last summer in D.C. We couldn't think of anyone we would want to stand up with us during our wedding ceremony besides these awesome guys.

Yay for Best Men! Or whatever we're going to call you... much love you guys!

Now.... onto the Best Ladies....

Beginning FAQs

Hey gang,

So, we've had many questions in regard to the Who/What/When/Where/Why/How of the wedding. We set up a website when we announced our wedding, and guess what.... unless we pay money, we can't update it anymore than what it is! Since we would rather pay for our wedding and not a website, we're going to start this FREE blog. We don't know why we didn't think of this first. So, we decided to set up a blog and we'll keep folks updated through here.

So...................................

A few things that we've been asked about:

1.) The Date. Why May 15th? When we get married, we will have been together for 5 years (our "we started dating" anniversary is January 15, 2005). May 15, 2010 is all divisible by 5. Yeah, we're nerds.

2.) Why are we getting married if it's not legal? You know, this is the worst question that can be asked of a gay couple wishing to make a commitment to one another. A wedding ceremony is a public commitment of love that you make in front of all of your friends and family. Legal or not, we want to celebrate our commitment and love for one another like any other couple wishes to do. Also, gays throw a hell of a party, and it's time we had one!

3.) The attire of the brides? While we will not be wearing tuxedos, we will also not be wearing wedding dresses. At this point, we have not decided what our attire will be, nor the colors. Although, I was asked if Karen Walker attire would be appropriate and the answer is yes.

4.) Where are we registered? That answer will be coming soon. We are hoping to set up accounts for donations to LGBT organizations rather than asking all of you to buy us a bunch of gifts that would be nice, but we really don't need. It does not escape us that we are fortunate enough to be able to have a wedding-- furthering the cause of LGBT equality is more important to us than getting a KitchenAid Mixer. BUT DO KNOW THIS... we will have a small registry for things we would *really* need (i.e. KitchenAid Mixer), but we want to assist LGBT organizations.

5.) Who is taking who's name? BOTH! We were going to combine our names (Silnak), but the longer we thought about it, we really like the hyphenated version better. Valerie & Lindsay Silk-Kremenak. Wow, that's a mouthful!

These have been the most asked questions so far. Let us know what you want to know!