Dig in the dancing queens!

Our wedding is a celebration of not just our union, but of our supportive family and friends. We want to make the party as fun as possible, and we want YOU to help make it so! Please follow the link and answer the questions!

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/M9M27GR

Where ya stayin'?

So unless you're deciding to stay downtown, hotels in our neck of the woods are few and far between. Here are the 4 closest ones though that we recommend you guys to look into if you want to stay in our 'hood and close to the venue and our place.

Hawthorne Terrace Best Western - just down the street, and this one we can vouch for being a great hotel. Cute and serene in the middle of the bustling city. Across the street from the famous Ann Sather's (cinnamon roll yumminess!) and about a 5 minute walk from our place and the venue for the ceremony. Prices range from $150-230 depending on what kind of room you want and how long you're staying (discount for staying more than three nights). Includes, breakfast, internet, microwave, fridge and the cutest outdoor terrace. And some awesome friendly service!

Villa Toscana Bed & Breakfast - pretty much literally on our corner. Although we've never been in here the reviews are fantastic and the pictures look adorable. This B&B ranges from $99-159/night. Has free breakfast, WiFi and cable.

Inn at Lincoln Park - this is about 1 mile from our area. So about a 20 minute walk, $5-7 cab ride, or a quick bus ride away! Prices range from $75-100.

Days Inn Lincoln Park - also a mile away like the hotel above. So same way of getting to our neighborhood. In a shopping mecca area. This hotel has free wireless, breakfast, cable, and access to the Balley's Fitness next door! Prices range from $135-185/night.

Again, these are the ones closest to us. If you find something else that you think will work but are not sure do not hesitate to text, call or email a question before you book it. We want your stay in Chicago to rock!!

The Super Terrific Party

One Friday night in Chicago, people began coming together. You've been introduced to our wedding party thus far...but they hadn't met each other. So in flies the Silk Sisters to the tundra that was Chicago on the first weekend in December.






Dinner was had, drinks were thrown back and new friends were made.

Although not much in the way of actual planning took place...the 'getting to know you' session was definitley a success! It ended up with lots of laughs while watching YouTube videos and chatting it up!



What a great night to hang out with friends (and some friends that are family) and sit back, relax and realize what a fantastic wedding party we have, and how great this wedding will be in May!

She will pronounce us....

Our friend, Bailey Hughes, will be the officiant of our wedding ceremony.

Bailey is ordained though Universal Life Church, and is bringing the message to the ceremony we want, which is that everyone is equal and we should all love and respect one another regardless of our obvious or implied differences in any and all aspects of our lives.

We are so excited to have Bailey be a part of this day with us, and she is excited that we are "making our own history and not waiting for the laws to change" (her words!)

Yay for Bailey!

pHunny pHucking pHamily Hour!

In between our ceremony and the reception, we are so fortunate to bring everyone a special perfomance from pH Productions. They will be doing "pHamily the Musical", an improv musical that is completely written by suggestions from the audience.

There will be a short break between our vows and the party, so everyone will go and grab a drink and them come back into the theater with some wit to yell at the performers so we'll have a memorable musical experience.

By the way, for those of you who are local, check out http://www.whatisph.com/ for showtimes for all of pH's productions. Catch a show before our wedding and see what you have to look forward to in May!

Two turn tables and a microphone

Let's hear it for Nikki C! Nikki has DJ'ed several events that we have gone to, and he gets the crowd crazy. We're happy to have him be a part of the reception and a part of our big day. Stay tuned for a survey where you can tell us (and Nikki) what you want to shake your money maker to during the reception!

So much to say!!

So, we know we suck at this. Really, really suck at this blogging! In any event, this weekend we are going to get this updated for the masses who are bugging us for what we have done and what we have left to do! We are big time planners, so five months out, we’re pretty much done. BUT, we will get it all up here. We love you guys for cheering us on and being so supportive.

Holy shit, FIVE months?! Wow… SWEET!

Hotel suggestions Pt 1.

So we have some out of towners coming in for the big day. Yay! But we realize that a lot of you have never been to Chicago. So, some helpful hints in looking for a hotel to make your stay better and more convenient....

• when searching the closest neighborhoods to us and our location are "Lakeview", "Wrigleyville" and a bit further "Lincoln Park". Also, I know most sites will actually list these under "North Chicago".
• downtown tends to be more expensive and it's about 3-4 miles away from us. Although it is gorgeous and you can easily access public transportation
• speaking of public trans, driving is no fun around here! And we are close to some main lines. Get something near a "Red Line" train stop and you're good. Our stop is the one for Wrigley Field! Everything we'll be doing will be around this stop.
• there are not many hotels in the exact vicinity of the wedding site, but we will list them all later

Let us know if you have any other questions though, and while searching for hotels and think you found a good one? but just want to make sure? Email/call/text us people and we'll let you know!

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!