As many of you know, our wedding venue in Grand Rapids, MI is no longer able to host our wedding due to COVID-19 restrictions. As of last week we have moved the wedding to a fully outdoor event at The Drake Hotel, Oak Brook. Both the ceremony & reception will take place outdoors. Masks will not be required while outside, however you will need a mask in order to enter the building to use the restroom or for any other reason. We are still encouraging our guests to maintain distance and be considerate of all other wedding guests. We have, unfortunately, had to cut our guest list back down to encourage social distancing and allow for us to spread out in the space at The Drake Hotel. We have decided to cancel the “Welcome Party” and “Sunday Brunch” as many more of our guests are local and may elect to not stay at the hotel as part of the wedding weekend. The “travel” tab has been updated with the new hotel block information. Several other tabs have been shut down due to out of date information. For all invited guests, please refer to the email that was sent on 7/19/20 for detailed information. We are so grateful to all of our friends and family for your understanding while we navigate all of the ever changing COVID-19 details and restrictions.

This is our little love story, and it all started with swiping right on an app on our phones, Bumble. We met for the first time on Wednesday, May 24th, 2017. We went to famous Chicago pizza parlor, Piece Brewery & Pizzeria, for beers and dinner. However, with my planning ability, I didn't check into the venue to see there were any events going on. I met Kelly at Piece and we walked in together, it was absolutely packed. There was a radio show with the lead guitarist for Cheap Trick, Rick Nielsen. So needless to say, we waited for our table for a long time. We ended up being sat squished between two large families and it was very loud, as you can imagine. I looked at Kelly and asked if she wanted to leave, to my relief, she felt the same and we went down the street to Pint, an Irish pub for nachos. It was rather empty and gave us a much better chance to talk and get to know one another. We ended up almost closing down Pint and decided we were going to meet up again! Our 2nd date was in Rosemont, IL on June 1st, 2017 due to both of us being in the middle of moving . I moved from Wrigleyville to Portage Park, and moved in with Rob Chase (also Birk, Pete, and Gerry). Kelly was moving from Wicker Park into her new place in Uptown, where we currently live together. However, at this point Kelly was still waiting to move in so she was staying at home in Elmhurst, Illinois. We decided to meet halfway and go see a concert in the park. We went to Five Roses Pub. We sat on the patio looking out to the lawn listening to the concert. We stayed out there the entire concert and then Fireworks were set off. It seemed like a very fitting end to a wonderful 2nd date, and if you know us it was the first of many more concerts together! Our 3rd date was an all day event, Vanessa & Pete's wedding on June 10th, 2017 in Chicago. A wedding is actually a great date - great food & drinks and lots of dancing! Maybe our wedding will be the start of something special for someone too!