The ceremony will be held at Smith Manor, a beautiful mid-century-modern home, former summer camp and one-time zebra mussel farm on the shores of Lake Butte des Morts, 3585 Shangri La Point Road in Oshkosh, WI. See the “schedule” section of this website for the full address. Please fill any space in front of the house before parking parallel to the side of the road with two tires off the road. Park any cycles (motorized or otherwise) on the wooden deck on the northeast side of the house in front of the garden shed. Please park any boat(s), personal watercraft and/or submarine(s) (24’ and shorter) parallel to the seawall running southwest of the house. Larger vessels can be moored in Sunset Bay. If you plan on doing so, contact the couple in advance at (920) 252-3068 to arrange a dinghy ride ashore from Daniel Smith. There is a small landing area for hot air balloons and/or personal dirigibles on the flat section of the roof on the northeast side of the house, available on a first-come, first-serve basis. Please be sure to anchor your craft securely and keep all guy lines out of the way of foot traffic. If you plan to arrive by helicopter, seaplane or air drop, please contact the couple at the number above by September 20th. The ceremony is in a residential area so please be considerate of the neighbors and be mindful of noise, blocking any driveways or parking on lawns. The reception will be held at The Howard, a former men’s-only club and one-time high school now named after Wisconsin senator Ron Johnson’s father-in-law, 405 Washington Avenue, also in Oshkosh. See the “schedule” section of this website for the full address. Private parking lots are available at the reception venue. The Howard will allow you to leave your car in their parking lot overnight if you wish. Please don’t drink and drive.
Children are welcome at the ceremony and reception dinner. The Howard enforces a strict 18+ policy in the Lanes so children will not be allowed to bowl and will instead be put to work in the kitchen.
We have secured a discounted rate at the Oshkosh Waterfront Hotel and Convention Center, the only hotel in downtown Oshkosh. To get the discounted rate, please call (920) 230-3200 during the hotel’s business hours and mention the Punla Smith/Hodge wedding. Unfortunately, the discounted rate is not available through online booking services. The hotel will be undergoing renovations at the time of the wedding. We selected this hotel purely due to its close proximity to the reception venue and will be staying there over the wedding weekend. We’re never very particular about our accommodations while traveling and thus feel comfortable recommending it to you if you’re similarly flexible when choosing a hotel. As a result of the ongoing renovations, there may be unexpected dust or noise in the hotel and rooms may differ in appearance from the renderings shown online. We understand that not everyone will be comfortable staying in a hotel that’s undergoing renovation. If this is the case for you, we recommend a stay in one of the hotels on the south and west sides of Oshkosh as well as in the nearby communities of Appleton, Neenah and Fond du Lac, between 15 and 30 minutes’ drive from downtown Oshkosh.
Transportation will be left up to you. For planning purposes, the addresses of the ceremony and reception venues are in the “schedule” section of this website. The ceremony is roughly 15 minutes’ drive from downtown Oshkosh. In our experience, rideshare services are easy to hail and inexpensive in Oshkosh. We recommend checking prices and scheduling rides ahead of time with your rideshare service of choice for maximum reliability. The reception venue is a 10 minute walk from the Oshkosh Waterfront Hotel and Convention Center, our recommended hotel, and roughly 15 minutes’ drive from most of the other hotels in Oshkosh.
Chef David (not THAT David, Sam’s dad will not be cooking dinner) will be happy to accommodate any dietary restrictions. Please list any dietary restrictions in the online form when you RSVP and make your entree choice.
Please RSVP by September 20th. If you respond after September 20th, we will not be able to guarantee you a meal at the reception dinner.
We live in a 500 square-foot shoebox apartment in Chicago with our two cats, Ivy and Frances and absolutely everything we need to live comfortably in our home. Due to our limited household space, we’d prefer a monetary gift of any size in the form of cash, check or a digital contribution to one of the funds accessible in the “registry” section of this website. We also have a small registry on Amazon, again accessible in the “registry” section of this website or here: https://www.amazon.com/wedding/share/madnsam Please refrain from giving gifts that are not on the registry. If you do not feel comfortable giving to any of our funds or gifting from the registry, your presence and/or thoughts on our wedding day are gift enough for us.
Loosely, dressy casual. Whatever that means to you. We won’t judge you based on your outfit, but please don’t wear a tuxedo, ball gown, denim or athletic wear unless you look really, really good in them. The ceremony will be outdoors on the shores of Lake Butte des Morts where the temperature is often 5-15 degrees cooler than the weather forecast and is usually a bit windy. Please check the weather and dress appropriately to spend 1-2 hours outdoors, in Wisconsin, next to a big lake, in the fall. The reception dinner and bowling will be indoors, in a climate-controlled environment.
Plan to arrive anytime between 2pm and 2:45pm to enjoy autumnal lakeshore views and mingle outdoors with friends and family. Hot drinks and blankets will be provided.
Please refrain from bringing a date unless you have a plus one included in your online RSVP.
We will provide hot, non-alcoholic beverages at the ceremony. There will be no drinking and driving between the ceremony and reception. We will be hosting an open bar at the reception serving beer, wine and cocktails. Please consume considerately. Be sure to bring cash to tip your bartenders and/or purchase top-shelf libations at the reception.