Many guests will be coming from out of town. Here's the short version for now; the rest follows with the invitation.
From all over the world
People we love are flying in from Nairobi, Gurgaon, Singapore, Bali, Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Dalian, Sydney, London, Ireland, Ibiza, Toronto and the Dominican Republic, and driving in from all over the States. However far you are coming, having every one of you in the same room is the part we are most excited about.
Thirteen flights, one arrivals hall: everybody lands in Chicago.And having come all this way, some of you are already planning to see more of America.
By airBy road
Where to stay
We're arranging a block of hotel rooms close to the venue. Details to come.
Getting here
Getting here
Closest airports: Midway (MDW, ~40 min) and O'Hare (ORD, ~1 hr). Uber/Lyft serve both venues; rental car helpful but not required.
While you're here
While you're here
Almost everyone is flying in for this, so it seems unfair to make the wedding the only thing you see. Here is what we would actually send you to — the places we take people when they visit.
Downtown Chicago
About an hour north of Frankfort by car. If you would rather not drive into the city, Metra's Rock Island line runs downtown from Hickory Creek in Mokena, ten minutes from the venue.
The Wendella boat ride
Our first recommendation, every time. Seventy-five minutes down the Chicago River with a guide telling you what you are looking at, and the only way to see this city the way it was meant to be seen — from the water, looking up. Wendella has been family-run since 1935 and started the whole idea of an architecture tour; they leave from the foot of the Michigan Avenue Bridge. Book ahead for a weekend, and bring a jacket. May on the river is colder than May on the street.
Chicago's own, and everybody here has a side. Pizzeria Uno opened on East Ohio Street in 1943 and has claimed the invention ever since — Ike Sewell took the credit, though plenty of people will tell you it was Rudy Malnati Sr., who ran Uno's kitchen and whose sons went on to open Lou Malnati's and Pizano's. Uno got so busy that in 1955 it opened Pizzeria Due across the street, and the two have competed with each other ever since. Lou Malnati's has been the buttercrust standard since 1971, Gino's East bakes a yellow cornmeal crust in rooms where the walls are covered in other people's handwriting, and Giordano's stuffs its pie with a second sheet of dough hidden under the sauce. Dan's pick is Pequod's in Lincoln Park: Burt Katz opened it in Morton Grove in 1971 and pushed the cheese up the side of the pan so the rim bakes almost black. Whichever you choose, order about forty-five minutes before you are hungry — that is how long one takes.
The sketch and improv theatre in Old Town that opened in December 1959 and has been quietly supplying American comedy ever since — John Belushi, Bill Murray, Tina Fey and Stephen Colbert all started on this stage. The name is a joke at Chicago's expense: a New Yorker writer used it as an insult in 1952 and the founders took it as a compliment. Shows run most nights, and the cast traditionally stays on afterwards to improvise a set from the audience's suggestions, so no two nights are the same.
About an hour and a quarter west on I-80, and the best day out within reach of the wedding. Illinois made it the state's first state park in 1911. Glacial meltwater cut eighteen canyons into the sandstone here about fourteen thousand years ago; eight of them have waterfalls, and they run hardest in spring, which means the week you are here is close to the best week of the year to see them. The name comes from an Illiniwek legend about a band besieged on the bluff above the river. Wear shoes you do not mind getting muddy.
Ten minutes from Southern Charm, and worth a morning. The town was laid out on Christmas Eve 1855 as Frankfort Station, when the Joliet and Northern Indiana Railroad put a line through the cornfields; it dropped the "Station" when it incorporated in 1879, and the original few blocks are still the downtown. The railroad is gone — the line is now the Old Plank Road Trail, twenty-two paved miles running right past Breidert Green, where the farmers' market sets up on Sunday mornings.
Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon, Yosemite. Three to four and a half hours by air from Chicago, then a drive. May is early in the season out there: far quieter than summer, with snow still closing some of the high roads, so check what is open before you plan around one.
Kentucky and Nashville, by road
The wedding is already on the right side of Chicago for it. I-65 runs south through Indianapolis to Louisville and Kentucky's bourbon country, about four and a half hours away, and on to Nashville in about seven.
New York
A little over two hours by air, with flights through most of the day from both O'Hare and Midway. Easy to add to either end of the trip, especially if you are flying home across the Atlantic.
Walt Disney World
Orlando is about three hours from Chicago, nonstop from both airports. There are forty-odd children coming to this wedding, so yours will not be the only family with the idea.
Thinking of making more of the trip? Tell us where when you register, and we will happily help with ideas. Register →
