CityFlatsHotel
616-796-2100
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CityFlatsHotel
616-796-2100
Pros: Swanky. Two blocks from the reception.
Cons: Pricey. Annoying block-rental policies
Haworth Inn
616-395-7200
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Haworth Inn
616-395-7200
Pros: Not too expensive. Two blocks from the reception. Free breakfast!
Cons: No alcohol allowed in the hotel
Mention #0919LG for the Locke/Gosselar block.
Block expires 8/4!
Holiday Inn
616-738-2800
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Holiday Inn
616-738-2800
Pros: Inexpensive
Cons: Out by US-31, not downtown
Mention Locke/Gosselar block when booking. Block expires 8/19!
Holland State Park
Absolutely beautiful, even in September. Go for a swim or get a tan. Run down the dune and get sand in your hair.
Windmill Island
Sounds corny but it's a must-see. The windmill was originally built in the Netherlands & reassembled brick-by-brick. If you look closely you can see the marks from Nazi bullets in World War II.
JPs Coffee
One of the ten best coffee shops in America - and a place where Peter spent far too much time in High School.
New Holland Brewery
Good food, delicious beer.
Meredith and Ashley were introduced during their semester abroad in college, and had one of those "I know you from somewhere" moments. They still haven't figured out how. Ashley likes to think they were already dear friends in another lifetime. Meredith and Ashley also shared a pretty spiffy apartment in Washington, D.C. for a year. Meredith is currently finishing up a Master's degree in Health Services Administration at the University of Michigan's School of Public Health. This spring, she will move with her two dachshunds to Chicago to start a job at Rush University Medical Center. She's a smart cookie. She is also incredibly well read, an avid traveler, and one of the best gift-givers you'll ever meet.
Ashley has always been good at bossing her younger brother Ben around, so she had no trouble informing him that he would have to stand up on her side for the wedding ceremony even though he is a guy. She's letting him go to Peter's bachelor party, though, so don't feel too sorry for him. The truth is, Ben and Ashley have always been friends. Always. Even when they had arguments about who got the remote, or who got to ride shotgun. Ashley may act like Ben's second mom, but she is fiercely proud of him. She was proud of him when he served for two years in the inner-city public school system of Baltimore for Teach for America. She was proud of him when he graduated with his Master of Arts in Teaching from Johns Hopkins University. She was proud of him when he married his college sweetheart Anna at the Augustana College chapel in 2012. She is proud of him now as he teaches U.S. history to high school students in Chicago. She will always be proud to be Ben's sister.
Anna is Ashley's beautiful sister-in-law. Anna and Ben live in Roscoe Village, and Anna works as a student research facilitator at Lincoln Park Zoo. She visits hundreds of Chicago Public Schools each year to instill a love of animals and science in our city's kids. Her first love, though, is trees. Her Master's thesis was about tree growth patterns in forests and the impact of forest fires... and...um...other science-y things. Anna is both science-y and crafty. Check out her Etsy shop where she sells handmade scarves and paper goods.
Katie and Ashley have known one another since high school. Katie introduced Ashley to Peter (Katie and Peter were classmates at Kenyon College). Thanks, Katie! Katie and her husband, Dave Gold, live less than a five-minute walk from Peter and Ashley, making it that much easier for Peter and Ashley to take full advantage of Katie's Martha Stewart-esque cooking and entertaining. Katie is a manager at Kaplan, and, last time Ashley checked, manages about a billion people and important things. Katie is also a talented dancer, (proof: she danced on stilts for her senior dance recital at Kenyon) and you want her on your karaoke team because she can sing anyone under the table.
Ashley first met Isabel in D.C. when Isabel interned for a couple of weeks at the George Washington University Library under Ashley's supervision. Ashley was stunned when she read Isabel's resume to see that they had worked in the same rare book shop in Chicago. They instantly bonded over war stories from the shop, and less than a year later they were colleagues at the University of Chicago's Special Collections Research Center. Isabel now works for the University of Illinois at Chicago as a Resident Librarian and is basically taking the library world by storm with a slew of publications and (international!) presentations. Isabel is a native Chicagoan and lives with her husband, Tim, in Pilsen. She is one of the most passionate, fair-minded, and affirming people Ashley knows.
When Joey was a toddler - old enough to scale fences and leap from playground equipment but not old enough to talk - Peter acted as translator between his parents and his younger brother. After Joey learned to talk, he and Peter would not again be on speaking terms for a decade until their friendship was reforged in the crucible of morning practices and distance sets.
Though Joey technically followed Peter to Kenyon College, his achievements in and out of the pool shortly change things from "Peter's brother Joey" to "Joey's brother Peter." After graduation, Joey joined Peter in DC and was a regular fixture on his couch (both socially and residentially) and they even worked together for a time as opposition researchers. There is no one to whom Peter would rather turn for sartorial advice or a quick loan.
Joey currently lives in Oakland, California where he plays god with the state's energy supply.
When Maggie and Peter were growing up, the five-year difference in their ages was often a double-edged sword - while they sometimes lacked a common ground, they were also far enough apart that they didn't step on each other's toes. That is, Maggie and Peter rarely fought while Joey fought with everybody.
Since graduation, Maggie and Peter have grown closer, and Peter is almost daily amazed by her incredible talent as an artist. Maggie lives in Madison and splits her time between her derby team, the Reservoir Dolls, and peppering the city with her art.
Michael Carl Ludders was sired by Loki and born in a thunderstorm. Legend has it that he is an immortal shape-shifter and has been all of history's great polemicists: Orwell, Hitchens, Winfrey. Fueled by coffee and whiskey, there is no greater advocate and no worse antagonist.
Mike and Peter were placed on the same freshman hall at Kenyon by a capricious and possibly suicidal Res Life computer algorithm and miraculously Norton Hall survived the year with minimal damage. They roomed in the same apartment senior year and property damage was kept in the low-four digits.
Graduation and a continent's physical distance has proven no obstacle to the continuation of debates now well into their second decade. Mike currently resides in Seattle, where he ghostwrites for both Bill Maher and Bill O'Reilly.
Peter and Dave have known each other since their swimming days at Kenyon College. They were both distance swimmers and became fast friends. Smartphones were not available to document their early friendship. The following is a reconstruction from Dave's memory of 2005:
Peter and Dave bonded over the misery and pain that is distance swimming training. Peter would go on to make the Nationals team and win glory for his ancestors (who were all about glory, and tulips), while Dave would suffer the ignominy of being known as the Fastest Man Never To Make Nationals. But Dave was never bitter about it. Not bitter at all.
Although it pained them, Peter and Dave separated for a couple years after college. Their wilderness years are lost to the mists of time. Peter eventually moved back to the Midwest to personally help fund a struggling university. Reunited, Peter and Dave have been inseparable. Dave works as a super interesting attorney that is not working for The Man and has not sold out. Dave looks forward to the bleak, not-so-distant future when government breaks down and he can fulfill his intended role as judge, jury and executioner.
Peter voted for Dave for Lakewood Elementary Student Body President, swayed by Dave's promises of adding vending machines to the cafeteria. When Dave failed to deliver, it soured Peter forever on politics.
Dave and Peter met for real on the middle school swim team, where 7th-grade Peter idolized 8th-grade Dave's quest for the school record in the 100 Fly. Peter then followed Dave onto the high school swim team and into Latin and AP English and Debate, where they partnered up with a genius proposal to start high school two hours later (and totally would have won the Greenhorn Tournament except for the incompetency of a certain judge).
When Dave married his lovely wife Lauren in 2010, Dave honored Peter by asking him to be best man. Dave currently teaches high school north of Detroit.
Friends and Family,
Due to things like "chance of severe thunderstorms" and "hail," we'll be having the ceremony inside at the Holland Area Arts Council at 3PM. There will be no shuttle service. Hope to see you there!
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