Scott Macdonald and Jason Eliason have hosted a BBQ every year for the past decade or so in conjunction with Midsommarfest, held every June in Chicago's Andersonville neighborhood. They live together in Edgewater Glen, a few blocks north of Andersonville, so, come dusk, they'd lead the crew to the Midsommarfest street party.
Their 2014 Midsommarfest BBQ will be quite the shindig.
"We thought it would be fun to do [the BBQ] with a twist—our wedding," Macdonald said.
One of their best friends from Seattle agreed to get herself ordained and come to Chicago with other out-of-state friends for the wedding.
"In the spirit of the neighborhood, we're trying to do things as local as possible. Honky Tonk BBQ is bringing their food truck behind our garage in the alley and catering it in the backyard. Andersonville Wines and Spirits are bringing all the booze; Swedish Bakery is making the cake; and Ann Sather is whipping up Sunday morning brunch for the out of town friends and family.
"From the beginning, the idea was that we would just get married at our annual Midsommarfest BBQ. I hope our regulars don't expect the same spread next year," Eliason said.
Macdonald said about 150 are expected to attend.
But this unique wedding almost never happened—by no fault of the loving couple.
You see, Midsommarfest was originally scheduled for mid-June, but, last November, the dates were changed to the first weekend in June.
But many planning to attend the wedding had purchased airline tickets for the later date.
"We planned everything around getting married on June 14, so we could have a big Midsommarfest BBQ themed wedding," Macdonald said. "[Last] November, when marriage equality passed in Illinois, I was on the bus when I happened to randomly check Facebook and see this post from the Andersonville Chamber of Commerce:
"Hey Andersonville! If any of you suddenly find yourself planning a wedding for some time after June 1, 2014, ( ahem ) Midsommarfest next year will be the weekend of June 6-8, 2014. This is a week before when it was originally scheduled, so please put it on your calendars and help us spread the word! We will have more details coming your way soon, but in the meantime this seemed like a good day to share the news."
Macdonald didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
"I felt like that post was written directly at us. I mean how many other people we're seriously planning a streetfest wedding!?" Macdonald said.
Macdonald and Eliason confirmed the date change, then issued "Change the Save the Date" emails.
"On the whole, it was pretty funny, though I am sure I did not see it that way [months ago]," Eliason said in mid-May, weeks before their big day.
They had to quickly shift into change-mode. Take, for instance, the bed & breakfast where family members were planning to stay. That had to be re-booked.
Flights for friends and family members needed to be changed, and that of course includes the traditional change-fees from airlines.
"For my Connecticut family, they were looking at losing all of their airfare for the three tickets they had booked. It may not be a lot for some folks, but for a family of four with two kids in college it was really a matter of being able to come to the wedding or not," Eliason said. "It was really pretty absurd that the rebooking fee was going to be, almost to the dollar, the same amount as the entire cost of their tickets."
Eliason's aunt, Karen Rust, had been dogging the airlines since the day she knew the date had changed, he said. She went the phone route, through the web, and even trips to the airport an hour and a half away. She was doing anything and everything she could to reschedule, but had no luck.
Ultimately, the two reached out to the Andersonville Chamber of Commerce, including Jason Cox, the organization's associate director, to see if it might be able to help.
"Jason put together a very persuasive and impassioned letter of support for my family to take back to United to see if we could make any headway on rebooking," Eliason said. "I think he understood this kind of thing might happen when they changed the date and wanted to help make it right. It was really our last ditch effort to see if we could get my family out here; we were talking about maybe having them come the [original mid-June weekend] so we could at least see them, but it was disheartening to think they might miss the wedding."
United eventually relented, made the needed changes—and did not charge any additional fees.
"We are excited they will be able to come to the wedding," Eliason said. "I am glad the folks at United took an interest and decided to help out; there certainly was no reason they had to. My aunt Karen put in a good amount of time, trying to convince them to accommodate their needs but I think the support of the Andersonville Chamber made the difference in the end. We definitely appreciate their willingness to help out and really feel like they went above and beyond to help. My aunt had kind of given up hope on being able to come out for the wedding; she is absolutely thrilled it worked out."
Macdonald, 39, is a mobile user experience design lead. He grew up in Palo Alto, California, and New York City. Eliason, 38, is an IT project manager at Heartland Alliance. He is originally from Washington state.
"The first time I met Jason was actually at his going-away party [in 1996] at Linda's Tavern on Capitol Hill in Seattle," Macdonald said. "My best friends who had moved with me from New York to Seattle wanted me to meet him before he took off for a job in Tucson.
"Luckily he came back to Capitol Hill a few months later."
Eliason added, "We met several years before we started dating. When I saw him though, before I left town [back in 1996] and when I got back, I totally knew he was the one."
Their first date was at The Timberline Lodge, which Macdonald said, "was at that time the gritty Denny Regrade neighborhood. The whole area has since been completely revamped by Paul Allen and Amazon's new headquarters and renamed by the city so I doubt it is still there.
"Anyway, the place was a trip. It was basically a huge ski lodge type building with about 300 gay cowboys, and one beautiful elderly woman, all dancing to a flawlessly choreographed square dancing routine. It was totally unlike the early 1990s gay scene I was used to from the East Village/Lower East Side of Manhattan. I remember having a blast."
Eliason admitted, "In hindsight, I really could have raised the bar a bit. I knew Scott was low key, so I thought some place different where we could just hang out would be fun. We were there with a friend of mine and just got to know one another in an easygoing place. We weren't meeting for the first time; I knew he was chill and fun to hang out with. We hit it off … that was the start of our now 17 years together."
Eliason proposed to Macdonald late on election night 2012.
"Scott has been my husband for a long time, even though we wouldn't call each other that," Eliason said. "We have always been committed to each other and have been building a life together for a long time."
The wedding will be in their backyard, and their neighbors on either side agreed to let then take down the fences and join all three yards for the day to accommodate the wedding party.
"[The] band Furious Frank was planning to be our wedding band and play in our backyard," Macdonald said. "The night we were going to have the band over a few weeks ago to finalize all the plans for the wedding, [we learned] that [the band was] chosen at the last minute to headline Midsommarfest."
Still, Furious Frank offered to still play the BBQ if it was earlier in the day, "but it seemed best to let them focus on the big gig," Macdonald said.
"Midsommarfest stole our wedding band. I mean, seriously, what are the chances?"
