A Blue, Silver and White Wedding at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, Illinois

Justin Ballard (29 and VP of data analytics at Northern Trust) and Adam Ballard (30 and a senior sales support specialist at Honeywell) met through common friends. They got engaged at the point of Belmont Harbor, and planned a summer wedding for 75 guests. They looked at three venues before locking in the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, Illinois. “Once we were both in the space, it was the obvious winner,” Justin says. “The white space and clean lines created the perfect canvas to create whatever we wanted, all while having a downtown Chicago location.” Their design direction was modern elegance, and their friend (who owns an event company) helped pull it off, incorporating midnight blue, silver and white. During the outdoor ceremony on the steps of the museum, both grooms carried items to fulfill “something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue.” “Something old” was 200-year-old coins Adam had collected as a kid; “something new” was their Louboutin shoes; “something borrowed” was a gold-leaf and silver arrowhead borrowed from their best man, Matthew; and “something blue” was their custom-made midnight blue tuxes. With Stringspace’s cover of Beyonce’s “Halo” playing in the background, Justin and Adam were escorted by their mothers. After the ceremony, the party moved inside the museum, where guests dined on dates wrapped with goat cheese and bacon, mini chicken and waffles, lemon-ricotta cucumber cups, tomato and watermelon salad, slow-cooked pork, beef tenderloin and an almond orange cake with honey buttercream and cream cheese frosting. During dinner, a friend surprised the couple with a beautiful opera performance, then DJ Tiago Vibe (from Brazil) played electronic dance music and a mix of other songs “that kept the party going all night,” Justin says. At the end of the evening, the best man surprised the couple with a drag performance as Circuit Mom, performing Whitney Houston’s “I Look to You.” “It was the perfect upbeat ending to the night.” —Chrissy Sorenson