Westport native Jeffrey Denke and his partner, Matthew Ossenfort, are 1 of the Top 10 finalists in US Weekly’s national Dream Wedding contest. The winning couple receives a celebrity-inspired dream wedding.
Jeffrey and Matthew are the only gay couple among the 10.
Jeffrey Denke (left) and Matthew Ossenfort
The USmagazine.com website — where you can vote now for Jeffrey and Matthew! — describes their feelings for each other (“Just when I had given up on finding love, he swept me off my feet”); how they got engaged (“a cozy night with wine and gifts”), and where they’d like to be wed (The Cloisters).
There’s one catch, of course: New York forbids same-sex marriages.
So, Jeffrey — a 1990 Staples graduate — says, “Casting a vote for us will not only help achieve our dream wedding. It will further awareness of how important it is for every loving couple to have the right to get married.”
On the US Magazine website, he tells readers: “You should pick US because we are living in a new world; a world of change and understanding. A place where we learn how to be better people every day, and try to be progressive and not to judge one another on any race, beliefs or orientation.
“I am hoping that US Weekly and the people at WeddingChannel.com are open-minded and ready to take on the progressive way of thinking and select us because we deserve to win — and only happen to be a gay couple who are very happy, and very much in love.”
And if they don’t win — or New York does not pass a gay marriage law? Jeffrey and Matthew are considering moving to Connecticut, where their relationship would be not only loving, but legal.
