Pre-cana

Well, not only do we have a couple places to visit for posisble reception venues, but I also got a call yesterday from the priest in charge of wedding arrangements at St. John Cantius.  He called to tell me that the date has been set for the Pre-cana class that we are to attend.  It is scheduled for Saturday, March 1st.  At first, the idea of March seemed a ways away, but when I wrote this in my calendar, I realized that February starts tomorrow and that means that March is right around the corner.  With each new bit of our big day that gets scheduled, I get a little more excited and a little more nervous about all the pieces that have to get done yet and the ever-shorter amount of time we have to do them in. But thankfully, I have been telling myself to only focus on the things that we have to work on now and leave the rest of the details until later.  And to top it off, Jack does a great job of keeping me calm about everything.  :)

Ok, we're making progress

Our first appointment for a reception venue wasn't that great, but looking on the bright side, it was a good warm-up!  Yes, we are finding that most of the obvious places in Chicago are already booked for September 27.  Fortunately, we've been able to find a few not-so-obvious places in and around the city that haven't been booked yet, and aren't ridiculously expensive.

 

That's the other thing...how can places charge $175/person for CHICKEN!!  I mean, it's just chicken, right?  Unless they lay eggs of solid gold, no chicken is worth that much.  But I digress.

 

Mary and I are going to an open house tomorrow night for a place that looks to be more like a photo studio, but could have some potential.  We're also visiting a place just outside the city on Saturday.  So at least things are looking up a bit in those regards.  In the mean time, let me know if you come across a chicken dish that you think is worth $175  :)

First Appointment

So although Jack and I have received a number of responses from venues stating that they are not available on September 27th, I still have hope that we will find a reception site for our date.  This part of the process is very overwhelming with the number of options for venues, the fees for each and all of the questions that need to be answered.  But we have only just begun!  We were lucky to get a date for the time of year we wanted and at the church that was our first choice, but maybe that is making it harder to endure all these "no" responses for reception sites.  I have faith that the right one will come along.

The good news is that we received the first response for a place that is available for our date.  I think it would be safe to say that we are cautiously looking forward to this appointment to see the space.  We have to start somewhere and whether this is the place we end up with or not, it will at least be a first try at asking a lot of questions and seeing what is out there to consider.

Reception Venue Woes

Yesterday, Mary and I started contacting several reception facilities.  So far, we've found that about half of them are already booked for September 27, 2008.  This makes me wonder if maybe we were just a little hasty in announcing our date.  We were so excited that the Church and Fr. Ron were available, we just went with it!  Plus we're finding that a lot of places list their fees differently.  So it's hard to tell what you get for your rental fee.  Is the fee more of a minimum amount required?  Is it a flat rate that is completely exclusive of catering, waitstaff, table/chair rental, etc??  I'm sure in the end, we'll find a great location for our reception, as there have to be hundreds, maybe thousands, of venues in the city, right?  It's just a matter of finding the right one before someone else books it!

 

Any suggestions out there?

Reception Venues

Although we finally started our reception venue hunt today, we've barely scratched the surface.  We were fortunate enough that Mary's friend, Gina, had a LOT of information and resources through work as she has to plan receptions and dinners regularly.  Basically, we started by just looking through lots of brochures and websites, keeping track of each venue that had some potential.

 

The hard part about this process is that only some brochures and websites list their fee schedules.  Even when they do have fees listed, it's nearly impossible to determine some of the finer points without talking to someone.  It seems quite apparent to me that this will be the first part of our wedding planning that will require a LOT of communication between us and our potential vendors.

 

Now that we have a list of several venues, we're going to determine which ones we'd like to pursue, then contact each to request more information.  The two major factors here will be if there is availability on Septeber 27, 2008, and if the venue fits within our budget!