Where: Irish American Heritage Center

Map | Website

Last Saturday after visiting a couple other venues (see Amanda's post below — she's much better at punctual blogging than I am), we took the Montrose bus to the Irish American Heritage Center. I've been there for several St. Patrick's Day Celebrations; it's what you'd expect from cramming several thousand Irish into a converted high school (i.e. awesome).

The first thing we noted was the parking, which is a concern with the other two places we looked at Saturday. There's no shortage here — they'd managed to fit a few hundred cars into the multiple parking lots for a play when we visited.

The main attraction at the IAHC is the Fifth Province, the pub that's open on the weekend. After you're done learning about Irish Heritage, you can grab a pint or two and enjoy some food, Irish or otherwise. Which is exactly what we did.

The Fifth Province is one of several areas available for rental. It can fit about 175-200 people at maximum, and has plenty of seating (not to mention a fireplace). The biggest downside is that the bar is open to the public starting at 5 p.m. Friday and Saturday nights, regardless of whether it's been rented. So if your wedding is going to last past 5, you'd better be OK with random people joining in. And possibly an Irish band.

There are several other rooms available for rent, but the only one big enough would be the Eden Room on the fourth floor (there's an elevator). It's a recently-renovated ballroom and much more of a blank slate than the pub, so we'd have to devote more thought to decorations. And it's not air-conditioned up there, so a mid-summer wedding would definitely be out.

The prices are fairly reasonable, $1,500 for the pub and $3,500 for the Eden room. I'm waiting to hear back from the bar manager about drink packages. Rental includes use of the kitchen; you can use any caterer that's properly insured.

There are some difficulties to be worked out. But it's a possibility, and the parking and easy access off the expressway are major bonuses. And I do like the idea of our wedding guests wandering and congregating up and down the IAHC's four floors. It's a cozy place.

Browsing on a Saturday afternoon

Since we live close to a few contenders (the result of wedding location hunting while running) B and I strolled on Saturday afternoon to a few possibilities. I thought we'd decide against at least one of 'em, but we're even more thrilled with the options near home - though we do have about a million more questions than we started with.

Since I wrote up the first two anyway, I'll follow up about what we learned, saw and discussed.

We came upon Architectural Artifacts during setup for a wedding. Two women were walking toward the building carrying some plants so I asked if there was a wedding inside. They were incredibly nice and snuck us in to check things out as setup continued. The place is enormous. There are tons of windows, plus a large, exposed lower level. The wedding of the night had a space for dancing and a lounge area with seats. They also had plenty of tables set up for a sit-down dinner. We're not planning a sit-down meal, but there's room for it.

Architectural Artifacts has a ton of space for wandering. There's rooms and levels of architectural salvage - signs, chandelier parts, clocks, whatever. That's beautiful for photos and for wanderers.

After sneaking into the wedding on Ravenswood we headed to Mrs. Murphy's & Sons for a pint of beer. The hostess shared a pamphlet of rates with us and we did the math while drinking. Food and drinks for wedding for 150 people (that's who'd fit comfortable upstairs) would cost around $10,000 at Murphy's. This is a lot of money. And we'd be cutting our current list a bit to even fit. All these factors put Murphy's in the "no way" category, even though it is a beautiful location. On the way out we talked to the hostess/event planner though. She told us that while Murphy's is popular for fall weddings they're slow in the summer. We could, she said, arrange to rent the entire bar on a Saturday in July as long as we spent $10,000. Hmmmm. That means space for everyone, a bar to ourselves for a night and some room for negotiation...

I can imagine either Murphy's or Architectural Artifacts working beautifully. I'm trying to be mindful of the total cost - dresses, flowers, decor, food, drinks, music, forks, everything. Murphy's is costly, but also would include a lot of the things we'd have to worry about elsewhere (food, drink, servers, linens). Is that worth so much money? Can we even spend that much money?

I always hear that the little things can really add up and no matter our budget I want to be aware of where money's going.

And of course we still are open to many, many other options and ideas. Please share yours and let us know what we're totally forgetting. The bartender at Mrs. Murphy's asked if I had a wedding planner and I almost choked on my beer. I'm hoping our blog readers will fill in for such a professional - we'll pay you back with open bar and delightful appreciation.

Where: Architectural Artifacts

Map | Website

This architectural salvage and antique shop is on Ravenswood Avenue — one of the coolest streets in the city, about three blocks from our apartment. It's got personality and flexibility to be sure, but a hefty pricetag.

My mom and I both adore architectural salvage shops - the sort of places where you can find bathtubs for your St. Francis of Assisi, torsos of old statues, fireplace fronts and more. Architectural Artifacts is in a huge, tall building on Ravenswood and arranges the antiques and salvage items in a modern, interesting fashion.

I love the windows, the light, the old stuff with modern surroundings, the street with trains buzzing by. I love that I could walk from home to my wedding.

A private rental at Architectural Artifacts is $4200. Yikes. That's without food, servers, drinks, anything. But you don't need to set the scene at all, and guests automatically have a ton to look at. Despite its high price I'm calling Architectural Artifacts to learn more.

Where: Mrs. Murphy and Sons

Map | Website

Mrs. Murphy's is a classy Irish pub with surprising menu and un-annoying Irish decor - might it win my heart?

After we ate a delicious dinner there our waiter showed us around the upstairs, which people can rent out for weddings and parties. It's not enormous, but does have great windows, lots of mellow green walls and a nice atmosphere.

It's not a banquet-hall so it's not an entirely blank slate - this is good and bad, I think. There's space to mill about, an elevator for grandparent types and Irish whiskey for my dad.

I think there's parking nearby, too. That's a plus. And Mrs. Murphy is related to the Murphy's Bleachers Murphys, so that's a big plus.

I'm going to find out more and report back!

Where: Promontory Point

Map | Website

This is the first write-up of wedding locations we're investigating.

I've wanted to get married at Promontory Point for a long time. It's one of the most beautiful (and under-utilized) spots in Chicago, and Amanda and I have had some great times there grilling, swimming, strolling and enjoying the lakefront with friends and family. I've always liked the idea of getting married somewhere you have a pre-existing connection to, that's special because of more than just your wedding. I imagine that's one of the nicer aspects of getting married at a place of worship you've been attending for years.

So I've really had nothing but good experiences at Promontory Point — and that's why exploring a wedding there has been such a disappointment. The Chicago Park District, despite being in my experience lax in almost every other respect, has a list of rules as long as your arm when it comes to weddings. You are required to pay for a bathroom attendant and security guard. All food and alcohol must be served by a caterer, and you can only choose from a list of Park-District-approved (i.e. expensive) caterers. You are not allowed to bring any food or alcohol besides a wedding cake. Even the tent-setter-uppers must come from the list of "Preferred Professionals."

Now, some of this is just our first real encounter with the dirty business of planning a wedding; I'm sure the same goes for many other locations, and I know we'll be astounded many times over by the venality of the wedding-industrial complex.

But come on — this is a public park. There will be people in shorts and flip-flops hanging out not 100 feet from the ceremony, not to mention using the same bathroom as the guests. If I just brought 50 friends to the Point, we could have an awesome party with nary a bathroom attendant in sight. But because it's a wedding, we have to pay someone to open a bottle of wine and serve our cake. Why can't we just pay a security deposit so they know we won't wreck the place and take it from there?

In the end, though, all of this is something of a moot Point: it's pretty much booked from May to the end of September next year. There's a few Saturday mornings available for just the ceremony (you have to be done by 2), but you're not allowed to serve and food or alcohol in the morning slot, and I think we've got our hearts set on pre-ceremony cocktails.

So as much as it pains me, I think I've got to let go my Promontory Point wedding dreams. It's been kind of hard, but in a way helpful — now that the perfect wedding playing in my head is dashed, I can concentrate on finding somewhere else just as cool that will let us do things our way.

Where?

If wedding magazines are to be believed (there's a Chicago Bride around here somewhere), the first thing to decide is the location. Other than close to home (Chicago and/or Rockford), Manda and I only have two deal-breakers.


Flexibility to do things our way

We don't want to cook the food or take the pictures, but I think we can handle some of the legwork and preparation. It'll be more fun, more us, and a hell of a lot cheaper (we want to avoid the dreaded wedding markup at all costs).

Possibilities: hiring a chef and buying the food wholesale; printing (professionally designed) invitations ourselves; having the ceremony at a free location; music by iPod with rented sound equipment; or hiring a photojournalism student to take pictures. Above all we want o avoid having to choose from pre-packed wedding options because that's what the location insists on.

How much of this is workable, or even possible? We'll find out. We've got quite a talented cast of friends and family, so we won't be going it alone.


Memorable location

Banquet halls really aren't our thing: we'd like to find someplace original and cool. Hopefully not a place that's in the business of hosting weddings — we've discovered that if a location comes with a website specifically devoted to their weddings, it's probably out of our price range.

Some potential (and completely made-up) ideas: brewery, museum, state park, minor league baseball game, Medieval Times.


We're pretty flexible on everything else. The ceremony and reception don't have to be at the same place, though that certainly makes things easier. We'd like to get married outside, but that's not a requirement. And if we find a place we really love that has some restriction, maybe we can compromise on that, too.

Please, let us know any any all suggestions in the comments. We need to find a place pronto, if for no other reason than to have an answer when people ask us where and when the wedding is!

What are we getting into?

So, Bucklebee Barnes and I are getting married.

We biked 23 miles to the Chicago Botanic Garden a few weeks ago. In a state of exercise-induced giddiness and excitement over giant pumpkins we decided to get married. Bucklebee gave me beautiful Tiffany diamond earrings - engagement earrings are the new thing, you know.

Now we're trying to plan something non-traditional (but it's still a wedding), fun, modern, feminist, simple, affordable, pretty and us. We're blogging about this to share information with the people who are helping us plan and to share this information with people who are also interested in avoiding the wedding industrial complex while planning a wedding.

We are happy to hear opinions and ideas. We are open to just about everything (except for a church wedding, calligraphy, too many white flowers, playing YMCA, being mean to our friends by asking them to wear stupid outfits, or anything extraordinarily stupid). So, here goes.