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.