Southwest Suburban Chicago Wedding Reception Halls Sites
Yes, more reception hall sites! ( Carriage Greens Country Club in Darien, the Hyatt Hotel in Lisle and the Glen Oak Country Club in Glen Ellyn) I blogged about our difficulty in finding a reception space for my wedding in the southwest suburbs of Chicago last week and since then we have looked at 3 more locations in the Chicago suburbs. We have had a very hard time finding a reception place for our wedding because most of the places that we knew of or had been to weddings at before wanted larger (more profitable) weddings and a commitment of at least 10 thousand dollars, 11 thousand or 12 thousand spent to reserve the space and date. Yikes! We only think there will be between 80-100 people at our wedding because so many people would have to come in from out of town. In the recession economy we are not sure how many people would feel comfortable flying in from the far corners of the US just for a few days while a global bank and economy meltdown happens in front of us.
If nothing else, this economic downturn has made us think twice about spending a lot on the wedding. We initially tried to start with a budget of $15,000 and the national average cost of a wedding is $25,000. I think we can do it. Finding the right reception hall location is a big part of staying under our budget limits. We talked to Seven Bridges and they require a minimum of $11,000 for Saturdays so they were instantly out of the running. We had been using the menus and pricing plans from Naperville Country club and Arrowhead Golf club in Wheaton as a guide and calculated how much everything would cost for the reception with 80 people. Naperville Country Club came in at $8,000, not near their 10K minimum. Arrowhead golf club in wheaton came in at $9,500, not near their $14,000 minimum either. There were three new places we looked at this week: Carriage Greens Country Club in Darien, the Hyatt Hotel in Lisle and the Glen Oak Country Club in Glen Ellyn.
This is Carriage Greens Country Club in Darien, IL. They were ok but signs of wear and tear as well as old facilites didn't make us feel like it was the right place even though it has been the lowest cost we have found so far.
First we looked at Carriage Greens Country Club in Darien, and while they look low cost up front, (menus from $35-$50) their additional costs for appetizer hours devours by the order of 100 ($135) and $2.50 per person for a champagne toast drove the costs up to $6,500.00 including sales tax and their 17% gratuity. This is the lowest cost option we have found that includes all the usual accoutrements of a wedding reception. What we were not impressed with was the facility. Everything is 30 years old there and something about aluminum encased glass front doors from 1970, the old tiny square facet cut wine glasses, litterally no entry lobby and the narrowest dark halls I have ever seen makes me think people would think we were limited to spending less than 4K. Carriage Greens Country Club in Darien is booked for a lot if dates in 2009 though so some people like it.
The Hyatt was very nice and had everything you could ever want but they also had a lot of additonal costs for things other places included for free.
We went to the Hyatt hotel in Lisle next and found a wedding in progress. Their wedding coordinator was very nice to slip into her office during the ceremony that was going on in the pavilion tent and get us a price menu list and show us that $64.00 per person multiplied by 80 people would be around $5K. Wow, we were finally hopeful. Well when we got home and looked at the details we found that the Hyatt in Lisle was the most expensive option yet. They topped out the list at $10,500 for 80 people with tax and 22% gratuity.The kicker is that the $64.00 meal is really not that great so you have to at least upgrade to the $67 meal (and that is chicken or tilapia, no beef until you hit $78 per meal) and they also charge $9 per person for hours devours during cocktail hour and $16.00 per person for the sweets table. Holy mackerel! Talk about bait and switch. We certainly can’t afford that one. They lure you in by including things like the cake and giving you a complimentary suite for the day to use but those aren’t difficult things to paying for in a wedding and it is meant to distract you into thinking you are getting a lot for free and a good deal when other hidden charges are going to run the bill up later.
This is the Glen Oak Country Club in Glen Ellyn, IL. It has a quaint cottage feel and no minimum cost over 10K like some large places. We have our fingers crossed.
Lastly Steve’s parent suggested we check out Glen Oak Country club in Glen Ellyn near where they live. They aren’t members but they think they know some people who are and would be willing to sponsor us. We went to see the Glen Oak Country Club and the place was beautiful and charming. (a more intimate space than most banquet halls and hotels offer) The rooms are smaller since they are meant to be dining rooms and they did not have a minimum cost we had to meet and were ok with accommodating only 80 people. We went home and ran the numbers choosing Fillet Mignon and Chicken Piccata as 1/2 and 1/2 split menu for the guests entrees and including the bar costs and the hours devours.It came out to $7,000 after sales tax and 22% gratuity. The only thing missing from their package is a cake. We hope that would not drive the total costs up much more because the Glen Oak Country Club looks like the front runner in our search so far. It is elegant as well as not too expensive and the food is very good.
Now we just have to look at getting some questions answered from them and hopefully we will be on our way to booking a reception location within the next few weeks. We also have to get back to the church because the Deacon called wondering if we had found something else since it has been 2 weeks since we asked about having our wedding at Our Lady of Peace Church in Darien. We had to tell him what a difficult time it has been looking for reception halls and that we would have something soon so we could book an official date in July. I hope they didn’t think we were being rude or anything. It has just been difficult to find something. I hope we will get this figured out soon because we are going to know more about reception halls than we want to soon.