Our Wedding Venue

Continuing with my wedding series, today I’m going to talk about our wedding venue!

Finding a wedding venue was definitely the most stressful part of planning a wedding in two weeks. When we first got engaged we went and looked at Alta Villa banquets in Addison. My step mom-to be’s family owns this banquet hall, and I had been there a few times for different events.

When we actually started planning our wedding, I didn’t even think of Alta Villa because I figured they would be booked the night we were holding our reception. So, we looked elsewhere. We ended up looking at a venue at the park district my FIL works for. The facility was nice, but they don’t offer food on site, so we would have also had to find a caterer. The woman we spoke with said that the room was available for the date and time we wanted. So, the very next day we faxed in our information. That afternoon we got word that the room wasn’t available at the time we specified, and wouldn’t be available until 8pm that evening. I called to speak to the woman who we had met with to give her a piece of my mind. “Conveniently,” she was out of the office, so I spoke with her assistant who had noticed the mistake. I didn’t go completely crazy with her, but I made it very clear how upset I was. She said she would try and see if there was anything she could do and would call me back.

Well, as soon as I hung up the phone I decided to just see if Alta Villa was available. Much to my surprise, they had one room available, so I raced over to the banquet hall to book it! Within an hour of hearing that our first choice wasn’t available, I had a different venue booked, I think that might be a record! It worked out better in the end going with Alta Villa, since all the food is included and we wouldn’t have to hire outside bartenders and bring our own alcohol.

Alta Villa also has on-site event planners, who were able to set up our reception space, which was one less thing I would have to worry about.

So, if you live in the Chicago area, and are looking to host an event, I highly suggest Alta Villa! I was really impressed with how well everything turned out considering the time constraints we had. And as a bonus, their food is ahh-mazing!