Private Wedding dinner for ~60

A friend of mine is getting married. She's not looking to do the "Wedding" thing (ceremony, dinner, dance, etc.), but she'd like to have a dinner at some point after to celebrate.

She asked me if I knew of any fine dining destinations in the city that does this kind of thing. Unfortunately I just don't have the knowledge to answer her questions. I told her to contact some of the events coordinators at a couple places and she gets the same song and dance, "Yes, we can accommodate your party. Yes, you can choose the menu." but not much more info than that.

The question is: any LTHr's have their wedding at one of the city's swankier establishments (including but not limited to Trotters, Tru, Everest, North Pond, etc.) - were you pleased with your experience from the beginning to the end (from first inquiries to paying the bill at the end of the event)?

And have any LTHr's out there been to a wedding or 'corporate party' at one of the nicer places around town and have your experiences been positive from a "guest perspective"?

Any direction or suggestions would be helpful.

I'm having my wedding reception in January at Spiaggia. I can't comment on the actual event yet but so far, their service has been wonderful and the space itself is beautiful. The private dining room menu is available online and I believe most dishes are from Cafe Spiaggia. The package includes hors d'oeuvres, 4 course meal, open bar, and wedding cake from Take the Cake bakery. We're having our wedding on a Friday night so the cost is much lower. I believe to have a party on a saturday night, there is a $12,000 food and drink minimum. For a weeknight, however, it is a very good option. Hope this helps!

Spiaggia
980 N Michigan Ave
Chicago 60611
312-280-2750

http://www.levyrestaurants.com/Levy/Par ... +Rooms.htm

You know...maybe I'm just too jaded because I do this all the time, but when you get that spiel from an event coordinator, especially at a high end place -- they mean it. Granted, there are stars and there are folks who don't do such a good job but truthfully, if you go to a restaurant and like the food and the service, you're most probably going to be pleased with a dinner party at same restaurant. At least that's been my experience. That's actually the key, you see. Trust your instincts about service and food. Trust your experience.

Now...budget is a bit different. Make sure you find out about all fees (room fees, linens, etc. as well included service fees & gratuity -- this town is pretty much 18% over the top of your charges. A lot of restaurants will waive a room fee with a high minimum). Make sure you know about your booze options -- if your group isn't a heavy drinking group, you might want to go with a "per consumption" type bill. I've always thought that bar charges, where they charge you per hour, per person, for an open bar -- are a major ripoff. Do the math -- i recently did a boat trip and they tried to sell me a very expensive bar package and after I did the math it was a ridiculous amount of money to spend on liquor and our actual bill was about 1/4 of the projected cost.. So I saved $1500 and yet still had an open bar.

Be specific. Be demanding but polite and business like. Most places WANT to make you happy -- they want you come back and bring your friends and have your friends do a party with them too.

Oh..one other thing -- SEE THE ROOM! Go to the restaurant and see the room personally before you book it. Just coz you like the restaurant doesn't mean their party room is pretty. Sometimes they're nothing better than hotel banquet space.

Marche has a great party room. Carnivale has great spaces. Gioco has great spaces. I personally don't like the Spiaggia spaces -- i find them rather ordinary but then again, the food at Spiaggia is amazing....

Bice has a lovely little room on top of its main room -- it was a lovely space for a party.

I've photographed many weddings big and small around town, and my favorite room for a wedding that size, in terms of food was Spiaggia. (And, as a photographer, it's an easy location to go out and take some photos in). I personally didn't think the space was that bad--I could dig up the photos if you'd like. I've also done smaller wedding receptions at Gibson's, Rosebud, Maggiano's, Rhapsody, but I wasn't particularly blown away by any of those locations (of that bunch, I thought Rosebud on Taylor was the best, Maggiano's the least recommended.)

I'm sure there must be other places I'm forgetting, but Spiaggia is the only one that left a real impression on me.

earthlydesire wrote:Make sure you find out about all fees (room fees, linens, etc. as well included service fees & gratuity -- this town is pretty much 18% over the top of your charges.

Great point. I'll make sure to mention this to her.

Binko wrote:I thought Rosebud on Taylor was the best, Maggiano's the least recommended.

I agree - I've been to 2 different weddings at 2 Maggiano's locations and they were less than stellar. I think that's why my friend asked me for suggestions (Amy was at one of the Miaggiano's events with me) - she was trying to avoid the crappy "family style" soggy banquet food that Maggiano's is so good at.

Just wondering in general - if joyfull144 said the event at Spiaggia is going to be approx $12K for a Saturday evening, does anyone know if this is a reasonable price? It sounds reasonable depending on how many people are going to joyfull's wedding.

We're having <50 people at our wedding and its on a Friday night so our required minimum is lower. Spiaggia requires a minimum of $12K on Saturdays and Sundays before a holiday. For a group of 60 on a Saturday night, Spiaggia probably wouldn't be best because of the difficulty meeting the $12K minimum. We're paying $110 per person for food and drink so it comes in at a lower cost. We wanted a Friday wedding with fantastic food and Spiaggia seemed perfect.

You have to do the math and decide if the per person charge is acceptable to you. Are there 100 people going to be there? That's $120 per person...which is definitely a high end event but might be just fine for you. Considering the quality of the place, the all inclusive menu and open bar...that's not an unheard of number for that many people at a party.

If it's 60 people....that would be harder for me to justify.

And it is true that you'll pay more for a Saturday or a Friday night. This is a big city, after all.

You might want to check with some caterers and get some idea of how much they'd charge for that kind of event if you want to compare prices.
Although many caterers are going to have better product than a banquet facility like Maggianos which is supplied by a behemoth like Sysco. It all depends on what you want, you know?

Although it's not in the same class with Spiaggia, Tru, etc., I can recommend Trattoria No. 10. We had our wedding there last April and we couldn't have been happier with the quality of the food and service. They don't have a separate room, you basically rent out the restaurant. It also was a $12,000 minimum. I think, though, that the price went down if you had the dinner after 8pm (this was for a Saturday).

One of the best things about the experience was that they allowed you to offer about five different entrees, as well as different choices for appetizers. It was more like taking all of our guests out to dinner, rather than the usually wedding deal where you get the chicken or the beef.

you might want to try alhambra. they have been open for a month or so and quite new. the inside looks like a theme restaurant to me. but, they are expansive and might cut you a deal since they are new and want to spread the word about their place.

Mario wrote:you might want to try alhambra.

Ahhhhh - I suggested this because of the size. However Amy had a less than positive dinner there... guess that's for another post.

Erwin in Lakeview does a few weddings. It is probably the same deal as the other places, renting out the whole space, but the price may be cheaper since it isn't downtown.

I had my wedding at the former Harvest on Huron, now Allen's New American Cafe. I loved it. Although the name has changed, from what I understand, it's still the same chef and same type/level of cuisine.

I was married on a Thursday so I didn't have a lot of trouble finding a room. We weren't charged any minimum for using their private room, which holds about 60 people.

The service and food were excellent, and the dinner was not too pricey at all, especially for a higher-end downtown location. I think it was around $6000 for 50 people, which included passed hors d'oeuvres and copious amounts of booze. Of course, that was in 2001, so prices have likely increased from that. And since that was a while ago I can't personally vouch for the service or food at this current time. However, my work has hosted business meetings there within the last year and my co-workers were very pleased with both.

I worked with the chef's wife, who acted as event coordinator. Didn't need much coordination, since I wasn't too into the whole wedding thing, but she was very helpful nonetheless. They let me bring my own cake too, and even dressed it up very nicely with a vanilla sauce. An added nicety: Chef Allen called me himself to talk about wine selections and when I told him I knew nothing about wine and would trust his judgment, he picked out some very good and reasonably priced selections for my party.

Allen's New American Cafe
217 W Huron St
Chicago, IL 60610
(312) 587-9600
http://www.allenscafe.com/

We were to a wedding at one of the private rooms at Everest. It was very nice. I don't know what the price was, but we were a smaller group, maybe 25 or so.

I got married 4 years ago and I love wedding talk! Expect this to be long!

When I got married, I wanted something 'different,' something other than a banquet hall. I was looking at restaurants, gardens, mansions, everything - downtown and suburbs. Asking about a person or dollar limit is key. Finding out gratuity and tax is also key to the budget.

Honestly, one of the best deals for small parties that I found was the Sears Tower. I got married 4 years ago, so maybe things have changed drastically, but at that time, it was a Levy run place (I didn't see it on their site tonight, however). The room was the entire 99th floor, room rental was $1500-2000 or so, and the entrees ran from $75 for vegetarian -150 for filet with a $5K min. That included tax & tip - making it very much in the financial realm of possibility for most people, and very attractive to smaller parties with the low minimum compared to other places*. I was shocked at their prices, to be honest. The only issue would be a cloudy day, although they assured me (true or not) that they never had an entire event that was 100% cloudy - that it usually was earlier or later in the event and at some point, the view was exposed. I do remember their kids' menu to be terribly expensive - something like $56 per child for drink, food and dessert. That is what ruled it out for us, we really wanted kids to attend, 25 of them vs 100 adults (when other places charged $6 a kid) and it was just cost prohibitive at that point to invite them, so we chose elsewhere, in the suburbs, close to home. I paid $85 pp with tax and tip at Prairie Rock in Elgin - and it was a cool place, with good food (great apps, salad, filet, potato, veggies, cake and ice cream) , and unique. We even did brewery tours during the cocktail hour, which was cool. They only do about 10 weddings a year, so their service kind of stunk (they served our cake top! Among other things...), so you may want to ask how many weddings they do a year to get a gauge of how much wedding experience they have. (not every place includes the wedding cake. Be sure to ask, and even ask about cake cutting fees. Yes they exist!)

I would also highly recommend picking up a Chicago Bride magazine. In the middle there is a section that lists good places for b-parties, rehearsal dinners, and weddings. It lists the place, room sizes available, minimums, entree prices, etc... for places in the city and suburbs. I would even consider looking at the rehearsal dinner places as those tend to be smaller parties, so that may be more appropriate for a smaller wedding dinner.

Last but not least, I would recommend just calling the places of interest and asking them if they have hosted parties of this size and what they can offer in terms of cost/menu/room selection. I did a lot of that. I almost had mine at a tapas place (I considered two). One I ruled out due to the room being small and tiered, which was just too complex (then they closed - dodged a bullet there!). The other was a many-room set up, dancing here, dinner here, smoking here. I ruled that out due to wanting to be able to look across the room and see my groom, or dad or grandma and make sure they were having a good time. You can't do that if people are navigating many smaller rooms. But in some cases, it works and the bride is ok with it.

I am sure I have given TMI here, but I loved planning my wedding (yet I was not a bridezella!), and I really like helping other people see all the options available to them so they can have the wedding they want.

Oh, one last thing! Check out the Chicago Park District. They have many gorgeous sites available. You have to ask if they have preferred vendors, or if you can choose your own.

Good luck, and keep us updated!

* For instance, 4 years ago, the food & drink minimum at the Crystal Gardens at Navy Pier was $28K. The Saturday rental rate at the Chicago Bortanical Gardens was $11K. That didn't include one drink, one appetizer, one chair. It was just to reserve the space! The rest still had to be paid for!

Do remember logistics and the comfort of your guests. I cannot think of a worse place to hold a wedding reception at Navy Pier. Parking takes forever and is expensive. Strolling around Navy Pier on a hot, muggy Saturday evening in the obligatory suit. You get the drift. Especially if you have a lot of frail seniors in the party.

Just a couple of comments here -- all the Levy restaurants have moved out of the Sears Tower, and in fact, there aren't that many restaurants there any more -- so that's not really an option anymore. Although, whatever applied to Levy at the Tower might apply to Levy in general -- isn't Spiaggia Levy?

Also -- I get jlawrence's comments about the Pier -- it can be miserable if it's muggy. However -- Riva's at the Pier has a couple of GREAT rooms -- i did a very successful party there for 40 people and we had a fabulous view and it was excellent food. It was an event that people still talk about and if you were to do it on a Wednesday or a Saturday -- you'd get a perfect view of the fireworks and proximity to the Pier for wandering if it's not muggy. Also Riva's is right off a drive up stop -- so any elderly guests can be dropped there and picked up with relative ease to their comfort. And one other thing of interest -- Riva is right next to my favorite attraction at the Pier, which is the Stained Glass exhibit -- filled with treasures "salvaged" from Chicago and environs' architectural treasures. They have some amazingly beautiful pieces.

I would recommend against going to the Park District simply because anyone who is looking to do this at a restaurant wants someone to do all the work for them -- and that is NOT what you'll get at a Park District location -- you'll have to engage a caterer and possibly other vendors who will provide tables, chairs, linens, etc. The good thing about a restaurant is that sort of thing is already part of a dinner party package. But if don't mind that sort of planning -- the Park District does have some beautiful places.

We had our dinner at the Morseland. Not really a high-end place, but the food was terrific and the restaurant and bar area are lovely. They even have a small parking lot. And it didn't cost anywhere near $12k

Of course, that's too far north for a lot of people, but I just thought I'd throw it out there.

Morseland
1218 W. Morse Ave.
773.764.8900

Friends of ours did their wedding at a park district park - I think it was Columbus park - and it was very nice. They had outdoor and indoor spaces (lucky weather meant no worries about moving things inside) and it was really beautiful.

Cyrano's Bistro on Wells has two private rooms for receptions, private dinners etc. I believe the largest room holds about 60.

The bistro is deservedly popular on these boards, excellent bistro food & service.

http://www.cyranosbistrot.com/ for details.