Have you considered the Levy Senior Center in Evanston? They rent rooms and you can bring in the caterer of your choice. If you are a resident of Evanston, I believe the rates are pretty good.

EvA wrote:Have you considered the Levy Senior Center in Evanston? They rent rooms and you can bring in the caterer of your choice. If you are a resident of Evanston, I believe the rates are pretty good.

That is a FABULOUS idea! I'll have to give them a call later. It never really crossed my mind to check there!

P.S. Looking at how cheap they are (and yes, I'm an Evanston resident), I wish I'd known that when booking the wedding reception! (Though I confess I don't know what the room looks like - Highland Park is gorgeous. But for breakfast, I don't really care.)

:: bump ::

As it turns out, the Levy Center room that would be the right size is already booked up for the time we would need it. But they transferred me to the Evanston Ecology Center, which has a fabulous room, that is probably even nicer for our purposes:

http://www.laddarboretum.org/multipurposeroom.htm

So I'm booking that, and getting my huge-ass bagel order from Kaufman's after all. Thanks to all of you who made helpful suggestions in this thread, and my other wedding-related threads.

(And by the way, the Best Western never even got back to me about a room and/or catering, nor did the other places where I left messages. I swear, why are people so flaky? At my job, even if I can't help someone, I always call back and let them know.)

Eva Luna, I'm glad you found such a lovely space--it looks like a great fit for you. Good luck and congratulations!

That is a lovely space - can I ask what the rental cost was, and if they had any requirements about food purveyors?

Mhays wrote:That is a lovely space - can I ask what the rental cost was, and if they had any requirements about food purveyors?

$80/hour for nonmembers of the Evanston Environmental Association, and $70 for members, so if you're renting for 3 hours or more, it pays to join the EEA. All fees are for residents of 60202 and 60201 zip codes only. They don't care where you bring food from, but they don't have a kitchen, so all food needs to be pre-prepared.

It might have been a lovely space for a smaller, more informal wedding, as far as that goes.