2 More Visits And A Decision

This past week has been pretty stressful as far as wedding planning was concerned. Jimmy left today for Canada and won't be back until August 8th so I knew if I had any chance of getting things done I knew I was going to have to do them myself, and before Jimmy was gone. I called up Seven Bridges and Cantigny Park to make appointments. I ended up with 2 meeting times on Thursday afternoon.

Thursday rolled around and I was ready to be done with it all. I drove to Seven Bridges Golf Club in Woodridge first. It was a 20 minute drive from my house and on the way to Lombard, about 15 minutes. I liked that it was an even drive between Lockport and Lombard. I was greeted by their catering manager Roisin. She was very friendly and showed me around the banquet hall, bar area, and veranda. We then sat down and went over their wedding packages in great detail. I think I was there for a whole hour. I loved the decor and everything that was included in the packages. What I didn't like was the price. It was going to end up being $4,000 more than Cog Hill or White Pines, so we'd have to cut our guest list down about 50 people. I left Seven Bridges very happy and ready to tackle Cantigny (for the second time.)

Between meetings I stopped in Elmhurst to drop some shoes off for Alison, and picked up something to eat. During lunch I ended up chatting with a nice, yet creepy, old man about the economy and other random things. By the time I got away from him I was running a little late for my appointment.

I arrived at Cantigny about 2 minutes late to a PACKED parking lot. Apparently it was Robert McCormick's 128th birthday so there were a lot of special events taking place that day. After a short wait I met the infamous Megan who showed me around. We sat and talked about the wedding packages, and not more than 15 minutes after I arrived I was on my way home. Nothing about the facility impressed me. The grounds themselves are breathtaking, but for the price I would expect a lot more from the banquet hall. Cantigny was the most expensive of the bunch so I immediately threw it out. My not-so-friendly experience with the events manager Megan didn't help their cause either.

When Jimmy came home from work I begrudgingly let him shower before I made him sit down and seriously hash out what our plans were going to be. It ultimately ended up between Seven Bridges and Cog Hill. I was not willing to spend lots of extra cash and time to beautify White Pines, and Cantigny was just a joke to us by that point. After a quick calculating poop on Jimmy's behalf (yes, he took the wedding packets into the bathroom) he said either we cut the guest list and did Seven Bridges, or kept it as it was and did Cog Hill. I knew Jimmy really didn't want to have to cut his guests, and I had fell in love with Cog Hill since the minute I found it online, so we had our decision. Cog Hill was the winner!!! I made the call to Jim and left him a voicemail to call me.

This morning Jim called me back and said that the 23rd had been taken by another couple (damn) but that the 30th was still available. I said we'd take it, and Jim put us down for our wedding reception! I need to bring in the $1,000 deposit by next Friday and everything is official!!