Guest Blogger: Size, Venue, Secrets and Inspiration

Size, Venue, Date
One of the first things we took care of was figuring out the size of our event, the venue and the wedding date.

• We decided to keep it intimate at 60 guests.
  
• We also decided to have the wedding in Chicago, our home together. As we were searching for the specific location for the big day, we fell in love with A New Leaf.
  
• We were not so in love with waiting two years for a summer Saturday (which is what we thought we wanted) at ANL. But we really loved the urban feel of the space and felt it really reflected Chicago. We decided we must have ANL, which is how we ended up with a March 15th wedding, over St. Patrick's Day Weekend. Who gets married in March??? Well, it gave us about ten months to plan.

How our Venue Became a ... Secret
As background, over the course of the previous couple years, Patrick and I had attended "underground" supper clubs which required paid reservations weeks in advance, only to be emailed the evening's menu and exact location the very evening prior. We loved the anticipation this created and wanted to re-create a similar experience on our wedding day for our guests.

We also recognized that the majority of our guests would be from out of town. I am from Southern California, and Patrick is from upstate New York. So we definitely wanted to give our wedding some Chicago flair. Given that Chicago was home to a number of speakeasies during the Prohibition, we decided to bring this fact to light by keeping the location of our wedding a secret until the day before, in what we called speakeasy style.

Inspiration
Already, a number of ideas were swirling my mind and I compiled my inspiration board.

my "before" inspiration board
{please contact me for sourcing}

What I was hoping for:

• Urban, Chicago feel
  
• Understated, speakeasy touches
  
• Air of elegance
  

Like any bride, there were some things i knew i did not want:

• No big shamrocks
• No huge green leprechauns
• No crazy green everywhere
  

And the rest of my thoughts were caught up with how we should treat this idea of a "secret location" with particular respect to the invitations ...

Comments

[jessica lynn]

love that you are keeping the venue a secret!!

[Riley]

What a cool idea!

And I don't blame you about the shamrocks and leprechauns!! LOL - we're getting married at the YWCA (it's an old beautiful building) and I refuse to have YMCA played....

[tina]

I drove by ANL the day of your wedding on the way home from the gym! :) I always drive or walk by when I can to see if anything's going on. :)