Weddingbee boards

I haven’t ever posted very much (shy), although I did quite a bit of reading here! Now that the wedding is over I wanted to share some pictures and vendor reviews – especially since I know there must be at least a few other Chicago / suburbs brides with the same venue.  We had both the ceremony and reception at the Byron Colby Barn in Grayslake.  Ceremony in the outdoor courtyard, reception inside the barn.

The barn is a really cool space, but there are several drawbacks – you have to set up and tear down the same day, you can’t replace their chairs and tables with rentals, and the rental contact is not a site coordinator.  A few months before the wedding I realized that I probably couldn’t run my DIY-heavy show myself, and ended up working with Elizabeth from Anticipation Events.  She’s a sweetheart, and quick with her e-mail replies.  (You know that’s important!)  She actually drove several hours in the rain to be at the rehearsal, then showed up bright and early on wedding day to set up.  

With some help from family and friends, she coordinated covering chairs, arranging tablescapes with 10+ components each, placing favors, hanging wired jars with tea lights, arranging and lighting about 24 dozen votive candles, and setting up bottled water and ice in the courtyard.  She even found time to slice and beautifully arrange lemons and limes for the water before cuing the ceremony and arranging my train.  Later she organized the teardown effort in less than an hour.

If anything went wrong, I didn’t know about it.  I didn’t spend any time at all thinking about details or timelines the day of – Elizabeth took care of all of that, and I spent the day totally blissed!  A few days before the weddingElizabeth reviewed our catering contract (with Maravela’s – also awesome) and noticed that the bar was scheduled to close half an hour too early.  Maravela’s happily fixed it, but the problem would have gone unnoticed without Elizabeth pointing it out on the contract. 

Hiring a day of coordinator isn’t always necessary, but especially if you’re a DIY bride or have a DIY venue, it will make your wedding day so much easier.  Elizabeth also has some good contacts – whether you need a solid recommendation or to work within a specific budget, she knows her way around.  For all the time I spent researching vendors, I suspect I would have been just as happy using her recommendations.

I’d be happy to answer any specific questions about the barn, Anticipation Events, Maravela’s, or any of our other vendors.  If you just fell in love with Elizabeth, you can find her at Anticipation Events and Elizabeth@AnticipationEvents.com.  If you just want to see more pictures, you can click through to my blog.

*The photos were taken by Kim from Bow Tie Photography

Thanks, everyone!  @KMSull, yes!  Those are prints of book cover art for table "numbers."  I owe my MOH for that idea.