My sister had her wedding reception here December 6th... and the whole day especially the reception was so lovely and beautiful that I will:
A) have to get married maybe 10-20 years from now just so that people either die off or have a higher probability of forgetting her gorgeous wedding & reception
2) get married in a completely polar opposite fashion, i.e. in the summer, outdoors, catered.... or maybe Vegas???????????
d) make my future fiance plan the wedding so that at least I can blame him if things go to $h!t....
But seriously I cannot imagine how any Chicago wedding could be more beautiful! Here's some highlights:
the price was VERY afforable... as my sis's maid-of-honor I had a sneak peak of her frugle budget as well as the amazing accommodations Salvatore's had for any budget range...
you will have a gorgeous former 20's hotel space that was converted to a romantic restaurant within the last few decades furthermore specializing in wedding receptions (it's a Ggrrrreeeat! space to say in the least)... the feeling of wedding in a large hotel room with the fake wood floors for dancing (accompanied by a some cheesy DJ) feels beyond typical (barf)... but you won't get that here as there is a beautiful bar/dancing room, a spacious L-shaped dining room (with the L-leg being the opened pasta-vino room), a corridor bar-room (pasta-vino bar), a lobby with a beautiful grand piano, an outdoor patio with seating and lighting (and you can rent heaters if it's cold), as well as an outdoor garden with a fountain (probably more enjoyable when it's warmer)...
you can get lost in any room... listening to the cello-piano duet during a delicious dinner, hearing the live big jazz band jamming in the dance room (great acoustics), getting a photobooth picture in the setup next to the large bar, smoking a cigar on the patio, sipping on a hard drink (ah and the drink package was inclusive for the WHOLE NIGHT, WOWSER)...take a look at their floorplan here: http://www.salvatores-chicago.com/floorplan.html ... whatever you imagine Salvatore's will surely be accommodating to see that you have your dream wedding reception!
If you want outside food here as well (aside from dinner that is... which dinner was amazing I wouldn't have opted for somewhere else if I even had the choice myself!) you can have your cake made somewhere else and bring cookies and such for your dessert table. They catered the midnight snack of grilled cheese, mini-brie-n-raspberry tortes, and meatballs and such so everybody was sure to leave full and satisfied!
Best of all was AMRA... she was friggin DOLL... she made planning so lovely and sweet, even when things seemed crazy she was cool, collected, accommodating, encouraging, and proactive. For instance, I had last minute decided to play a song after my maid-of-honor speech - I gave Amra the CD and said I needed her to start playing on the cue of a particular sentence. With her sitting two rooms away, I feared maybe she'd get distracted there, maybe a chance she'd forget (it happened over an hour later after I asked!), BUT NO, she was ON CUE! Because we all know that if you play the laugh track a minute after the joke the moment could be lost! Amazingly, 75% of the room shed tears to the song I played after my speech, music PERFECTLY on cue, but I couldn't have done that without Amra in the background following through!
After dinner we had 2 performances... one ballad by my brother on the piano, and another solo acoustic guitar tribute from my talented cousin. Beautiful. Not only the performances were stealing, but the way the host captured everyone's attention when different performances were going on was important for everyone to be on the same page enjoying everything.
I've been to a handful of what I thought was gorgeous weddings, including one at the top of the Sears tower... but this reception venue tops any I've seen before! SoOOOsoooooo CLASSY.
I still here lovely comments on how beautiful my sister's wedding was. I will need a WILD imagination to figure how I will some day top that! read more