Weddingbee Blog

When I first got engaged, I fully planned on waiting a month or so to revel in newly engaged bliss before doing any wedding planning. I needed to make the engagement Facebook official. I needed to schedule blocks of time for gazing adoringly at my new bling. I needed to practice calling Mr. Unicycle my fiancé in a nasally French accent (as in “Dahling, look at this gorgeous ring my fian-say gave me!”). I needed to milk the post-engagement-excitement-induced appetite loss for all it was worth because I’m a stress eater.

Image via She Knows Living

I’m engaged!!! (and surfing the net!!)

But here’s how every conversation went down when I told my nearest and dearest about the impending nuptials:

Me: Guess what? He put a ring on it!

Them: OMG. No way! I’m so happy, this is so exciting, congratulations, etc.

Me: Thanks, I’m excited too!

Them: When’s the wedding?

Me: We have to do it at the end of next June because that’s when Mr. Unicycle will be done with his boards. So it’ll be a long (15 month) engagement.

Them: Ooh a June wedding! You better get on that, gurrrl. All the venues and vendors will be booking up fast!

Note: Yes, all of my nearest and dearest are ghetto fabulous. And no, they don’t actually use wedding lingo like “venues” and “vendors.”

Image via The Kid Counselor

There’s not enough time!!!

Needless to say, I let these people get to me (mostly because I was also super excited to start planning. I’d been reading Weddingbee for over two years at this point), and I dived head first into venue research. I figured I’d find the reception venue first, since that was going to be the biggest chunk of change, and because those tend to get snatched up the furthest in advance.

When I pictured venue shopping pre-engagement, I thought it would be enjoyable and exciting: I’d visit a few places; take photos of gorgeous chandeliers, vintage architectural details, and sprawling gardens; and chat with extremely friendly and congratulatory coordinators who would love to make my “special day” that much more special.

Image via Amazon

Chandelier? Check! (as in, “I’ll write you a check! We’ll take it!”)

Image via Mrs. High Wire

I pictured something lovely like Mrs. High Wire’s venue.

What actually happened was a little different. I scoured the internet for venues as only a true Millennial could, knowing exactly what I was looking for:

1. No banquet halls or hotel ballrooms, especially not anything that was last updated in the ’90s
2. Windows in the actual reception room, and access to the outdoors
3. Urban loft vibe

I’ll stop there because that last criterion was enough to rule out, well, pretty much every venue. There were a few more criteria I left out, such as our budget and Mr. Unicycle’s (and our families’) dislike of a downtown Chicago wedding. From my savvy internet searching, I discovered that there were plenty of gorgeous, to-die-for venues downtown, but no one except me was into that idea (and to be honest, our budget wasn’t either). I did find one venue in the ‘burbs that passed my aesthetics test, the Metropolis Ballroom.

All photos from Metropolis’s website:

The windows, the huge second-floor balcony, the wood floors, the white and beige, the hanging lights, the exposed beams…I could go on forever about the things I love about this place. One thing I didn’t love? The price.

Of course the coordinator who gave us the tour let us look at everything and ask all our questions before dropping that little bomb on us. When I found out that the price minimum was basically our entire wedding budget (not including tax and gratuity), I found myself bargaining with Mr. Unicycle, our parents, myself, God, anyone who would listen.

“I’ll buy a really cheap dress!” I told Mr. Unicycle. “Hell, I’ll make it myself if I have to!” He let me whine and complain for a bit until I realized that it just wasn’t in the cards for us (much like a toilet made of solid gold).

Image via LOLFed.com

So my venue search continued…

Did you fall in love with a wedding venue (or vendor) that you just couldn’t afford? Did you pick something else, or did you squeeze it into your budget?