Venues

Our definition of a DIY wedding is to have a traditional wedding without the traditional costs. We tried to keep that in mind when looking for venues for the ceremony and reception. After extensive research and countless dead ends, we found a nice little Chapel to hold the ceremony. It actually belongs to the Historical Society of Tinley Park, IL. It operates as a museum; however, they rent out the Chapel for weddings.

It is called the Landmark Chapel...

The Landmark does leave the lights and pew bows up for use during the wedding or you can choose to bring your own. Michelle thinks that the bows look "tired" so those will be changing. The cost of renting The Landmark is $550 which includes 4 hours for on the day of your wedding and 2 hours for the rehearsal. We did not mind the cost too much because it does help support the Historical Society. 

For the reception we are planning on catering the wedding ourselves. This made renting halls especially difficult because many don't allow you to bring in "home made" food. Furthermore, some require you to use one of their vendors exclusively. At that point you are pretty much at the mercy of the caterer. Enter the Tinley Park VFW. 

We found a VFW about 2 blocks away from the chapel. Most VFW's have a hall for rent. As it turns out we have a friend that is a member of the very Post we were looking at. The regular non-member rate is $75 per hour with a 5 hour minimum (very reasonable). Because of our friend, we actually got the member rate...$200 flat rate for the whole day (Thanks Rich).

The VFW does allow us to cater the wedding ourselves. They have both 60" round tables and 8' banquet tables, a full kitchen, 5 section steam table, chairs, multimedia system, and a bar. They do not provide the linens for the tables (grrrrr...we are working on that now). The VFW does add a contractual stipulation...there must be $250 spent at the bar at your event...pretty easy feat if you know our friends!

Note: these are photos of the VFW Hall from their website.