Boerner Botanical Gardens

red Boerner Botanical Gardens with Yvette from Zilli Entertainment Group. Not only was it stunning and spacious inside and out, but the price package we went over with Yvette was much more reasonable than an empty ballroom in Chicago. Yet this included a package with an all vegetarian buffet, tray passed hors d'oeuvres, a premium bar, mini desserts and late night Mac and Cheese (a HUGE hit!). Our original guest count was about 200 people, but ended up closer to 150, with about 22 non drinkers, which positively impacted the cost even further! We had a long engagement, but once we were about 6 months out we had our tasting, a follow-up meeting with Yvette, and a final walk through with Dana. Dana also was our main point of contact, and she provided our extremely detailed customer portal. Anything we reviewed, signed, or considered all had been uploaded and organized in our portal, which was very helpful especially for a long engagement, since we wouldn’t always remember if we confirmed certain things! Both Dana and Yvette were very collaborative, and helped our vision come to life! I felt strongly about creating our own signage, but they beautifully set up everything around it! We wanted a darker aesthetic, which looked stunning with the bright beautiful gardens right outside. Lori and the day-of staff (I am SO sorry I forgot to write down their names because they were incredible!) helped us with our last minute questions and concerns, and helped the day flow flawlessly! We felt very well taken of! We received so much amazing feedback about the venue, the food, the staff, just everything! We can not recommend Boerner Botanical Gardens or Zilli enough! Thank you so much for making the best day of our lives completely stunning and headache free!!

staff was super friendly and helpful all the way through the planning process and throughout the day of. They even had many options for decor rental, which took a lot of the stress out of planning. Communication was seamless and clear. I would absolutely recommend Boerner to anybody considering it as a venue!

to work with people who plan lots of weddings! Our guests said the appetizers, food and late night breakfast was all really good and the Zilli staff members were very kind and professional. I would highly recommend having a wedding here, especially in October as the fall colors were so pretty in pictures!

e atrium, that means your guests have to walk through the room as it's being set up, or walk around back. Some of our guests were misdirected and walked through a catering kitchen. It's a park district, so the city/county has control of its rules and regulations. I understand it wasn't their fault, but the front gate is a beautiful entrance, and we weren't made aware of the change until less than two weeks before our wedding. As long as you can roll with that, I would still recommend the venue.

g from the start and really cares to make your day how you want it! The venue was also absolutely gorgeous and our guests loved the indoor outdoor concept! Definitely recommend doing your dancing in the atrium it’s so beautiful!

ork with, it seriously felt like working with your besties. We had the most beautiful day and it was so obvious that everyone on the staff cared so much about us and our day!! if i had to do it all over again I would pick this team every time !

ding related. Dana was also very sweet and helpful with all my questions along the way. Always getting back to me very promptly which was very much appreciated. The food and space turned out great. Thanks to all the staff for making our day perfect.

nning our wedding seamless and fun. Not only were we complimented on how well the entire day was organized - due to the support of our day of team, especially Meg - but the venue was absolutely gorgeous and the food was SPECTACULAR. We had our ceremony in Nell's Cafe (that had a gorgeous view and lighting from the garden), our cocktail hour in the Garden Room, and the reception in the Atrium. The setting and the decor we were able to rent at a reasonable price allowed us to bring our cozy and classy fall look to life. I would highly recommend all engaged couples to seriously consider using this hospitality group and venue - it was 100% worth it and we would use them again!

iginally planned on getting married outside, because the gardens are BEAUTIFUL. With our luck, it decided to down pour rain the whole night. All of the staff worked SO quickly to switch gears and move our ceremony inside. Although we ultimately wanted the ceremony outside, we (and all our guests) could not believe how beautiful and elegant it ended up looking inside the building. Also, the top comment we got from our guests was how delicious the food was. So many people came up to us and made a point of commenting on how flavoral all of the food was. I have so much more to say, but please take my word when I say that my husband and I had the perfect wedding at Boerner Botanical Gardens / Zilli Hospitality. Highly, highly recommend.

out a thing! The team at Zilli Hospitality Group took care of everything for us. So grateful to have celebrated at such a beautiful space and had such an incredible experience! Thank you to Yvette and Dana for helping to bring our vision to life!

rsonal the experience felt. The other vendors made us feel like just another number and were highly competitive to book, so if we didn't book with them, oh well. One main reason we chose Boerner was because of Yvette, the onsite event manager. She took the time to get to know us as a couple, talked through several options of how we could consider setting up our big day and we were sold. It's very intimidating to plan a wedding and most have not done it before, like us, and Yvette was patient, compassionate and creative to ensure the day felt like us. She took her time with us even before we confirmed our booking and that really set the right tone for us to move forward. After we booked and started planning, Yvette continued to be wonderful to work with. I am a pretty detail-oriented person and meticulous with planning. I have some event planning experience from other professional roles I've been and Yvette was a greater partner and collaborator to bounce ideas off, give us some inspiration and help us better understand different options we could choose from. I really appreciated her supporting us to bring our vision to life and her deep experience in wedding planning. She knows her stuff and you feel confident in her recommendations. I'm someone who likes to know all options, weigh those options and then move forward, and she always was just an email or phone call away to discuss to help us decide on which direction to go. Another main reason we selected Boerner was the venue itself. The gardens are absolutely spectacular to do your first look, family pictures, ceremony, etc. It is so green and lush and we loved the ability get married in the private garden outside the main building and then go inside for the reception, dancing, etc. We had the most GORGEOUS sunny wedding day and our pictures are magical. In addition, we loved using the atrium area as a dance floor area with its cool architecture and windows. We had a group of about 200+ guests and it was great to have the main ballroom, the cocktail garden room, the atrium and outside patio for guests to roam around and enjoy themselves. Our guests were a big fan of the location due to this, along with the ample parking for a wedding our size. Lastly, THE FOOD! I have received endless compliments from our guests about food as a highlight of the wedding. Zilli's Hospitality does a wonderful job and I was amazed with how much everyone liked the food. Many said it was the best food they had a wedding. I did not expect such rave reviews with that component of the wedding and I've been pleasantly surprised that even months later our guests comment on that being the best wedding food they've ever had. There are a million other reasons to pick Boerner, but I hope from one detailed bride to another, this helps you know you are in good hands with Yvette, Boerner and the Zilli's team. Thank you to all for making our dream wedding come true!

orked a lot with Yvette and Cheyenne who helped us out so much and made the stressful wedding planning process much easier. I super appreciate them! Zilli provided such amazing food. I got so many compliments on how tasty everything was and this was super important to us. I feel the value was fair for the price. I'm so thankful we found this venue and had such a wonderful day.