Hilton Chicago/Northbrook

t gift bags. The facility is very nice, with ample parking. The rooms were quiet and comfortable, allowing us all to get a good night sleep after a day of hard wedding partying.

o BIG reasons: They allowed us to bring our fury babies/dogs (whom we can’t part from) to the hotel and reception, and the wedding coordinator Karen Dragel - was an absolute joy to work with!  From the time I stepped into the hotel while venue shopping 5 months before our big day, up until the wedding reception ended, every moment on the property, and every member of their staff, made us ALL feel valued, as their special guests. The service was simply outstanding! The ballroom was spectacular, our bridal suite was beyond comfortable, the scenic natural beauty of their outdoor gardens were absolutely breathtaking for taking pictures, and the menu we selected was scrumptious and delightful. Karen went above and beyond, and orchestrated everything to fall in place, in ensuring my wedding reception was perfect! All our guests were raving about the impeccable service. Whomever, Karen recommended for our vendors, from the DJ and photographer/videographer, to our wedding cake and floral/decor vendors, were all beyond outstanding! To this day, I can still close my eyes and reminisce the glory and joy of our wedding reception, that was all made possible, by Karen Dragel and the Hilton at Northbrook/Chicago- A fairytale dream come true :) 

h didn't leave me feeling too great, but we rolled with it. For reference, Karen was our coordinator for the day of. Let me preface this and say- THEY WERE EXTREMELY UNDERSTAFFED THE ENTIRE WEEKEND. We had our rehearsal dinner at the restaurant at the hotel. When we got there, I had to track down someone to take us back to our private room. Service took forever and we basically had to pour our own wine the entire dinner. Now onto the wedding day and everything that went wrong and what the hotel did to make it up to us after the fact. 1. Ceremony time as discussed was 5pm, bumping to 5:15pm if there were any stragglers. We were told by Josie, who was associated with the catering staff, that the ceremony couldn't start until 5:30pm because cocktail hour didn't start until 6pm. We ended up starting at 5:20pm or so. When discussing our issues with Karen later, she said it was our DJ delaying the time, which was not true. 2. Now let's get to the issue with the "bartender" at our wedding: a) My husband provided his own bottle of whiskey and told Karen that the whiskey we provided would be for my husband ONLY. My husband went up for his first drink and found that 90% of the bottle was already poured to other guests without my husband's permission. Our photographer ended up ordering a replacement bottle for us and the vendue did reimburse us for this. b) We had signature drinks at our wedding and my husband's was an old-fashioned. I created bar menus for our guests. The hotel staff overseeing our wedding apparently did NOT know how to make an old-fashioned, nor did they ask the actual bartender that they have on staff at their restaurant because they were making the drinks with Sprite instead of simple syrup and then proceeded to blame ME for not including it on the bar menu. 3. Cake cutting - we had two different flavors of cake. Only one was served to our guests and the remainder (excluding the top tier) was thrown out....which leads me to... 4. THIS VENUE WILL NOT BOX YOUR FOOD FOR YOU EVEN THOUGH THEY HAVE A FOOD MINIMUM. We ordered extras in order to meet our food minimum and it was NOT communicated to us that the venue will not save the food that we paid for. When I found out the night of the wedding, I was told VERY rudely by Josie that "We don't box food." Josie should not be communicating with any guests. We were refunded half of the plated meals for people who were not able to show last min but that's all. If I would have known this prior to signing with the venue, I would NOT have signed with them in the first place. 5. They messed up our honeymoon suite. When we originally toured the venue, we were shown The Waterford Suite. The Alpine Suite was booked for us by mistake (a room with a murphy bed, c'mon). I didn't know the names of the rooms prior and once I saw the room, I had to spend 30-45 mins out of my reception getting it sorted out. The hotel did end up giving us rewards points to use at any Hilton later on in apology for the mixup. 6. At the end of the evening, the staff did help box and clean up all of our stuff, but we were told we could not store any of the items in any of their extra rooms and I had to organize getting all of those items up to our suite. After everything else that happened that evening, this was just icing on the horrible cake.

took our vision and brought it to life. It was beautiful and elegant. Our friends and family cannot stop talking about the great time they had and the food. The food was delicious and if you are looking for food outside the traditional dried piece of chicken, this place works with you on a menu that your guests will love. Our cocktail hour was a hit with grilled cheese and tomato soup shooters, bbq meatballs and even sushi. Our dinner included sirloin, chicken stuffed with gouda and panchetta, and our vegetarian dish was a portabello mushroom stuffed with feta and grilled vegetables. We had a late night snack option of sliders and chicken fingers/mozzarella sticks. We received so many compliments on the menu and it was all because Maureen took her time helping us craft the one that worked for us. Truly amazing venue and staff!