Illinois Vally Yacht & Canoe Club

e food was excellent and served on time with a smile. Everything went very smoothly. Highly recommend.

k a year, and the venue was very kind and flexible in transferring our deposit to our desired wedding date. But, in my understanding, the staffing structure changed completely from the time we booked to the time that we started to plan. From there, things got a little messy. We were planning our wedding from out of state, so we were heavily reliant on the venue being accessible as our day grew closer. Our main contact at the venue, however, only worked one day a week and was not terribly easy to reach from email or phone. She did her best in the time she had, but a lot fell through the cracks leading to a lot of last-minute stress. (We didn't receive a layout to plan the seating until less than a month from the wedding, and didn't receive the final invoice until two days before the wedding.) We also decorated ourselves, but weren't able to decorate the venue until after the dinner hour had closed for club members at 10 the day before our wedding. We had to rush over from our rehearsal dinner to decorate. Just a heads-up for anyone like us who plans to decorate themselves. The day of, the staff was kind and courteous, albeit a little lost. My husband had provided the venue with our wedding time line, however the day of they asked my mother what she thought the timeline was, causing dinner to be served late. Dinner had been pretty well over for a while and the buffet serving tables were still on the dance floor when we had to find the staff to clear out the buffet tables so we could cut the cake and open the dance floor. All said and done, it was a beautiful venue, with a lovely view of the river. To anyone planning a larger wedding, please be aware that the dance floor is in a different area from the main eating area, so we had a little bit of a hard time managing first dances and cake cutting. None of the staff was ever rude or flustered, it just seemed a little disorganized.

asked for a better venue. They accommodated all our needs and last minute changes. Highly recommended!