We decided to have our wedding weekend at Story Inn after searching around locally in Chicago. You cannot find this in the city! Story's grounds provided us with an intimate yet large enough setting for 150 people. We reserved the barn and were... able to have all rooms reserved by family and friends who booked and paid individually. We were able to have roughly 50 people on site, in rooms and campers which was really special to be with everyone all weekend. We even added a light brunch spread on Sunday in the barn to stretch out the time together and it worked out great.
My husband and I decorated the grounds with personalized banners on the light posts, luminaires, and other details. We worked from beginning to end with Kate. Meeting a few times on site and coordinating much via email and phone conferences. Story can offer whatever level of services you'd like, which we loved. We wanted to do a lot ourselves, but didn't want to be doing too much when it came time for the big weekend. Kate was full of great ideas, very helpful deciding on menu and drinks, suggested vendors, coordinated rentals and set-up, the list goes on including rehearsal and day-of ceremony director. She even had a vendor to provide golf carts which we were particularly excited to rent, affordable for the weekend rental and came in very handy for carting grandmas around.
The result was even better than we could imagine. We anticipated some things going wrong with everything you hear and so many details to coordinate, but everything was perfect! We rented a tent in case of rain and ended up having a dry day but pretty warm. We were glad to have the tent for shade and peace of mind.
We had a big pole tent behind the barn, big enough to seat 150 and buffet. We had an intimate ceremony in the garden, lawn games provided by Story in front of the barn and used the back of the barn as the dance floor, viewable from the tent.
We continue to hear from our guests what a special weekend we planned and how they loved the location and delicious food. The food was fantastic, all of it - appetizer spread, smoked meats, salad, 3 sides and the best bread pudding on earth! The buffet went really smooth with plenty of options and enough for seconds.
I only wish we could do it all over again! We never expected we'd be fortunate enough to have all the things we wanted for our wedding, but partnering with Story made it all possible. If you want something unique and special, this is it!