Metropolis Ballroom, Arlington Heights IL wedding reception | Cori and Steve [2]
Cori & Steve’s wedding and reception both took place at the Metropolis Ballroom in Arlington Heights. The ceremony was performed by one of my favorite officiants Anita Vaughan. She’s so great at what she does and it clearly shows, everyone was talking about how fun and meaningful the ceremony was 🙂
Beata from Paradise Flowers really outdid herself this time! Her flowers are always fantastic, but Cori’s bouquet is my favorite ever!!! I love me some color in bridal bouquets 🙂
The girls bouquets were pretty outstanding as well!
Right after the ceremony.
A toast to the newlyweds!
See how awesome Anita is? She only works with fun couples like Cori and Steve, so if you’re grumpy or mean you need to call someone else 😉
What a fantastic bridal party! They were supportive, fun, easy-going and cooperative…thank you all!!!
A quick little photo shoot after the ceremony, love this photo!!! They are so cute!!!
Didn’t have to try too hard to convince them to do this photo 😉 I love you guys!!
Isn’t this a great idea?
Centerpieces.
The Bride’s two brothers made quite an entrance.
The Blackhawks played a big part in Cori and Steve’s love story. Click here to read about it.
Personalized cake topper from Etsy.
Fist dance.
From Cori….
Location: Metropolis Ballroom- Arlington Heights, IL
The Metropolis and all their staff were absolutely amazing for our wedding. From the first time Steve and I saw the space, we were hooked. The location is perfect, and the venue is absolutely beautiful. We loved that they only have one event per night so literally all the attention is given to your wedding rather than some hotels where they were going to have 6+ weddings the night of our wedding. The night of our wedding was absolutely perfect. Everything went as planned and the staff was amazing. Helena was our event manager for the night, and she was beyond awesome. Without hesitation I would recommend the Metropolis to any couple looking for a unique venue. It’s not going to be the cheapest venue out there by any means, but you pay for what you get. Your money will be very well spent at the Metropolis. AND you’ll probably have a lot of fun stories about working with Michael! 😉
Photographer- Angel Eyes Photography (Duh!)
Wedding Wire asks what service this vendor provided, and only gives photography as an option. It should be photography, day of support, friendship, hours of laughs… Hilda is more than a photographer, she is an amazing person and artist! I had previous experience with Hilda through various photo shoots she had done for my family so I had absolutely NO doubt that she is who I wanted to photograph my wedding. She went above and beyond every expectation I could have had for her. From the moment she showed up at my parents house to begin shooting pictures of us girls while we got ready, to the moment she left at the end of the night she was awesome! Both Hilda AND Carol were at the top of their game that day. Carol is an amazing assistant, and between the two of them we have no doubts they got pictures of EVERYTHING (and more) that we could have hoped for. Throughout the entire day both Hilda and Carol asked on many occasions if there was anything I needed… they are the photographers, and they were concerned with how I was feeling that day. That really says something about a person! They are not only concerned with getting awesome pictures; they want you to have an amazing day as well.
Flowers: Paradise Flowers
Paradise Flowers was absolutely amazing for our wedding! Beata is the BEST! She was professional, caring, and just plain awesome throughout the whole planning process. We told her what colors, and an idea of some flowers we wanted and she went to town! She came up with amazing bouquets and arrangements! The flowers were so beyond beautiful! So many of our guests were raving about how amazing my bouquet and my girls bouquets were. The flowers looked too perfect to be real, but they were! Beata went above and beyond for us. The flowers were delivered on time with absolutely no issues. We couldn’t have asked for anything more!
Celebrant: Anita Vaughan
Anita was absolutely AMAZING! Of all the vendors we used for the wedding she was definitely one of our favorites. From the first time we met at a coffee house to the day she performed our ceremony we had absolutely zero issues with her. She really made an effort to get to know us as individual people, and of course as a couple. The ceremony she wrote for us was phenomenal! A month before the wedding she sent us her first draft, and was more than willing to change anything we wanted till it was absolutely perfect. We weren’t exactly sure what we wanted to use as a unity ceremony so she went through some options for us, and we chose what we liked best. We ended up choosing a unity ceremony we had never seen performed, nor had most of our guests. It was awesome. We got so many compliments from everyone about how enjoyable the ceremony was, and we have Anita to thank for that! We love Anita, and will definitely be keeping in touch with her even though the wedding is done! We would DEFINITELY recommend her to anyone needing a celebrant for their big day! Thank you Anita, from the bottom of our hearts; you made our special day extraordinarily amazing!
Dress/The Amazing Patti: My dress was a Maggie Sottero dress that was actually ordered through a wholesaler so I never saw it or tried it on till it was delivered to my door. It’s so “me” to take a chance like that. Once I saw the dress online I knew I wanted it, and when I couldn’t find it in any store I just decided to go for it. From the time I ordered it to the day of the wedding though I lost almost 30 lbs which meant it needed A LOT of alterations. I have to give every amount of praise and credit to the AMAZING Patti Herioux from With Love Bridal for saving the day with my dress. We started the alteration process about a month before the wedding. It took MANY fittings and so many hours on Patti’s part to get the dress perfect. I have to admit the day I tried it on and it was falling off of me I was terrified I was going to need to buy another dress, but Patti made sure that wasn’t the case. Throughout our entire wedding process Patti was nothing short of amazing. She guided us in the right direction, but totally let us do our thing, and was so proud of us when we did things right! 😉 Thanks for backing us up, P! Patti also altered my girls’ dresses which was comical in itself. The day before the wedding two of the girls’ dresses didn’t fit, so a quick overnight alteration by by Patti, we were good to go by Saturday! 🙂 http://www.withlovebridal.com/
Tuxes: The guys got their tuxes at Mr. Tux in Lake Zurich. They were pretty good/easy to deal with. Steve lost even more weight than I did, so they were good about changing out his tux to two sizes smaller. It was nice they have tuxes on the premises, so if something didn’t fit, they could switch it out very easily.
Overall, our wedding was definitely the greatest day of our lives. I am not sure that either of us could choose a favorite moment, it was all amazing. Even when things went wrong (Like the bus driver taking out the awning at the WRONG hotel and ripping the emergency latch off the top of the bus), we laughed, and now look back and laugh even more. Your wedding day will not be perfect, but it’s the imperfections that make the day what it is. We had the time of our lives with some of the greatest friends/family we could have ever hoped to have. Our wedding party was absolutely amazing and each one of them made our day that much better. If I had to choose a favorite part though, it would probably be the ceremony. Even though I was a little nervous standing up there while everyone looked at us, the ceremony was perfect. As soon as we heard that first laugh out of our crowd of guests we knew we did something right. We didn’t want the traditional ceremony we’ve seen so many times, so it was written for us, and included stories about us, and our ridiculously awesome relationship! 😉
Can we count Hilda as our favorite wedding purchase? We loved so many of the details we got for the wedding (Future couples: MANY of our wedding purchases were from Etsy. USE that site! You can find so many awesome things on there while supporting local artists!), but Hilda (and Carol) were able to capture it all in pictures that we’ll cherish forever. Not all our wedding items will be around forever, but our pictures will.
