Just wanted to share in case this helps anyone with planning.
We got married Jan 29 
Venue and Catering
The Morton Arboretum, Lisle A++
The venue was incredibly accomodating and easy to work with. We got married in the Founder's Room (the smaller venue) and it was spectacularly beautiful. It was really nice having this little cottage out in the middle of the arboretum to ourselves for the wedding, the ceremony in one room, cocktail hour and receiving line out into the hall, then into the next room for the reception. So easy and we saved a lot on transportation. The food was sooo good and the waitstaff were amazingly fast and attentive. There was like 1-2 per table (way more than the average, I think) and they came up to everyone constantly throughout the reception offering drinks. I have not one complaint. I was totally wowed and grateful.
Cake
The Cakery,Lisle A+
They were part of our food package so we didn't have a choice anyway, but I would still have chosen them. The cake was beautiful, they were easy to work with and offered a limitless options when we were ordering it,and it was the best CAKE I have ever eaten, let alone wedding cake. I'm not kidding. It was fantastically delicious.
Photography
White Photography B+
We didn't want to spend a lot of crazy money on photography, so we shopped around to find a 3-hour package for pre-ceremony portraits of family and wedding party, and pictures throughout the ceremony. It was $495 for 3 hours and a digital CD of all the pictures. Simple, no crazy staged fancy pictures, affordable, exactly what we wanted. Easy to work with.
My mom made my dress (which was soooo beautiful), we did all our own paper stuff with kits from Michael's, my husband's dad's wife did all the flowers (red roses), and we didn't have to rent any transportation because of our venue. So we had money left over to honeymoon in Costa Rica for 2 weeks afterwards!
PS I highly recommend a winter wedding to anyone. It is so romantic, you get a lot of discounts from vendors since it is slower, you don't have to compete with 50 other couples for dates, vendors, etc, and I have one last word: honeymoon. How much sweeter is it to escape Chicago for the tropics in February than in June? So sweet. Hello, yearly anniversary couple trips!!