Hello,
I'm in a strange situation. I'm looking to find a venue in Chicago that does not require you to use their preferred catering list. My uncle has graciously offered to pay for our catering bill, and has a licensed and insured colleague to do the wedding for us. My uncle is in the food industry and this is so helpful for our budget. The problem is, I cannot find many places that will allow outside catering. He's on the preferred list to a few places but they don't have availability for our date. Even the Park services require their own preferred list. I'm starting to run out of ideas. We found one place but its a bit too cramped. Either I reduce the guest list (which would make my fiance happy) or we move it to the suburbs of Chicago. We're pretty fixed on the date as my fiance's entire family is flying out from England. Any ideas?