The Great Narrowing Down
We have narrowed our venues down to two, barring any unforeseen fantasticalness.
Carnivale Chicago
I’ve been in love with this venue since I first saw it, it’s so unique and colorful. Every time I envision the wedding, it’s here, in this space. It’s going to cap-out our budget, and we’ll have to get a little creative with everything else…but it might be worth it…before this venue I was all: “It doesn’t really matter where we get married…just somewhere kind of pretty…” but Carnivale is very “us” and they serve Latin fusion food, which we love. The window you get married in front of has this great view of Chicago over a highway, so the car lights would be a fantastic addition to that Chi-town vibe that is us.
Opera
I know it’s hard to tell from these tiny photos, and I have never seen Opera in person, but they have a lot of the same decor as Carnivale and will offer a complete shut-down for our wedding, which makes us feel like rockstars…The colors in this venue are actually a little bit more like us, sharing that industrial feel with bright colors and all…it’s also less expensive.
Ironically, they both have the same chairs and I won’t be able to decide before I check them both out once more. I know those tiny photos are not great for comparison, but you get the vibe. What do you think?
Our $10,000 Windy City Wedding 
Ooooh, that’s a tough one. Carnivale does look amazing, but I get what you’re saying with the more industrial/color splash look of Opera. Is the deal breaker money or food? And I know you mentioned Opera can be closed-down, what about Carnivale?
Either way, they are both gorgeous spaces. But you know this already. One more thing- you mentioned in your post about Carnivale that you would have to widdle your guest list from 130+ to 75, would that be the case for Opera?
@Angie:
Carnivale won’t close down, the banquet room is on the second floor, sweet space. I was misinformed about the guest count, we can invite the same # to both because it’s a food/bev minimum which we actually can eat like celebs on there for 130 people. The deal breaker could be money if I like Opera enough when I see it, but Carnivale kind of stole my heart in person…The full parking lot at Opera that would be ours though is REALLY tempting, we have to pay for valet from the food/bev minimum at Carnivale.
Thanks for your help Angie! You are fantastic at details!
Oh man…. so tough! Hopefully you make it out to see Opera in person. Either way, you’ll end up in an awesome space.
(Still biased towards Carnivale… but only because it’s our fake elopement/guerrilla wedding locale/secret wedding locale.) But Latin fusion? YUM! We definitely don’t get enough of that in Baltimore.
that’s tough, both places look great. I love Carnivale Chicago, I have never seen a venue like that. Oh my I can see the picture! It just looks so fun.
But the Opera also looks great, I love those chairs. The fact that you get the parking and they will shut it down is awesome. Seems like there is a great vibe and I bet the sound of the dj/band would be amazing.
Holy! Those places are AMAZING! I want to immediately change our wedding to chicago…only 6-7 hours drive…thats not bad, right?
So I saw Carnival and was like, Whatever! Just do it! That place is amazing! And then I saw the opera and said, “wtf!? that is too?” So it completely looks like a win either way. I’d go for less expensive and exclusive use.
Unless the latin fushion food thing gets in the way. If you can get that at the opera, do that. Or thats what I think, at least.
Cuz here is something I learned… we wanted to do our wedding for less than 10,000. Then the budget expanded to 10,000. And I was upset about that. Now…its over budget. aka unless you have more control than I do, go under budget now while you can. Then you’ll have some cush to go over budget later!
@Jen: Definitely! Thanks for the tips! I agree…if I like Opera even a little tiny bit less than Carnivale, I’ll take the savings, because it’s a great spot too. Thanks again!