Morgan Manufacturing Wedding

January 29, 2024

Happy Tuesday! We got through the holidays – which honestly is bittersweet! We love spending time with family and friends but it feels like time flies even faster so we left the blog for a few weeks to fully enjoy our December. We cannot be more excited to dive back into blogging, first sharing Katie & Pat’s gorgeous wedding at Morgan Manufacturing! Morgan Manufacturing is an industrial wedding venue in the West Loop of Chicago, perfect for large gatherings because of how large the space is.

We got some insider’s scoop from Katie & Pat, some questions may be helpful to review if you’re planning on getting married at Morgan Manufacturing!

When did you start dating? When did you get engaged? When did you get married?

We started dating November 2, 2013 (wow it’s been a minute!), Engaged August 10, 2019 and FINALLY married August 13, 2021

What was the biggest ‘insider’s tip’ you learned about your venue throughout the planning process? Anything future Morgan Manufacturing couples should know?

We hired Danielle after we picked our venue, we had plans to hire a planner but got ahead of ourselves and looked at venues and fell in love with Morgan MFG. I wish I would have first hired Danielle then did the venue search, I am not sure if I would have picked somewhere else but I think I would have loved to have Danielle’s input throughout the venue picking process. Morgan is such an interesting venue, you have a massive main room and then a concrete bar area with a sunken dance floor in the other space (as well as an upstairs which we used for family pictures after the ceremony!). The venue is very big (which means more places to decorate and add a touch to – just to keep in mind) Plus the lighting is darker so plan to pay for the pin lighting and uplighting throughout – I was hesitating this- thank goodness for Danielle that insisted we spend the extra money on it because it made such a huge difference! We softened up the venue with TONS (and I mean TONS) of candles, it brought such a warm feeling to the space. We also had some big centerpieces- 5 different designs to be exact- each having their own elements added to the space, some suspended, some full lush garlands, tall standing towers etc. It broke up the room nicely. Morgan’s furniture is also great! We used the clear ghost chairs for our wedding ceremony but then used the iron chairs for the reception ( it makes it feel like a completely different space) We also loved their tables – so much so that we did not use table clothes on them, just simple shear runners. The staff at Morgan was wonderful to deal with, very accommodating to all the dates changing and all the different vendors coming in setting up and planning our big day.

Was there anything you spent money on that you regretted in the end?

I don’t think I regret any money spent, what I will say that I regret was not having the videographer make just a film of our wedding ceremony, we paid extra and we have all the raw footage (if you are contemplating doing that or think it is a waste- DO IT!) I forever have all the clips from the day, speeches etc. I do have the ceremony, but in clips, I wish I spent the couple extra hundred bucks to have them film the whole thing in one take vs having to watch it back in clips.

What’s the tastiest thing your caterer provided that others should try if they use the same company?

Food was one of the most important things to Pat and I, we have been to so many weddings that the food wasn’t great – or we were leaving ordering a pizza or asking an Uber to stop in a McDonalds drive thru on the way home. Our goal was to have different options of food so everyone could find something that they liked and we wanted so much food that everyone was full when they left! We ended up picking J & L and it was absolutely amazing. They were so accommodating throughout the whole rescheduling process. We even had another tasting closer to our August 2021 wedding because we forgot the food we planned on and wanted to tweak things since we were getting married in a different season! Everything they made was so great, they created things for their menu just for us including a mini walking taco, mini pancake stacks, etc. Everything was beyond Pat or my expectations! For our sweets we had “Billy” the Firecakes donut truck come in and Dipsy Desserts ice cream cart come – both were amazing and added such a fun element to the night – everyone was blown away with all the extra details (including the custom chocolate coins from Dipsy with P + K on them!)

What’s your favorite part of the entire wedding day?

Katie —
It is hard to pick one moment from the day, the ceremony was beautiful, marrying my best friend is something I spent so long dreaming about and it was obviously the most meaningful part of the day! Other than the actual ceremony, I think my favorite moment from the day was when Pat and I walked into our reception place for the first time when it was ready to go. We had a moment just the two of us, in pure disbelief of our incredible vendor team and the work they did for us. It was such a long time in the making so being able to take a few minutes before everyone came in and see the space was just so special. I remember Pat saying “Now I get what you and Danielle were doing!”

Pat —
I took my one role of being in-charge of entertainment seriously, we hired the best DJ- Bryen Hall. He made sure dinner had hits playing and not the classic Italian dinner soundtrack that is normally played. We also had a live musician for our ceremony and cocktail hour, Cary Kanno. Katie’s parents really wanted a live band for the reception and we did this as a present to both of our parents which they really loved, and it added a special touch to the ceremony too. My personal favorite was the wizard walking around our cocktail hour.. Magician Benjamin Barnes – it was something we have never seen at a wedding before, Katie told me I could do whatever I wanted for cocktail hour, she was a little hesitant at first but ended up loving having him there for everyone. Everyone (including myself) were blown away with all the details throughout the day – Katie really picked the best vendors to make the day great.

Did you end up spending under budget, just around what you were hoping to spend, or more than you budgeted? Any obvious reason you could share why you were under/at/over budget?

I’m not going to try to fib here, we definitely went over budget. We went into planning thinking it was going to be a certain amount, we didn’t realize everything adds up quick! Plus when we got moved our wedding date so many times, prices for some of our vendors went up (to no fault of their own!) Unfortunately COVID made some of the prices jump due to availability, shortage of labor etc. At the end of it we were really happy with everything we had and paid for and don’t regret any decisions that were made.