Hello, I am new to the boards! My fiancee and I have both been vegetarian for years and are planning on getting married in the Chicago area. We have just started the planning stage, so if anyone has any suggestions for caterers or locations that do vegetarian food well, that would be great! We are familiar with the popular veg restaurants in the area, but are planning on having a suburban wedding to lower costs and accommodate family members. Thanks!!

No suggestions until We're all invited. ;)

VegNews magazine has an annual issue where they profile Veg*n weddings. You might look there for ideas.

Hi! My husband and I had a completely vegetarian wedding on Cape Cod, in Massachusetts. It took a lot of research, and in the end we went with a restaurant which prepared both meat and vegetarian dishes on a normal day, but worked with us to create a delicious vegetarian menu for our wedding. They ordered special ingredients for us on our request. We had hummus, pita chips, baba ganoush and fresh fruit for the coctail hour (with passed hot horderves of mushroom stuffed pastries and a few other things, I can't remember now, I was taking pictures, I didn't get to eat any!!!) For the main course, we had a lovely field green salad, and gnocchi in a roasted red pepper sauce with roasted seasonal veggies. It was awesome. We had fresh fruit sorbet as a palate cleanser between the coctail hour and dinner. Yum! And we ordered a vegan cake from a seperate organic bakery.

Don't settle for pasta primavera! :-) You can find a place to make the wedding of your dreams at a reasonable price :-)

That sounds pretty awesome...my only concern is that the cost of bringing in a restaurant caterer might be really crazy. It seems that a lot of locations such as hotels don't allow you to bring in outside food, or if they do they charge a lot extra. I am wondering if anyone knows any businesses specifically in the Chicago area that work with vegetarian couples well...I know I could bring in a caterer from a great veggie restaurant, but I think it will end up costing a ridiculous amount, so I would like to try to find catering companies or reception locations that people know can handle vegetarian/vegan requests. Also, the VegNews articles are great for ideas but they don't list specific companies that do the receptions or catering. Anyway, thanks very much for any feedback you can give!

Have you thought of contacting the local animal rights group? Perhaps there is someone who is a vegan caterer? Or a great cook who is willing to do it? Or maybe they know of a small caterer that will do it for cheap?
I'm in Toronto which is not a very vegetarian friendly city when it comes to caterers and the like (as someone posted they will take the contract and then "jip" you by serving pasta primavera and charging you more than a meat-based affair) BUT some good friends of ours got married last year and they had a woman (who is a member of the Toronto Animal Rights Society and a great cook) cater the affair...complete with DEEElicious vegan cake...My friends are indian (him) and peruvian (her) and a lot of the food was indian. The vegan lasagna was AMAZING!!! and did I mention the cake? :drool:


My friends mother (the peruvian one) insisted on making lacto-ovo vegetarian (traditional peruvian foods) and that food mostly stayed on the serving trays...whereas the vegan food was super popular and I would say that 98% of the guests at the wedding were not even vegetarians (peruvians eat a lot of meat, and he is not hindu, he is a christian indian so they eat meat...although he doesn't)

At my vegetarian wedding, we had a make-your-own taco bar. It was catered by a local "upscale fast food" place and was extremely inexpensive. I think it ended up being a couple hundred bucks to feed 120 people. $400 maybe? I don't remember.

Anyway, there were flour and corn tortillas, chips, queso, lettuce, tomatoes, black beans, spicy corn, Spanish rice, shredded cheese, sour cream and guacamole. It was a big hit, everyone loved it. And my husband and I took leftovers with us on our honeymoon. :)

We didn't "bring in" a restaurant caterer - we had the wedding at their restaurant! They had a lovely sun-room filled with hanging plants which was a perfect location, it was an indoor wedding that felt outdoors! I assure you it was not terribly expensive - from the wedding boards I frequented at the time, most people spent more on their engagement ring than we did on our wedding. I've found that when you have a separate location, and caterer, that it costs more than if you go with a package somewhere. Who says you have to get married in a hotel?

I made a LOT of calls and venue visits when we were looking for our wedding location. It took a lot of work, but we found a venue which was perfect for us. Have you contacted any chicago vegetarian societies? You have a couple vegan restaurants in Chicago, I'm sure you have vegetarian societies there that will have great recommendations for you. But first - How many guests are you having? Do you want to have the ceremony at your reception site, or offsite? Without that info it's pretty hard to give you recommendations.

A lot of the restaurants do catering and would transport to the 'burbs for a fee (or you might arrange to pick it up and hire servers). I know Karyn's Cooked has done a few weddings (I don't know what size), and their food is fantastic. (I mean, REALLY good!)

If you're not vegan, Whole Foods has some good catering options as well. I think they'd work with someone who was vegan, but the prepared menus I've seen have a good bit of dairy.

Bleeding Heart Bakery http://www.thebleedingheartbakery.com/ makes good cakes (including wedding cakes), but I've heard rumors that they were closing?

You and your fiancee might consider what kind of food you like and work on that as a theme. That is, if you dig Chinese, then contact a local caterer/restaurant with some ideas in mind.

Catering list from Earthsave Chicago (mostly restaurants):
http://vegchicago.com/site/catering.html

The VegNews site has all the old Wedding Issues on their too. There are a couple from the Chicago area, I think even one of this year's couples).

I'm actually looking for vegetarian restaurants in Chicago for a trip coming up and found this veggie restaurant which caters - and they specifically mention vegan wedding cakes: http://www.veggiediner.com/catering.html

Thank you to everyone who has responded so far! Feel free to keep the suggestions coming. To answer bstutzma, we are planning on having around 200 guests and will be having the ceremony offsite from the reception. So while it would be ideal to have the reception at a place that already does great veggie food, I don't know many that could fit 200 or so people inside. Definitely not Chicago Diner, Blind Faith, Karyn's, Alice's, etc. Basically, the veggie restaurants in Chicago are all pretty small. That was why I was thinking we will probably have to go with a hotel or banquet hall...

I wonder if these restaurants haven't run into that problem before - that their space is too small. It might be worth it to call and ask if they bring food to another location. As long as your hall doesn't mind them bringing in food, you might have your answer there. (I think caterers are used to hauling food and linens and dishes from one location to another, anyway.) I envy you taste-testing all those vegan cakes!