A couple weeks ago Jess asked Alden and I to attend an event that would benefit Association House, an organization that she is on the board of. We both said we were interested and so we went to the web site to buy tickets. It was then that I realized that this was a launch party for Architectural Anarchy, a 20,000+ square foot venue space filled with antiques and industrial furniture and salvaged goods in Pilsen. But not only that, the party was showcasing a ton of wedding vendors and was really targeted towards wedding industry professionals and brides-to-be. How ironic that I avoided all of this sort of thing while planning my wedding and then as soon as my wedding was over, I was at a wedding planning event! Oh well. It was for a good cause.

Jess was kind of all over the place for the event. She checked in with us a bunch and hung out, but at the same time she was running around selling raffle tickets and greeting people at the door. Alden and I started out with a look through an antique shop that is in the same building.. then free drinks, more free drinks, free food, and more free drinks. Haha.. kidding… but not really. Goose Island was one of the event sponsors and they had an area set up where you could taste 4 different things they made and each was paired with one of their high-end beers. All of these were really good. It made me want to go eat at the pub, but I’ve never eaten anything I really loved there.

We also ate at a “pop up” restaurant sponsored by Purekitchen. This was an area of the space where they set up a kitchen and seating, even a separate bar area. 20,000 square feet is big. You can do almost anything in that amount of space. We had samples sizes of chopped spinach salad, radish, hard-boiled egg, crispy spring onion; steamed walleye pike, asparagus panzanella, fermented carrot slaw; and allspice semifreddo, candied smoked hazelnuts, preserved cherry aigre-doux.

In another room they even had a bridal fashion show. Since this was a wedding event, there were different DJs and musicians in each room. Some rooms had crazy lighting. Every room had bars set up.

There was one whole room that was just desserts. Like truffles and cupcakes as far as the eye could see. This was my favorite room, of course.

The raffle was to win a party at Architectural Anarchy for you and 35 of your friends. With all the food and music and drinks provided by the featured vendors, the party was valued at $10,000! Alden and Jess and I must have bought at least 10 tickets but the luck wasn’t with us that night! Wah.

One of the vendors was a photo booth rental place called Shutterbooth. We could not pass this up. In fact, we visited the photo booth four times! My favorite frame from the night:

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