Chicago Athletic Association Hotel

Please consider hosting your wedding at the Chicago Athletic Association Hotel - I PROMISE you will have the best weekend of your life.

We hosted our entire wedding weekend at CAA 11/26-11/28/2021: rehearsal dinner at Cindy's, getting ready hotel suites in the morning (Millennium King for girls, Founder's for guys), TopGolf suite on our wedding morning, ceremony in the Madison Ballroom, cocktail hour at Game Room, reception in White City Ballroom, late-night Shake Shack delivery, and brunch the next morning in the Madison Ballroom. Each step of the way, we had the most incredible, knowledgeable, and responsive staff assisting us from our initial Zoom tour (we booked our wedding from out of state during lockdown if that speaks to the level of trust we had in this hotel!) through the last second of our wedding weekend. I cannot emphasize how wonderful the communication was with all of the staff from start to finish and I found that to be quite unique to this hotel during our wedding venue search.

To begin, the location of the hotel cannot be beaten. CAA has the most beautiful views of Millennium Park and the city overall by far. It is also convenient to get to the hotel itself. There is valet parking for guest convenience in case some need to drive in, easy to take public transportation here, and it is walkable to and from many popular areas of the city.

Next, the hotel itself is visually stunning. It is the coolest mix of historic, gothic, and ornate with a modern twist due to its' renovation/reopening in 2015. I highly recommend the hotel during the holiday season since their holiday decor is some of the most beautiful I have ever seen. Additionally, the view of the gorgeous, huge Christmas tree at Millennium Park adds to the magic! I stayed in two different hotel rooms, a standard guest room the night before the wedding and the Millennium King Suite the night of the wedding (which was also our getting ready suite). Both rooms were very clean, comfortable, and had all the amenities I could need. Depending on the location of your hotel room, your view out of the window may vary significantly (as would be the case in any hotel) which may affect how dark your room may be at baseline. Some rooms have very little natural light due to the particular location in this historic building and this is something I wanted to note, but it did not impact my experience at all. The bedroom in Millennium King Suite had some of the best natural lighting in the entire hotel (and obviously incredible views as it overlooks Millennium Park), so if this is important to you I highly recommend this room.

What brings all of these things together is the staff and service at the hotel, it is nothing short of incredible! Kelsey did nearly everything for us during the lockdown and ensured we had a smooth booking process after the venue we previously booked went into foreclosure, Kathryn assisted us with our room blocks and put our mind at ease with each part of that process, Budi was our wonderful catering manager and answered all of our questions in a timely fashion (he also ensured we had the best wedding weekend ever!), Mary made sure we were set up for success with food and drink on the morning of our wedding and brunch, and the banquet captains were nothing short of incredible in helping our wedding flow perfectly. Everyone from the valet employees and concierge to the chef truly wanted us to have a perfect weekend and it showed.

Chef Juan Hernandez curated the most incredible tailored menu dishes based on my husband and I's favorite foods. We could not stop talking about how amazing the food was at our tasting, and our guests had the same reaction on our wedding night! We will remember this forever.

I have nothing but positive things to say about the hotel and the most INCREDIBLE things to say about our experience during our wedding weekend. This hotel will forever be home to us now and we cannot wait until the next time we get to stay there!