My brother and his third fiancee were looking for a place to get married. He is an on and off Catholic and she is a devout Methodist, so a Church wedding was out on the basis of the arguments alone. They called me as I had been to Chicago countless times for presentations. Partially, for selfish reasons and partially because I did think it would be a beautiful venue I recommended Smith & Wollensky. I had seen it 3 or 4 times, but just could never justify using it myself, because the view was amazing and in presentation world distractions are a problem. They flew me up, because I had experience dealing with venues. I helped them get the booking and the layout set-up done. I then flew home to get my wife and kids. When we showed up for the wedding... it's one thing to know a location is beautiful naturally, it's quite another to have a beautiful location arranged and decorated beautifully... I was blown away. To Mary's(My brother's wife) credit, she chose, grey, blue(the baby/sky blue)and this off yellow/gold color. On top of having an evening wedding they had opened all of the windows and doors to the outside. There was a light breeze and with the gloaming outside the inside lighting was accentuated. The affect was incredible. After the wedding, about 12 employees and 24 of the guests(Midwesterners have problems not working when we someone else doing it.) began shifting the chairs from the wedding into a well hidden closet and pulling out the tables for the reception. In about 20 minutes the tables were set-up and another 20 minutes later they were set for the reception. Without the guests helping, it might have taken and extra 20 minutes, but under an hour for the whole change would have been amazing. A number of the guests were doubling as a band/orchestra at the couples request and that was the night. A beautiful view and a beautiful venue. At the end of the night, the scene couldn't have been better as the lights reflected beautifully off the Chicago River and the music slowly died down and people slowly filtered out. It's a relief to see a brother who has commitment issues finally get married, but to be able to have a venue like this as the backdrop is just an incredible memory.