Minication to Milwaukee
People often ask me what I do all winter during the off-season, imagining me eating ice cream all day and watching soap operas aplenty. In actuality, the winter has turned out to be a very busy period, filled with networking, marketing, album designing, some portrait and boudoir sessions and copious consultations. While I was hoping to be able to take a bit of a vacation this winter, my schedule, as well as a desire to be a bit more prudent with my finances, made me rethink that policy. I recently went away to Milwaukee, Wisc., a city conveniently located just about two hours from Chicago, for a “minication.” We were able to have a lovely little weekend vacation for an incredibly affordable price just hours from home, and I returned feeling like I had been away for much longer and been much farther away.
The Milwaukee Art Museum is such a stunning structure, designed by Santiago Calatrava.
Inside a really fabulous infinity room at MAM.
I also went to the Mitchell Park Conservatory (”The Domes”), an interesting series of domed rooms for flowers and plants.
The room at the wonderful Iron Horse Hotel was stunning and the staff was wonderful, as well. I actually found an amazing deal on the room via Twitter. As a tip for booking rooms, whether it be for leisure or your wedding, you may wish to see if the hotels you are looking at have Twitter accounts. Many present special deals via their tweets!
A vacation is not complete without a delicious breakfast!
It can be so easy to get caught up in the busyness of everyday life, let alone the extra time and stress requirement that wedding planning can bring. I find it can be quite easy to get a little bogged down in the details of planning a wedding, and with such incredible hotel deals available these days, a little minication to a city close to yours or even just taking a weekend “staycation” in a hotel in the city you live in can be an affordable escape if a full-fledged vacation isn’t in the cards pre-wedding. Whether you go with your fiance for a weekend getaway to get your mind off wedding planning, or if you take a fun trip with a few of your girlfriends, a little change of scenery can be so restorative and refreshing.
How do you stay relaxed and regroup during your wedding planning?
Glad you enjoyed the city! Hopefully you didn’t get stuck in any of the nasty weather we had this last Saturday evening (snow-slush-rain).
The MAM is full of wedding parties when the weather warms up – it’s fun to watch when I’m not shooting a wedding myself :D
I am a BIG fan of “minications,” whether it’s actually getting away, or just taking a planning break and playing tourist in your area, doing the goofy, silly stuff you did before you got engaged and everything became all wedding, all the time!
Chicago is where we go for our mini-cations since we’re up in Milwaukee. :) Glad you enjoyed the city – we love the MAM, and we’ve been talking about trying out the Iron Horse hotel sometime just for a night out of our place, thanks for the Twitter tip! :)
