There are a lot of pretty venues besides Ashyana. I have never attended a wedding in Ashyana but have heard good things about them as well. I have a list of venues & their price list in my old laptop. But the screen is scarily messed up & I don’t think I’ll be able to dig it out for you. Classygal has mentioned couple of places, you could look into them.
Is there any particular reason you don’t wanna cater from outside? All my three days food was catered from outside & it went pretty well. Most venues allow catering from outside & most restaurants know how to take care of it. There are usually no clashes with the venue people or the restaurant people.
To make it easier. When you email or call a place. Besides telling them your date & checking their availability, first thing you should ask is if they allow outside catering. You can also specify that its because you will be serving Halal food. Places that allow outside catering will ask you if its from a licensed restaurant or caterer. If it is then they don’t have any issues. Most venues in & around Chicago are familiar with names like Usmania, Sabri, Gulshan e Devon & a guy named Masood who owns a restaurant named Parvaz in Lombard. Some people might still ask to hold a meeting 1 week before the event with the caterer to make sure everyone is on the same page.
In that meeting all they wanna make sure is what sort of food will be served so the hall people can be prepared with enough warmers & coolers. Serving style as most of the wait staff wouldn’t know the difference between our appetizers & main courses or even desserts. They also decide who will be bringing or providing the chaffing dishes & most of all most halls request at least 1 or 2 people from the restaurant or caterer to be there during the event when the food is being served.
In my case Usmania sent 2 people with them & their serving charge was $200. This charge is mostly besides the delivery charge & is so worth it.
Gulshan -e- Devon sent 1 person & the charge was $150.
Hope this helps