Wesley G. Usher Memorial Park — Attraction in Addison Township

On September 23, 2017, I married the man of my dreams, but not at the location of our dreams. When my husband proposed to me at the gazebo in Usher Park, we knew that is where we wanted to get married. In December of 2016, I reached out to the Itasca Park District and was told that it was not park district property and I needed to call the village. When contacted, the village said they had previously allowed weddings but stopped several years ago. I was told that they were thinking about starting this up again and they would send it up the chain of command. Three weeks later, we finally obtained permission from the village administrator, then the HR manager, and finally the mayor. We were added to the village calendar and were told that it was ours for the day. By August of 2017, our invitations were out, we had rented chairs, decided on decorations and even hired a shuttle to bring our guests to the park since there was limited parking available.

On Thursday, September 14th, everything changed. One of our guests reached out after seeing information online about a 5K race happening at Usher Park on our wedding date. Convinced there was a mistake, I reached out to the village who assured me that they knew nothing about it and would do some research and get back to me. Several hours later, we found out one of our worst nightmares was coming true! An event was listed on the park district calendar and they obtained a permit in August. How could the village know nothing about this?!

After research, my contact at the village assured us that the 5k race wouldn’t interfere with our wedding at the gazebo. They said the 5K was going to end at noon and that they would be cleaned up and out of the park by 1:30 pm, they even offered to block off the gazebo portion of the park so we could decorate and have our chairs set up. Our wedding ceremony was due to start at 3 pm, so I was apprehensive, but hopeful. On Friday, I called the event organizer to see how we could work together to ensure both our events would be successful. Instead of feeling better about a possible fix to the problem, my worst fears were confirmed.

The event organizer was incredibly rude, told me that this was the 9th year for his event and they were going to use the entire park including the gazebo. He said he may or may not have the space cleared out by 2 or 3 pm as he had several large tents that were going to be set up and he was promised the park until 3 pm. Despite my reassuring him several times I wanted to work with him, he told me that he wasn’t willing to and hung up on me. At this point, we were devastated, how could this be happening? An entire year of planning and we were now starting over a week away from our wedding. On top of everything else, we also found out that the park was promised to a local high school for homecoming pictures at 4 pm, right when we were planning to take our own wedding pictures.

We spent the weekend scouting new locations for our ceremony and pictures. It cost us much aggravation and an additional $2,000.00, but we were lucky to find a place on such short notice. All our guests had to be called and many changes had to be made. I am so grateful that one of our guests saw the information about the race the week before our wedding. We would have shown up at the park the morning of to see tents and porta potties where our ceremony was to be!

We have yet to receive any kind of apology from anyone and are very disappointed in the Village of Itasca. My hope is that by sharing our story, it will help others avoid the frustration and tears we...

Usher park is one of my favorite parks to just take it easy. Great park located on Irving Park road in Itasca, Illinois to go for a nice quiet break from work or read your favorite book, meditate by a beautiful pond and visit the white Swans that live and are cared for by the park district. A perfect place to bring a friend for a capachino sit on the soft well kept grass, or bring a date for romantic walk and bring a picnic blanket and sit near the pond to see the swans and ducks. Buy some food from the shops that are within arms reach that are next to the park like Starbucks for an espresso or bring a snack or sit down and have some lunch or dinner from Itasca's five star full service restaurant/bars in the area just walking distance from the park. Not a sports or recreational park so you can just enjoy a nice quiet break. Surrounding the park are many historical homes, churches, shop's, the Itasca Fitness and recreational center. The train station is just across the street from the park. Just outside the parks west entrance is a small shopping center with another one of Itasca's excellent Romantic restaurants, there is a paved walking trail that takes you to the wonderful nature center located in a beautiful large park that has hiking trails that lead to other trails, that take you to the main entrance to the large part of the Nature center's forest preserve to a unique wooden bridge that splits up into different areas of the park. Take one trail and it takes you to the Nature center's visitors center and small bird zoo. Take another trail that goes into the forest with a surprisingly long walking wooden bridge that stretches across the beautiful marsh and after the bridge the natural trail will take you to the Apple orchard and just keep walking and you will pass the back of the the police and the Fire department. Then keep walking and you will arrive at crossroad that splits up in two different directions one way the trail ends at the water park located behind the Itasca Public library, The Historic train depot museum, and on the other side of library is the Itasca Fire Department, Police Dept, and the Town Hall on Irving Park road and if you continue west on Irving Park road you will see the Holiday Inn Hotel, and past the hotel is a small strip mall then the Post office, Gas Stations, and more restaurants, Rollwing Road...

USHER MEMORIAL PARK is a beautiful park in downtown Itasca. It has a beautiful pond with swans and that wonderful water fountain spraying up in the air from the middle of the pond. There is also a Gazebo with electrical power to charge your battery for your cellphone or electric scooter. Bands also play there I think once a month during the summer months. The best part is that it is open 24/7. Need a place to chill out after hours? It"s also a wonderful place for wedding photography. Can't sleep at night and need to get some fresh air at 2 or 3 in the morning? It's safe because the police are candidly passing by throughout the night. I go there almost every few days to get some feeling of peace and...