Magnificent Milestones

Magnificent Milestones is the best store in Chicago! I was VERY specific about how I wanted my wedding invitations to look and I went to Magnificent Milestone and was blown away by the way I was treated, how much fun I had with them, and how amazing the final product turned out! I worked with Kara, the owner, and she has to be the cutest person I’ve ever met. I actually wanted to be friends with her. Not only is she the sweetest, but she is SO good at what she does! She saw my vision and worked with me for hours to create my dream final product! I sent her emails at all hours telling her tiny details and colors and things I wanted to change. I was SO annoying and knit picky, and her responses were always fast, efficient and she did EVERYTHING I asked and was SO fun to work with! They were perfection! I’m not kidding when I say everyone talked about my invitations and raved about my wedding programs and she even did my sticker for our water bottles and little tags for our welcome bags and they COULD NOT have been cuter. If you want to work with the most professional and amazing people look no further and go into Magnificent Milestones and have fun planning your wedding invitations or any invitations! You could spend hours in that store with all the cute things they have! Whenever Kara was busy with another client I also worked with Sara and could not have been more impressed with her! She always got right back to me and helped me with anything and everything and was a joy to work with. Now that my wedding is over I actually miss working with Magnificent Milestones!

Magnificent Milestones is a store that carries gifts, stationery, as well as custom wedding invitation designing. I first heard about this store when they had a special ‘brides-​to-​be’ event — as an event planning company, they organized trips to local Chicagoland venues, providing transportation to offer the opportunity in sampling various catering companies’ culinary delights, as well as a chance to talk with the event planners. The distance catering companies are willing to travel to and finding out the specific services a venue uses were all helpful information to find out. There was a great turn-​out, and this is one event that I highly recommend brides-​to-​be to check out and to sign up for.
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Magnificent Milestones is, without a doubt, one of our top three wedding vendors! Kara, the owner, is a rock star and is such a pleasure to work with! She has been unbelievably professional, prompt, and responsive with respect to everything – the initial proposal, the proofs, and any concerns (very minor ones) we have had. We received all proofs and our final invitations in record time. Our invitations, which feature custom artwork by my fiancé, are absolutely stunning! We are just waiting for our addressed envelopes from her calligrapher, but based on the calligraphy on our invitations, I am certain that the envelopes will be gorgeous as well!

My then fiancée (now wife) and I visited Magnificent Milestones several months ago to look into purchasing invitations for our wedding. They had one particular, unique style in which we were interested which consisted of a gatefold design with a printed 5″ x 7″ card and an envelope. The person helping us would not give us a quote on the spot, but instead emailed the quote a couple days later. We were astounded to learn that what we wanted would cost about $ 28 per invitation! This was way out of our budget so we looked online and found a very similar substitute for the cards and envelope that would cost significantly less. However, the gatefold portion of the design was unique so we were still interested in it. I contacted our person there and indicated that we wanted to purchase only the gatefold portion, which had a line-​item price on the quote we received, and that we would source the card and envelope elsewhere. After consulting the owner, she informed me that she would not sell the gatefold portion separately as they had a policy against this, stating that because it was a design unique to them, they did not want to take the risk that the total package would not look good together. I told her that I would assume that risk and not hold them liable if the card and envelope I picked out did not fit correctly or did not look good with the gatefold. She flat-​out refused.
I know of no other industry or business that would willingly turn away approximately $ 800 in business this way and I do not recommend you bother rewarding this company with your business.

I had the pleasure of working with Kara from Magnificent Milestones on my wedding invitations and rehearsal dinner invitations. I heard about their company from several wedding planners all who said MM was THE place to go with. I met with them early on to learn about the process and peruse. Kara was so patient with me. She gave me a great overview and helped me figure out what I wanted. We looked through dozens of options. She sent an estimate and I compared it to other stationery stores in the Chicago area and it was very competitive and actually less than a lot of other stores I looked at. I met with her several more times to go over lots of details and she was always so patient with me and gave me plenty of time and attention at our appointments. Very professional and fast turnaround. When we were making edits on the final details of the invitation she would often email me back within an hour or two with updates. Our invitations were so beautiful and we got numerous compliments on them. I will definitely use MM again and would recommend them to friends.
Additionally, beyond wedding stationery, they made really nice personal thank you cards for me which I love and also have the cutest store with great unique gifts for all occasions.

Magnificent milestones
Working with Kara and her team was great. Kara is so nice and knowledgable. She has a great selection of wedding invitations. After picking one she sent us quotes right away and answered all my emails right away. Sending her wordings and guests lists were really easy because she has templates to help you along the way. She sent proofs back really quickly and did a great job. Anyone looking for any kind of invitation I would strongly suggest going to Magnificent Milestones. Thank you Kara and your team for such a wonderful job. I could not be any happier.

Magnificent Milestones is a great place to customize invitations and stationary, as well as a shop for delightful gifts and cards. I worked with Charlotte on a design for my wedding invitations; Although I ended up going in a different direction, I was really impressed with the level of service and attention I got from Charlotte. She seemed to be genuinely excited for our wedding and the design we picked!
I’ll definitely work with Magnificent Milestones again!

They printed the names and addresses on my save the dates in a tiny, barely legible size font. Instead of fixing the mistake, we had to pay for the envelopes all over again!

A good neighborhood resource to pick up a quick pre-​printed card to express perfect manners for a social event or gratitude.
A boutique paperie that specializes in Chicago themes.
As far as wedding invites go… letterpress and highly ordinary. I understand that it’s all about satisfying the customer, but wordiness on invitations (taste vs tasteless) with a difficult to read font is tacky. The reason for sending wedding invitations is to convey manners and class. Formality. There are NO samples of hand calligraphed cards. HOWEVER, it’s a great one stop shop of all the available papers instead of hunting for it on the net.
OTHER products are candles, makeup bags, bridesmaid bag, books.

My older sister used MM for her wedding invites, programs, escort cards, etc and they turned out absolutely beautiful and the work done by Kara was amazing. When my turn came it was second nature to go here-​unfortunately Kara was on her maternity leave and we used a different associate. She had her high points-​but also a lot of low ones that included overcharging us, not correctly ordering the number of invitations, and having to be told (by management) to work with the printer to fit our music in the program. Everything in the long was beautifully done and on time-​but was it worth some of the added stress and back and forth? Eh… work with Kara or go elsewhere would be my recommendation

I chose to take a look at Magnificent Milestones because they are a block fom where I live. I had no idea I would also end up with the most amazing people (kudos to Lindsay) to help make my wedding invitations simply gorgeous. They worked within our budget and fine-​tuned every detail we requested. I can not wait to mail out the invites next month! I would highly recommend them for weddings, showers, parties… anything!

Kara and Magnificent Milestones are wonderful vendors to work with for your dream wedding! My now husband and I chose Kara for all the unique, creative, original designs she had. We met with several invitation /​paperie vendors before choosing Kara. We were married at the Trump Chicago and when we spoke to Kara about our visions and overall feel she came up with the most beautiful options, that’s when we knew she was the one. Kara was always on time, early in fact and dealt with all of our last minute changes not to mention my random ideas. Kara did every single paper item for our wedding, STD’s, invites, ALL the day of including signs, escort cards, menu’s, calligraphy, etc. Out of all of the compliments we received from our wedding guests hands down it was our unique wedding invites. Magnificent Milestones is more then a invitation shop, it’s a place to go to pull you entire wedding dream, design and vision together. Thank you Kara! Please feel free to reach out to me with any questions!

Kara did our wedding invitations, and is now doing our rehearsal dinner invites. She is absolutely talented and amazing. The invitations well exceeded our expectations. She took our vision and really brought it to the next level. I highly recommend her for any paper need. She’s thoughtful, thorough, and attentive to what you are requesting. She treats paper with care and really maximizing all options. It’s endless in her cute little storefront!!! THANK YOU!!! And can’t wait to see everything else :)!

We had Kara do all of our paper products for our Wedding last month, and it all came out fantastic! We had a lot of great comments on our invitations and save the dates. Even my guy friends who normally couldn’t care less about invitations said they couldn’t believe how great ours were!
Kara gave us some great ideas on how to include all the information we wanted for our guest with our invitations: rehearsal dinner boat cruise, cocktail cruise, wedding/​reception and brunch info had to go to the correct guests. Everything went off without a hitch.
We highly recommend Magnificent Milestones. Of course, I would be clear with your budget, as everything adds up quickly. It was worth it– I can actually believe that high end magazines are interested in publishing our invites/​place cards etc.- they were that great!

I absolutely adore Kara from Magnificent Milestones ! I married my wonderful husband this past July and used the boutiques services for many of my wedding planning needs.
I worked with Kara for my Wedding Invitations, Rehearsal Dinner Invitations and Welcome Bag stationary (welcome letter, map of Chicago, top 5’s, and schedule of events.) Kara guided me through the selection, design, ordering and assembly of all aforementioned paper products. Kara could not have made me feel more comfortable, appreciated and excited about the process. Kara is a true professional and makes you feel as though you are the most important and only bride she works with. All emails and telephone calls were immediately responded to and she is impeccably organized.
I could not have been happier with how everything turned out. My invitations were gorgeous and I was downright giddy when I picked them up. I received overwhelming amounts of compliments regarding all of my paper products.
Kara has fantastic taste and style. She knows how to put a bride at ease while coordinating many of the important elements for her special day. I felt completely at ease and comfortable.

I plan on using Magnificent Miles for my «We Have Moved» in March and «Its’ a Boy» in May And I can’t wait to visit Kara in her new fab studio in River North!

I absolutely loved working with Kara for our wedding invitations! I was so happy with her service, and would recommend Magnificent Milestones to anyone I know looking for high quality wedding stationary and other wedding day paper items. Not only do you get high quality, rich looking products… but the other great part is that Kara’s expertise and creativeness are included! Our invitations came out beautiful, we had so many compliments on them. The ideas that Kara comes up with are amazing, and she really did some fun and unique things with our other wedding day paper products (programs, menus, coasters, and welcome bag cards)!
It was hard not to take credit for all her creativeness when we got so many compliments on everything on the wedding day and the days following :)

I cannot, cannot say enough good things about Kara Underwood (owner) helping me with my wedding invitations.
I had always assumed I would order my invitations via
or something. I saw something online there and fell in love with it. However, I decided I wanted to see the invitations I was ordering in person first, so I made an appointment here with Kara. I saw the invitations in person and Kara was running a monthly promotion for 10% off so I decided to just go through her.
Fast forward a few days later, and I decided that the price of the invitations is a stretch on my budget. I call Kara back up and ask if I can come back in for another appointment. She happily obliges — upon my arrival, she had a book of invitations that were much easier on the wallet and extremely similar in style to the expensive ones I wanted. She sat with me and told me all the different things I could do (font changes, colors, the size of the paper) to make my invitations unique. In addition, She made what I wanted fit my budget by changing around printing type, from two colors to one, and showing me how to add embellishments to still get the same effect. She was focused entirely on me during the session, and never once flinched with impatience over my indecisiveness.
I am waiting for the invitations to come in, but all signs point to good! Highly, highly recommend. A bonus — she has tons of good wedding advice — if I hadn’t already booked my Day of Coordinator — I’d probably be after her.

Magnificent Milestones is tucked inside an adorable store called «Smitten», and that’s exactly what you will be with Kara, her invitations, and everything else adorable in this store!
Kara Underwood is phenomenal! She is extremely personable, fun, easy going, totally professional, and really really knows her stuff. She had me go through a large box of invitations and put aside anything that stuck out to me — font, paper size, color, layout, design, etc. I wasn’t sure how she was going to take all those things into account for the next step, but it totally worked. Everything I pulled was from one of three companies. How crazy is that?! And she carries upwards of twenty companies, so that was a pretty neat trick!
Next she had me look through both books and talk about paper color, ribbon colors, font, etc. I got down to two styles I really liked, one a little more than the other, but I figured it would be completely out of my budget. It wasn’t! Her prices are really reasonable, and she line items everything out; how much things cost (invite, reception card, accommodation card, rehearsal dinner card, etc) and how many I would need based on out of towners, families, etc. I didn’t even think about that, which will definitely save money.
She also knows all of the etiquette on the actual prose of the invitations, where it should go, what it traditionally says, etc.
She has made this a really enjoyable experience for me, and I will definitely be recommending her to all of my friends for any kind of invitation needs!

If you are looking for invitations for any occasion (specially Wedding invitations) this is by far the best place in the city!
I didn’t know where to start when it was time to get my wedding invitations and was pretty overwhelmed by the process. I went to several places for invitations both large and small shops and had no luck finding what I was looking for. I had an idea in my head on what I wanted my paper to look like for my wedding but every other store told me that I had to pick what was in their book and didn’t even take time to sit with me and come up with ideas on how to achieve the look I was going for.
Then, I walked into Magnificent Milestones and met Kara. She is unbelievable. She sat with me for an hour and half during our first meeting and helped me customize my save the dates, invitations, menus, and place cards by taking elements from 4 different invitations and combining them together to 1 beautiful look for all my different paper. That is definitely something no one else I met with had even told me was an option. I immediately trusted her opinion and ideas. I met with her 3 other times after that before even ordering my invitations to make sure everything was right (I even brought in my fiancé and she helped me explain to him why the engraved save the dates on charcoal paper were amazing :)
I highly recommend meeting with Kara Underwood at Magnificent Milestones for your wedding invitations. The prices are very reasonable and if you give her your budget, she will find ways to help you achieve the look you are going for while staying in your price range. She is great about getting back to you right away with any questions you have and totally gets the whole wedding planning process. She saved me a lot of time and stress which I am sure any bride-​to-​be appreciates!

I was married this past June and had a great experience with Kara. She assisted with everything from the venue to all vendors to setup and breakdown. She was even quite patient when I hadn’t picked up the remaining items from my wedding at her shop for a very long time. Even after the wedding we were emailing about the new dog I adopted and she recommended places where I could board him. She is professional, very pleasant to work with, has great style, and made my day one that I will never forget.
I response to being whisked off to different venues and being stuck with certain caterers and cuisines… that is the venue itself. There are several that have a preferred caterer which has nothing to do with coordinator (Kara). That is an agreement between the venue and the specific catering companies. If that is a problem I would specify that I was either A. looking for a specific cuisine or B. Looking to have a venue where I could bring in my own caterer of choice.
All in all Kara made great recommendations, we loved our venue, the food was spectacular, the entertainment was great, the transition times were smooth. My only critique is our budget was missing some things at the beginning ie dress and favors we ran out of money for. But all minor and afterall, it is your wedding and your money, you should be mindful of it.