St. Patrick’s Day Saturday in Chicago…

Our greenest day of the year.

If you are The Chicago River, anyway.

And for those of you who haven’t seen it up close and personal, yes, it actually is THIS bright green.

Like it is uplit with important, mood enhancing visual lighting from within.

One of our brides, Amanda, was in today from Boston.  Her father was all smiles, describing how they went downtown for the parade, and he “finally” got to see the legendary river.

It really is unbelievable.  You can’t believe it is THAT color by nature, or otherwise, even just for a few hours.

This spectacular transformation to glowing green ranks right up there with the parting of the sea by Moses and the Pyramids of Egypt.

For the past 43 years the Chicago River has been dyed the color green IDENTICAL to the greens of Ireland from where it got its name “The Emerald Isle.”

But here is a secret few folk, even locals, know: the dye is actually ORANGE in color, and its initial color on the surface of the river is orange.

Watching it go into the water, you would think to there was a major color error.  But, after a moment or two you then see the true color magically appear.

The committee experimented with a number of vegetable dyes and after a bit of trial and error, the current 40 lbs of new dye was hit upon. It produces a carpet of green for four or five hours.

The flamboyant founder, Stephen Bailey had a field-day with the press when he announced he was changing the Chicago River to the Shannon River for one day.

Be careful out there…the sidewalks are jammed with feather boas, spandex pants, bobbing shamrock antennae headbands, leprechaun hats, and anything and everything GREEN.

photo credit:  Bing

-Debi Lilly