Westside Wedding venue - at last

Reading Born to be Mrs. Beever's comment *here* made me realize I never finished my follow up post about the venue search saga, whoops! I mention how it took 5 1/2 months, tons of research and then bam! I leave you with a list of BYO places, none of which are our venue...as I mentioned in that post, it was going to end up costing us more & giving us a lot more work to go this route, plus most did not meet our top 10 requirements for a venue.
Of the 70 places in my excel sheet (stay tuned for post sharing the excel) we went to see 10 of them, and there really was only one option, it fulfilled all our requirements and was the only place that had a "build your own" option, where we decided on stations, apps, buffets, desserts etc and a 5 hour bar that was affordable. We loved pretty much everything about it as soon as we walked in, funny thing is that the only reason that we went to Mountaingate Country Club was that mi amor was curious about the place & it's tennis courts & I had loved the picture of the hanging lanterns that I saw on the website. We had no intention of actually getting married there because we thought it was WAY out of our league, plus we didn't think a "country club" was our style, so we weren't worried about falling in love with the place. BUT. As soon as we drove up the hill, passing the mountain views, we both got out of the car and looked at each other, and said - what if we love it? Some how we just knew. We loved that our guest would be able to be inside for the dinner and also be able to go outside and enjoy the views. We took both our parents there and they each loved it right away, which made us even more sure and happy with our decision. In the end the research was worth it & it was a good thing we hadn't crossed it off the list just because it was a country club & we had thought we would not like it. Finding the venue took a long time but deciding it was "the one" did not. Was it easy for you to choose your venue?

The search for a venue saga

{Source Marvimon}

I've been engaged for 5 1/2 months and it took almost the whole time to find the right venue, one that we could afford but still met our requirements. I searched *everywhere*, talked to everyone I knew to find out what weddings they had gone to, I looked at forums on every wedding site in the world wide web and emailed countless sites to get info. I can't help it, when I buy something or go somewhere I have this insatiable need to research the heck out of it. It drives me crazy but in the end, whatever I decide on I have no regrets because I tried my best to be knowledgeable and make the right decisions. Although there are countless venues to choose from (hotels, restaurants, country clubs, lofts, building etc) looking for a reasonable priced venue is not easy to find in L.A. I literally had SEVENTY venues on my excel spreadsheet under the tab "NO" because either they ended early (before 11), did not allow hard alcohol or were over my budget. At first I had high hopes to find a venue that we could rent and bring in our own caters (byo), that way we can save money but considering most of the venues I found cost an average of 5K just to rent the space, it did not seem like it would save us money, in actuality it would actually cost more because there would be things like lightning, valet etc that we would have to add to the budget. My dad loved the idea of a byo place but my mom did not, she said it would cause too much stress. We went to visit Malibu West Beach Club and Ambassador Campus, we both liked Malibu West Beach Club but were concerned that there were not a lot of hotels around and also it is more of a casual space. Also, although it's on the beach, you can not go on the beach, only for pictures, besides that you have to stay in the club. I really liked the space of Ambassador Campus, I thought the all the gardens and the view of the mansion would be great places for pictures but mi amor was concerned that if it rained we would be screwed, he also thought that expenses would start adding up fast, we had to provide for lighting, table, etc, also we had to be done by 11, and he did not like that it was in Pasadena because although it's a beautiful city, it takes a while to get there from the westside.

Here are the BYO venues I found in the westside:

BYO:
The prices listed may have changed since I last contacted them:
Adamson House - 7K
Ambassador Campus - 3K
Clark Estate, Santa Fe Springs -$3,600-$3,800. Must be out by 11 p.m
Franklin Canyon Park - $250–7,000
Malibu West Beach Club - $4,000–6,000 depending on guest count & day of year
Marvimon - Downtown - $7K
LA River & Gardens Center - $6000
Rancho Sol de Pacifico - $7,000–10,000
SmogShoppe - Culver City - $7K
Temescal Gateway Park - $1,000-5,000

Runaway Bride (Literally)

Here's a fun way to get married (if you are as out there as I am). For those of you who don't know, I am an endurance athlete/distance runner and plan to celebrate my 29th birthday in Las Vegas by running one of the world famous Rock & Roll Marathon courses (the Half Marathon). Since it is Las Vegas after all, what course wouldn't be complete with an option for a RUN THROUGH MARRIAGE. That's right, you can get married while you are running the half marathon or marathon course. You can even invite your guests to run with you!

How cool would that be?! (Cue: sound of crickets.)

Is this why I'm single? Seriously. Hehe, I'm almost relieved that I have yet to find my kooky, colourful and just as addicted to running counterpart because I'm 100% certain my mother would pass out on the course as one of the guests. Also, Westside Wedding has bad knees and we can't have her injured pre wedding day!

In case you are curious here's the link to the site to register. If you end up doing this... let us know! I'll be green with envy! We'll be sure to video what we can while we're out there, kicking major race butt of course! And by we, I mean Westside Wedding, this girl (meaning me) has to a race to run!

image: Runaway bride by calanan

The first steps in my venue search

{picture from my personal collection}

I wish I could look into a magic crystal ball and it would point me in the right direction of a venue that would fit our top ten requirements & be within budget of 10K, but doing that in L.A is muy dificil! I'm not saying it can't be done, I'm sure it has been done many times, but my problem is that I don't want to do it without sacrificing too much of what we want. The past 3 months I have focused my attention on the venue since this is going to take up probably 60% of the budget and would dictate our other vendors such as florist, DJ, photographer etc. Here is how I went about trying to find a venue:

• Look through all the wedding sites.
• Make excel sheet, so I could keep track of the ones I researched. I have 4 tabs in the excel sheet 1: List of venues that are appealing and seem to be within budget, 2: Venues that are BYO (bring your own), 3: No Venues, venues that did not make the cut 4: Venues that I went to see and are a possibility. *Here* is a template for you to use for your own personal use.
  
• Add venues to excel sheet & email the ones I wanted more info from and once they gave me the info add it to excel sheet.
• Look through excel sheet and grey out those that were out of the budget, which was seriously 95% of them and those that didn't fit the bill of the top ten list.
  
• Make a list of the ones that are potential, call them and make an appointment.

How did you find your venue? Did you know right away it was the "one"?

Looking for venues...

Engaged, now where to get married? No clue. Never thought about being in a wedding or what I would want in said wedding. Luckily my future sister in law (FSIL) asked us over happy hour one day, what we wanted from our wedding and she prefaces it by saying "don't say have fun" doh! So she gave us homework - make a list of the things that you want from a venue (see list to the left) Making this list really helped when reasearching venues & kept things in perspective.
I don't know about you guys but looking for a venue has not been fun for me, but these sites have made it bearable...

1. My fave: Here Comes the Guide
2. Second fave: Project Wedding
3. Third Fav: Wedding Compass
4. Los Angeles Conservancy
   
5. Just found: Wedding Mapper
   
6. The Knot
7. Wedding Channel
8. Brides.com
9. Los Angeles Banquet Halls
   
10. The City of Los Angeles Banquet Halls