weddings in LA « The Imaginary Wedding

Category: weddings in LA

Friday, February 5th, 2010

On how my original imaginary location is out

We visited my original imaginary location on the last day of the great wedding location search. It was the 5^th location we saw that day and getting there involved a boat. We were zonked, but watching the sun set across the water was the epitome of wedding romance. I imagined our guests looking at the moon glistening on the water and was giddy. And we saw the beautiful ballroom again and I really wanted it to happen. Wasn’t it my special day? Weren’t all my dreams supposed to come true—damn the expense? The lovely lady we talked to came back with a quote, and it was at the top of our budget–to my eternal gratitude she made it workable.

But…The space was too big for us—a ballroom for 300 not our 120. And we wouldn’t have the cash for a big band or outrageous cocktails which, believe me, is what the space calls for. (And giant centerpieces with feathers!) So we thought about other ways we could do it, and we thought some more. And then we said no to my original imaginary wedding location. So sad, but the right thing to do.

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Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010

On the new imaginary wedding contenders

We have looked far, we have looked hard. Sure we have only been looking for ten days. But in those ten days, I have virtually reviewed over 500 LA wedding locations online, and we have visited 25. We’re done. If there is something else out there, I can’t find it. We’ve seen parks, halls, hotels, lodges, ranches, houses, and ballrooms—even a beautiful sub-power station (which was amazing!). But now we have 4 real possibilities—and one of them is my original fantasy wedding locations.

So we are reflecting. We are going to crunch the numbers. We are going to get married! And any of these will be fun/beautiful/meaningful! Yay!

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Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010

On being obsessive

I’ll admit it: I’ve become obsessed with our wedding location. Last night I couldn’t make myself go to bed, I just wanted to get to location 350 on weddingwire.com: click, click, click. The man I love had to practically pry the computer out of my hands. But there is a lot out there. And I really want to find us a great, affordable location. And I don’t want to look for 5 month–I want to get married this year. So in LA where things book up over a year in advance, time is of the essence. So what if I see location pages every time I close my eyes and my dreams are formatted like websites?

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Friday, January 22nd, 2010

And then his mother called

The man I love’s mother checked out the place in Burbank online. She called, outraged at the prices. She’s done salmon dinner for 100 in her house in Cincinnati for $1,200! How could we even think about spending that much!

She made a few suggestions: cut our guest list in half, no one needs appetizers, and no open bar. Which as far as I can tell means no friends and no fun. We want to invite 100-120. 50 of those are family.

The man I love was crushed. We had found an acceptable Los Angeles location, and one or two other possibilities, and were feeling like we had done pretty well so far. But she was basically saying we were crazy, and that we shouldn’t think of spending more than $6000. Which in LA covers the rental fee of the cheapest place and—maybe—an app?

I get it; I really do. $10,000+ is a lot of money! It is crazy!

I threw a wedding in our backyard for my first wedding for around $6,000. I know what to do; I know I can do it. But the man I love wants a Wedding, with dinner and dancing. I’d really like to walk down an aisle. And, honestly, for our numbers, our backyard is too small.

So I’m going to put together an under $10,000 wedding proposal for here in LA. And we’ll see what that looks like, and we’ll see if that’s what we want to do.

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Tuesday, January 12th, 2010

On wedding budgets in LA

Yes, it seems it is even worse than I thought. I have a friend: she’s an awesome producer. She produced her own wedding, and if anyone can bring in great production value for less, she can. So I always imagined her wedding as the extra, super crafty budget wedding. Here’s how much I imagined she spent: $12,000. I just asked her how much she spent: $25,000. In LA, the budget wedding is $25,000. Mother of god.

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Monday, January 11th, 2010

My Imaginary Wedding

So we waited for a while, enjoying things, and then I called up my imaginary wedding venue. The rental fee is reasonable—this I already knew. The per person dinner fee: $42-96. Heavy, but possibly ok. Here’s what I didn’t know: there is a $12,000 food and beverage minimum. Whaaaaat?! They sent over a handy dandy sheet: just location, food and beverage, set up, and insurance: around $22,000. !!!!

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