This is probably all hindsight view now to recall our quest of reception site hunting. Being able to host our reception at Walt Disney Concert Hall (WDCH) was a perfect decision and I wouldn't change my mind if we started all over. But still, it was quite a journey to get there, so we'll start from the beginning.
After proudly booking the Wayfarers Chapel in such a swift manner, the mission of flying down to LA in March for scouting was a logical next step. We got some tip from friends that good sites are normally booked at least a year in advance. Having that in mind, we started the mission. I searched through various of websites: wedding wire, the knots, project wedding, ... etc, all the popular and non popular ones. Also just went to google map, zoom to the big LA area and search for "wedding reception". Kudos to Google, a lot of great ones came up. As organized as I am (okay, that was a joke.), here's the proof of the map with all the candidates that I filtered down to. (I'm not giving Chris any credit for this and he'd agree.) We already had WDCH on the list and I was in love with it for a long time. But at that moment we both had the assumption that we wouldn't be able to afford it.
Two and half days we covered a lot of ground in big Los Angeles area. Everyday was at least a 100 miles drive. We started off right at one of the Patina Group restaurants called Leatherby's Cafe Rouge in Renee and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall. It locates in Costa Mesa and the stunning building was the key thing that drew us there. Now you see that we have a thing with funky looking places.
It wasn't open on that day (my bad on not doing the homework!). So we simply walked around the building and left.
Continue on with a beautiful sunny day we headed to Huntington Beach, just about 30 miles south of Palos Verdes but the drive would take up to almost an hour because the only way to reach there is via Highway #1. The plan was to start from there then drive down along the coast to Newport and then Laguna Beach.
The coast was beautiful as usual SoCal, the hotels had typical 5 star resort atmosphere. The ballrooms were okay. We were not particularly thrilled by any one of them and yet the minimum cost was definitely OMG-California high.
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| Hyatt Regency at Hungtington Beach - 1 |
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| Hyatt Regency at Hungtington Beach - 2 |
Going back in time, it seemed that everyone but me and my betrothed by default knew how much a wedding could cost or how huge the whole wedding business in U.S is. We didn't learn that till the very moment when the event sales handed us their beautifully binded brochure. While digesting the humongus cost estimate, the standard ballroom didn't impress us enough.
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| Hilton at Huntington Beach |
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| Marriot at Newport Beach - 1 |
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| Marriott at Newport Beach |
Moving on with some financial shock wave in mind, we came all the way to a place that I was very excited about and actually had quite some conversation with them prior to the visit. Seven Degrees.
Their reviews online were all 5 stars, the wedding pictures that people had were amazing looking. I was almost certain that this one might work out. It wasn't easy to find this place as it stood among all the neighborhood buildings despite the unique looking itself.
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| Seven Degrees - Outside |
Inside the building, the space was big enough for approx. 130 people and all the professional lighting, sound equipment were all built in already. We visited right before another wedding's ceremony, so we could see their setup. It was definitely clean and elegant.
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| Seven Degrees - Reception Room |
Since we've already had some conversation over emails beforehand, we took quite some time there to talk about details with the owner. She gave us some price break for the whole package and definitely seemed to be passionate about hosting wedding events (kinda basic attitude you'd think right? Actually you'd be surprised that a lot of places didn't give you that vibe.). Now here's the thing, we both could imagine ourselves hosting event there but none of us said: This is it! Frankly speaking, my excitement was slightly diminished since I was concerned that the place was buried among other random buildings and the surrounding neighborhood was simply odd. Well, it was still early in the game. Nothing was set in stone yet. However, it was definitely on our list.
The first day was quite productive but we were still putting hopes on the 2nd day which was Rancho Palos Verdes itself, Redondo Beach and Manhattan Beach at the north side. (To Be Continued.)
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