The Quest of Reception Site - Part II

First of all... Happy 2 months!

The most common question we got during this time was "How's married life?"  Well, we don't instantly become super matured and grown up base on the fact that my hubby is right now indulging in playing Starcraft II with his buddies. Marriage life has been great!  We finally had couple laid back weekends just to wander around and enjoy the summer.  The easy breezy normal life is a good start. 

Alright, to celebrate the two-month milestone, here we are to continue the part II of the journey of reception site hunting.

My grandparents live in Pasadena for 30+ years and it's a really beautiful city.  Second day in LA we started with The Langham Huntington Hotel in Pasadena.  It's a truly grand and historical place.  I loved the overall royal feeling and the exterior look.  It was serene while standing on the hill overlooking the picturesque San Marino.

The Langham Huntington Hotel, Pasadena

If we were hosting our ceremony here it would be a wonderful candidate.  However, we need a space for reception.  They provided the indoor ballrooms which fell into the same category of all the hotels we've checked so far.  At the same time, it's definitely at the pricey side considered it being a 5 star historical hotel.

Moving on we met up with my good friends Simon and Maggie at the Wayfarers Chapel which I've mentioned in Wayfarers Chapel.  After we checked out the chapel, we started driving around the neighborhood of Palos Verdes to see what options we have.  I'll fast forward a little bit since the first three were not that impressive.

Double Tree Hotel

Some Yacht House

Ports O Call



Chris actually liked the Ports O Call a lot since the price was absolutely reasonable and the restaurant was right next to the water with decent view.  Ports' O Call did stay on our decision spreadsheet from the beginning to the end.  The price and the ocean view was a big drawn but the atmosphere was not quite what I was looking for. 

We started driving towards north of the chapel and the first stop was the La Venta Inn. It located 5 mins away from the Chapel. On top of the hill overlooking pacific coast line, I immediately fell in love with the old school boutique style hotel.

The Entry

Outside the patio overlooking the beautiful coast line

This would be the gazebo if we were hosting the ceremony. However it'd be perfect for guests to just hang out here.

The dance floor.  Now you could smell antique style of the building.

 

Dinner space.





Another view of dinner space.



It seemed to be really cohesive with the chapel in terms of the style.  It was 5 mins from the chapel. I definitely loved it.  However, the price was insanely high.  And that was a definite realization that we picked the most popular time in the year to get married - Saturday in June.  There was no way that the space would not be occupied and therefore the minimum cost was sky-high.  Granted their caterer was New York Food Company which is top notch fine dining wedding catering company.  The menu was exquisite.  But that really put us in a tough spot. Regardless of how much we like it, there was no room of negotiation especially we had no definite guest count yet. It was hard to gauge at such an early point when we've got nothing else booked.  Saying yes to the crazy high minimum cost was not as easy as walking into the Costco and grab a thousand dollar laptop home.  I was honestly disappointed.  Of course now I looked back, I would give you hundreds of reasons of why it was meant to be and how I shouldn't host the reception there.  Again, hindsight view.  We left the La Venta Inn with my great disappointment and I started being resentful about how ridiculous the wedding business was.  It took me a while to go back to my rationality to think hard of what the wedding really mean to us, my family and friends and what represented us as a couple and what we could afford to make that final decision.  At the mean time we were battling with what we called in Chinese: spending money on the critical point.  We wouldn't want to spend $10K and put together something we don't like at all.  If we want to do something, we want to do it right. 

We drove up to Redondo Beach and then all the way to Manhattan Beach.  We checked out Crown Plaza, Cheesecake Factory (Yes, it actually became our baseline in the final decision process. -> Would you rather dine here or would you rather dine in Cheesecake Factory.) And many other non-impressive places that I left off from boring you.

Crown Plaza Hotel, Redondo Beach

Some random spot.

Shade Hotel

Shade Hotel 2

Shade Hotel was the last place we checked at the end of the day and was worth being mentioned.  It's a very modernized hotel at Manhattan Beach.  We could vision our guests enjoying the sunshine at Southern California beach.  The rooftop pool was also a perk that we could host our after party there by the pool side.  It was very casual and lovely.  The minimum cost was again an easy reason for us to not even consider it at all.

I guess we hit a lot of places that I still haven't finished the story of entire journey!!!
I should say Happy Two Months!!!
We'll come back to the last day of the ultimate quest of reception site.