Our Venue Hunt Continues

After our first attempt at finding the perfect wedding venue had us doubting out choice to have our wedding in Los Angeles the misters and I regrouped and decided to come up with a more creative hunting strategy. We reasoned that with the overly inflated cost that typically accompany anything even remotely related to weddings that we would avoid any and all wedding related websites and magazines and instead choose to focus our search on city websites, craigslist and good old fashion driving around.

After a couple of weeks a lazily searching the web and making note of any spaces for rent during our time in the city we had compiled a pretty heft list available locations were finally being able to whittle the list down to 2 top contenders. The first one being the Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook. Located in at the top of Baldwin Hills in Culver City the Scenic overlook is an amazing location that wants the beautiful views of the city while still having a natural setting to plan your wedding around.

My main concern regarding the Overlook was that at $2,400 for 4 hours the overlook was at the tippy top of our venue budget.

The second venue on our list actually lead us to our fabulous photographer who I discuss in a later post! The Rec Center Echo Park had everything we were looking for in an event space. Because the space is typically used as a photographer studio they owners allow for complete customization of the space including painting of walls and rearranging of any existing furniture.

Our main concern was the location of the space, Echo Park is one of the areas in LA that although up an coming can be a little off putting to some of our guest that may not be accustom to spending time in Los Angeles like we are. Also Rec Center offer no parking to visitors which meant that our guest would have to find parking in one of the metered lots located in the area.

After visiting the Rec Center the misters and I decided that although great spaces neither location offered us what we were looking for at a price that would make our wallets happy. At around the same time we were deciding that both venue options were going to be a no go for us S my wonderful bridesmaid/ubber talented florist asked if we would ever consider having our wedding in Riverside were my family resides and were we grew up. She mentioned that she had assisted her mother in setting up several wedding at the Riverside Museum of Art and that she was very impressed with the space.

Not one to pass up a possible venue lead I quickly emailed the museum coordinator and scheduled a site tour for the next week. Friends I have no words for the feeling I got when we viewed the location, it was simply perfect beautifully modern yet with a beauty that only older buildings have. Once we sat down with the museum coordinator to discuss pricing I almost died for us to be able to rent the whole 1st floor on the museum for 10 hours we would end up 200 bucks below our venue budget! I am beyond relieved to have found our perfect venue and cannot wait to party it up with our closest peeps in our little gem of a space. With out further adieu I present to you our venue the Riverside Museum of art!

Sorry for the sucky pics but we were so happy to find the our venue that I think we forgot how to work our camera! Crappy pic aside adore or no?

A Hunting We Will Go

The ever elusive wedding venue. I had heard stories from my fellow brides out here in the trenches of finding the perfect venue but here in my little fox hole I was starting to think that finding the perfect venue was as possible as hitching a ride on a Loch Ness Monster. Hands down the hunt for the perfect venue was the most frustrating wedding related task I have handle in the past 9 month of wedding planning but I am proud to say that we have found our little venue gem. Don't think I’m going to give it up easy, like all good hunting stories our story has many ups and downs but rest assure it contains a fantabulous ending resulting in our victorious haul!

When the misters and I first embarked our wedding planning journey our hearts were set on finding a location in the heart of our beloved City of Angeles.

Even after years of driving daily through downtown I still get giddy when I see my city all aglow.

Throughout our relationship the mister and I enjoyed a mutual love affair with our heavenly city and it has served as a backdrop for some of our most memorable evenings out. Almost from day one Downtown LA has played a large part of our wedding vision and I was determined to find the perfect venue to help make our vision come true.

Out I stepped onto the world wide web in search of the perfect venue to showcase our beloved city only to be blindsided immediately by pictures of painfully beautiful weddings and location. My brain went into over drive and I started fantasizing of having our wedding at wedding blog darling Smogg Shop or countless other LA wedding hot spots. Eagerly I began sending out emails inquiring about cost and availability and began stalking my inbox for the reply I hoped would bring me that much closer to our dream wedding.

The yumtastic smogg shop courtesy of greenweddingshoes.com

Yea……I must have fallen and smacked my head, once the return emails started coming it became painfully obvious that the cost of these venues would have equaled all if not more than our entire budget. Lessoned learned, blogtastic venue + large city= no bueno.

No worries…we picked ourselves off and continued on our merry way. I had learned my leason and began my search from scratch making it a point to avoid all wedding related website. If the site even mentioned weddings in passing I was out! Yes peps I was THAT scarred from my last experience!

soooooo…..did we succeed…….was I able to find perfect/ budget friendly wedding venue in my city full of venues to rich for my blood? Well my friends you will just have to wait till next time for the answer!

Flacky McFlakerson

 

So remember back in the day when I sat down and told you peps about my fabulous Mid Century Modern wedding, yea I totally dropped the ball on the whole blogging thing. Would you believe that my dog ate my blog?… No?……I didn't think so. 

To be honest readers I have the oldest excuse in the book….my computer died on me. My poor little budget nugget Dell laptop finally kicked the bucket and went to PC heaven. But never fear about a week ago the computer fairy in the form of the UPS man came and left this little nugget of joy.

Yes sirey that is my new fully loaded Dell Studio laptop. This little guy was a long time coming and is fixing to become my new wedding sidekick. I've already logged many hours working on this bad boy design our save the dates, organizing our  budget and guest list and of course getting my daily dose of blog-speration!

I have a lot of wedding inspiration to share with you and promise I will post more frequently.

My Wedding Bible

Many brides consider my home girl Martha Stewart the wedding guru but as much as I love my girl Martha my wedding BFF she is not. That honor ladies and gentleman goes to my man Todd Oldham. yes peps I said it Todd mother f-ing Oldham specifically his fabulous, creative wheel spinning book Handmade Modern.



yes friends I named my blog after this book, that's how much i heart it!


Handmade Modern is both part craft how-to and part history book inspired by one of my favorite design aesthetic mid century modern. For those of you who have not yet had the privilege to flip through the pages of Mr. Oldham book here's a little peak inside this tomb of mid century modern yummy-ness.



Mister Oldham book has not only introduced me to such mid century modern legends like Eva Zeisel, George Nakashima and Charlie Harper, but has also inspired the feel and overall aesthetic of our wedding. The misters and I plan to incorporate some of the design project featured in Handmade Modern and I couldn't be more excited!

A Handmade Modern Wedding

Welcome Friends! My name is Vee pleased to make your acquaintance! Come and cuddle up in a comfy chair and prepare for a story of a slightly craft forever clumsy girl about to marry her forever charming best friend in budget friendly Mid Century modern wedding full of handmade touches, love and laughter.