The Venue Search

Once we had a general idea about our wedding guest list and decided on our location, we started preliminary research on venues.  I can say that this is the point when I really started feeling the wedding stress.  I was really overwhelmed with this step for a few reasons.

Being in Boston and looking for event spaces in Los Angeles definitely didn't make it easy for me.  I was stuck searching the internet for event spaces.  And, because there are so many event spaces out there and so many websites, it was really hard to start sorting through them. I was lost in an internet abyss.

Eventually I found three of the most helpful websites:

1) The Knot, which is sometimes an overload of information, has the largest listing of venues that can be searched by size and price.  

2)  Wedding Wire also has a comprehensive listing of event spaces and narrows down searches based on zip code and neighborhood.

3) The Good Wedding Los Angeles is an amazing site because they have narrowed down the number of listings on their website (usually offering about five choices for each category) based on the type of wedding venue you want--city, beach, country club, winery--and your price range--budget, moderate, exclusive. 

Picking a Place

This was an easy decision for us...

 


My fiance and I have known each other since we were kids.  We played on the respective girls and boys AYSO teams in our pre-teens and dated each other's best friends in seventh grade.  And by "dated," I mean we talked on the phone for four hours a night and met up at the mall after school got out.  

We met again as adults living on the East Coast.  And, our parents still live seven minutes away from each other back in LA where we grew up. So, we chose LA.





 But for anyone unsure....here are some things to think about:

1) Destination weddings are increasingly popular because they are often an easy way to cut down the guest list pretty quickly without feeling too guilty.  There's a lot of attrition when you're asking people to shell out for an entire weekend far away.

2)  Hometowns/Home-cities make planning a little easier because you can visit all your vendors whenever you want (if you still live there) or at least stay with your family when you go check it all out (if you don't live there anymore).  Plus, it's always sort of comforting to be on your own turf.

3) The city where you currently live also makes planning pretty easy because you can easily access all your vendors.


4) Halfway points can be a compromise and semi-destination if you and your fiance are from different places.  

 

First Things First: The Guest List

Being overwhelmed and having no clue what to do...the first thing I decided was to try and get a head count for the wedding.  It was important for me to realize that before being able to even consider the location or venue, I needed to know just how many people to have space for.

My fiance and I both come from big Jewish families on the Westside of LA...so for our parents, this wedding is a big to do. 

Just to give you an idea...about five years ago I was in Florida visiting my elderly grandmother for the weekend.  I was living in Boston at the time, so I rendezvoused with my parents in Miami.  My dad made my mom and I trek 45 minutes to some Cheesecake Factory to meet up with his friends for lunch.  My parents had befriended the couple on a trip to Israel we took as a family when I was 18.  My dad, apparently, got together with them every time he came to visit his mom. But, this was only the second time I had ever seen them in my life. As we're leaving Cheesecake to make our way back to my grandma, the couple (who are very sweet and interesting) say, "Well, I guess we'll see you at your wedding!"   Without hesitation my dad said, "Of course!"  (Just as a side note...I didn't even have a boyfriend at the time).  But what I learned from this chat at the Cheesecake Factory was  that in my family my wedding would be my dad's wedding too.

Now that I do have a boyfriend and we are actually ready to get married...I've had to run some interference on all the hypothetical invites my dad has thrown out there over the years. 
 

So here are my tips for working the wedding list:

Step 1: Sit down with both sets of parents and ask everyone to come up with their "dream list" of all the people they would like to invite.  Ask each set of parents to categorize their lists into sub-groups of "highest," "middle," and "lowest" priorities.  Be kind and explain that you and your fiance will try and accommodate as many of people off the wish lists as possible.

Step 2: Create a similar wish list with your fiance and prioritize your list into groups of people you definitely want at your wedding, those you would like to include, and the people you could live without having at your wedding.   Remember that this is just a draft of your list.  Put down family friends too if you want them at your wedding (it's ok if you and your parents may have cross-over on your lists). 

Step 3: After you and your fiance get a good draft done, you'll be able to gauge how small or large of a wedding you two want.  Decide together an estimated number of guests that you feel comfortable with.  This will vary depending on how many people you feel comfortable with and based on who is paying for the wedding.  This will also help you determine how many people from the parents' lists you'll be able to accommodate.  

More on guests list in a bit...

   

Just Engaged

Alright, so I'm thirty, just got engaged (about a month ago), and have no idea how to plan a wedding. 

As a bit of background...I'm not what you would call a "girly girl."  I grew up playing a lot of sports and wearing clothes for comfort rather than style, both of which do not preclude one form being "girly," but I doubt anyone would ever describe me as such.  I think people would describe me as "practical," "down to earth," and definitely as a little bit of a control freak.  I've always followed my own path.  I never thought about getting married.  I didn't want kids until VERY recently.  I mean, I couldn't even keep a cactus alive until last year.  What I'm trying to say is that I never really imagined what my wedding day would be like until recently.  I'm not one of those girls with some secret folder stashed under my bed at my parents' house with pictures of my dream wedding.

The closest I got to wedding wishing was when I was in my early twenties, I once suggested to my mom and younger sister that I hated weddings and just wanted "to get married barefoot on a beach somewhere."  They both scoffed at me, reminding me how much I actually hate the sand.  My mom even dug up some old photo of me as a kid at the beach.  I'm standing with my bulging baby belly and diaper, crying in the center of a tatami mat surrounded by sand.  And, when I thought about it more clearly, I remembered how much I really hate going to the beach.  In fact, even though I lived in Hawai'i for nearly two years, I can count on both hands the number of times I have been to the beach there (I know that's sac-relig!).  The beach wedding thing came to me out of a haze of rom-com clouded fantasy, and was in no way rooted in the reality of my life.

From this made-up-movie-like beach dream, I came to realize when I actually got engaged just how out of touch with planning a wedding I really was.

So, I'm on quite a journey now trying to plan this wedding.  And, the only concrete thing I knew going into this was that I didn't want to waste money.

These are some of the things I've discovered along the way....