So one of my few frustrations this early in the wedding planning process is the lack of a nice, readily available reception site. We want to do our ceremony on the beach, and our reception at a second site (we can't do the reception outdoors for a couple of different reasons, or I would be all over it).
I'm looking for a site that doesn't offer a wedding "package," ie, a site that will let me reserve the space and not force me to use their vendors or charge me for non-optional things I wouldn't want to do anyway.
One of the options which has cropped up has been the place where I work. It's a pretty good option for the following reasons:
The downsides are a little less easy to quantify:
I'm looking for a site that doesn't offer a wedding "package," ie, a site that will let me reserve the space and not force me to use their vendors or charge me for non-optional things I wouldn't want to do anyway.
One of the options which has cropped up has been the place where I work. It's a pretty good option for the following reasons:
- It's well within our budget for the venue (meaning it's free for employees, minus the cost of having the entire building cleaned, which comes up to a few hundred dollars).
- It's a really pretty area, even if the room itself leaves something to be desired (there's a ZOMG my eyes my eyes oh please stop the burning kind of ugly mural all along one wall, but we could cover it with sheets). The reception itself could be partially outdoors, overlooking the ocean, which would be holy crap beautiful.
- We could use the vendors we wanted, rather than some crappy caterer or rental company that was only still in business because it had a contract with the venue.
The downsides are a little less easy to quantify:
- The site itself has a kind of industrial/corporate vibe that I'm not thrilled about. Lots of exposed concrete and glass--I was imagining something more casual and rustic for the wedding.
- There's a definite ick factor to getting married at work. I mean, really, working here is fine, but I don't have a lot of meaningful memories here that would make it special, and I definitely have had a few months of stress and difficulty here.
- There's also the (unlikely) scenario that we make the reservation and I end up working somewhere else before the wedding and we're stuck trying to find a new venue with less than a year to go. That would suck.
We ended up at a reception hall that did a package, but we were very happy with the package (we sampled the hell out of everything first and insisted on personal approval of *everything*).
ReplyDeleteYou're right about the limited options in the area, though. When we were looking for an a la carte reception site we found out pretty quickly the only way would be to have a contact with a local church, Masonic hall, or similar.
About the only other thing I could suggest would be vacation home rentals, although any in the area large enough for a decent-sized wedding reception likely won't save much money over an event hall.
We also have a line on St. Paul's Episcopal church (which is a progressive church, so I wouldn't mind giving them money, and we wouldn't be having the ceremony there, so I wouldn't feel weird about that). It's just a bit small and falls on the shabbier side of my preferences. :)
ReplyDeleteDid you guys get married in our county? If you don't mind my asking, where and when did you wed?
(One of the nice things about wedding planning is a reason to use the letter W frequently. Gotta love some Ws.)
We were married here in 2001. We had a small wedding ceremony in our own living room, followed by a big reception here:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.wedgewoodbanquet.com/buenaventura/
We were going for "Raucous Yule Party" rather than "rustic," though :)
One other thought based on your desire for rustic:
Camp Comfort has a decent-sized indoor clubhouse that's inexpensive to reserve. Very small kitchen, though, so your caterer would have to plan appropriately:
http://portal.countyofventura.org/portal/page/portal/GSA/parks_department_-_Directory/inland_parks/camp_comfort
Hmm, given the size of the guest list, Wedgewood might be out of our price range. I emailed them anyway and asked if they could do a discount if we knocked off some of their package stuff.
ReplyDeleteCamp Comfort doesn't look like a bad option...
Thanks for the speedy reply! :)
Any time. I can't believe it's almost been 10 years for us. I still remember the endless cursing from Janice sewing our wedding outfits.
ReplyDeleteI'm don't know how far from home base you're willing to travel for the reception, but yet another rustic option might be to check out some of the classic ranches in the county. I know Limoneira, Camarillo Ranch, and McCormick all have event rental options, and I'm sure there's even more out toward Moorpark or Fillmore.
That would certainly be easier for the (at least) 50% of the guest list coming from LA. We both covet a beach wedding, though, so it's possible we won't want to go too far inland for the reception.
ReplyDelete