Monthly Archives: March 2009

Budget-friendly venues in Southern California

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It amuses me that my friends now come to me as a sort of sounding board for upcoming wedding planning. One of those friends includes Bryan Frank, a news photographer for my station and a fellow blogger. Turns out his oldest daughter is engaged and is turning to mom and dad for help finding a wedding venue that only an economist (the daughter) could love.

So he stopped by my desk the other day and picked my brain about which, in my experience, wedding venues in Southern California give you the most bang for the buck. Now, seeing as how I didn’t exactly get married in a traditional manner, I don’t exactly have a bride’s experience with shopping wedding venues. But I do have secondary experience with brides on a budget. My mom’s clientele was in general all budget minded, but they all liked things to look nice, too. So, I’m going to share with you an alphabetical list of the venues I’ve decorated at least four times or more, which indicates to me all these venues are budget-friendly.

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Personalized gifts for your bridesmaids and groomsmen

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Shruti, my other buddy in the throes of wedding planning, posed this question recently, and its one I posed to the L.A. blogosphere — where could one find vintage (i.e. old) Los Angeles MTA subway/bus tokens? No one has answered me yet, but Shruti has her eye on a set on eBay, which she plans to fashion into cufflinks for one of the groomsmen in her wedding this coming July.

It occurred to me that this is yet another tiny detail that brides attend to — and it may be small in the grand scheme of a large wedding, but I imagine that its definitely something that sticks in the mind of the wedding attendant who receives the gift.

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Do you need a wedding coordinator?

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Photo from screenrush.co.uk

I was chatting this morning with Jinah, the friend whose wedding I am decorating in April, and I asked her what she meant when she put “logistics” as one of my responsibilities. She had meant it to mean that I’d be responsible for working with her caterer and cueing her deejay. Unfortunately, since I’m the “decorator,” I recommended to her that she should find a friend to play that role.

What role would that be? The role of the wedding coordinator. Wedding coordinator can mean so many things, so I kind of want to spell out the three types of “wedding coordinator” a potential bride might encounter — at least from my experience.

Photo lifted from screenrush.co.uk

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Going to the chapel? Don’t forget the decorations!

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It seems that when times get tough, we look for more meaning in our lives, especially in big life events like getting married. At least, that’s what I’m gathering from a recent Christian Science Monitor article.

While engaged couples bemoan a recession that’s forcing them to scale back their spending, a different conversation is also bubbling: Will the economic downturn help focus attention on the religious importance of the wedding ceremony or even reacquaint some with a faith tradition from which they’ve drifted?

“You have to ask yourself what’s important,” Weir says. “How many decorations do you really need? We are tied to the Catholic Church. If getting married is a leap of faith, than this is the place to do it.”

If that’s the case, then I have a few pictures to show you of churches I’ve decorated. Oddly enough, while I’ve decorated my fair share of churches, I failed to take pictures of most of them. In my seven years of snapping digital photos, I think these photos are all I’ve got of church decorations.

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Save lots on candles at Big Lots

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So everyone is trying to save money, right? One way to save money is to go without flowers and just set up a candle arrangement. But if you’re not careful, you could spend just as much on a candle arrangement as you would on flowers. So I suggest you visit your local Big Lots.

Is Big Lots a store you wouldn’t be caught dead in? Too bad…whenever it comes time to do Christmas decorating at my church, Big Lots is my first stop. Turns out, its a good spot to find candles and candle accessories too, for cheap.
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Wedding arch styles, from simple to sensational

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The last time I did a post about arches for a wedding ceremony, I didn’t really focus on them, and it seems a lot of people are looking for them.

Flickr photo by uproot311

Its unfortunate but true that most of my pictures of weddings I’ve decorated have been of wedding receptions, and most arches are used for the ceremony and vows. And of the pictures I’ve taken of ceremony decorations, they’ve been of churches. So, that means most of the weddings I’ve decorated have not had arches. So of course I turned to Flickr, where I found a lovely variety of arches, including the one above. I really like this one. It’s a portable wood arch, with tulle entwined around its front legs and its top. In front of the ocean, you really don’t need more decoration than this.
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Visiting a wholesale candle store in North Hollywood

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Jinah, the intrepid bride trusting utterly in my “expertise,” tasked me recently with finding a place that sells candles for wholesale prices. She wants lots of lights and candles for her evening, outdoor wedding, so candles and hurricanes to enclose the flames are a must.

Now, I realize all too well that “wholesale” is often a misnomer. If a place advertises itself as wholesale, its often to attract people looking for wholesale prices who won’t do too much comparison shopping. Often, if the place is truly wholesale, you wouldn’t even know it. Actual wholesalers require business licenses or some such documentation so they can give you a true wholesale price.

But, we had to go check it out. Via Google, I found General Wax and Candle Company in North Hollywood. So, getting lost just once, I met up with Jinah to check out what the General had to offer.

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