on the hunt...wait a sec, we finally found it

so, by now you are probably sick of looking at potential reception venues. believe me, you couldn't possibly be as sick as we were and all you had to do was read about it and look at pretty pictures. but. i'm sure the three of you reading this blog are wondering if we ever found the right place for us. well, we did.

reception location:

The Wilshire Ebell of Los Angeles

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this place has some major awesome happening to it. first of all, it's old. from the '20's. which for l.a., that's old. so, hard wood floors, all dark, and the ceiling in one of the rooms is absolutely spectacular. it's the one shown in the picture on the right. beautiful!

david was the one to initially give us a tour of the location. there are two options for rental, a) the dining room/garden and b) the lounge and salon. both were beautiful, but since both casey and i have a tendency to sneeze at grass (me) or the sun (casey), we decided that a completely indoor reception would be preferable. so, the combination of lounge and art salon it was. plus, there is a killer staircase leading into the main room with the bridal suite right at the top of the stairs. plus, shuttered windows to peek into the room with!

well, finally, i could tell the moms loved it. in fact, she walked around the location a lot, which was more than she gave any of the other venues we saw. my uncle like it too, and since it seemed rather good in terms of rental (half the price of the marvimon or the smog shoppe for a lot more space) we decided to go ahead and book it.

*added bonus*- the ebell requires you to use their catering, which was fine with us, especially since the head chef had previously worked for the patina group. and everyone knows that their food is wonderful. i can recall a tuna tartare i sampled at a bride expo last year, and i still remember how heavenly it was. casey too! (yes, i dragged casey to a bridal expo. shoot me.) plus, despite the ebell's vast menu, we were told that we could go off menu if we required/needed/wished for something else. gaah!

and that, dear reader, was the long and arduous journey to securing our beautiful, vintage-y, wood-filled, not-a-hotel-ballroom reception venue. hope it's worth the wait.

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