on the hunt for a reception venue/day 2.1

with the huron substation of awesome out of the picture, casey and i turned to plan b. so it happened, my mom and uncle decided to visit me for my birthday for the first time in nine(!) years. since they were staying for a few days, we decided to devote one day to traipsing around la and pasadena in search of reception locales. i planned the whole day, setting up four appointments with four possibilities to host our reception.

location #1 at 11:00am:

the walt disney concert hall

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how can you not like it? frank gehry designed it! on a napkin! it's so shiny and wavy and can you imagine having a reception there?!? it has the total wow-factor, though not necessarily the rustic charm, but we were ok with that.

we met up with our sales associate who took us to two locations inside that we could potentially use as reception areas. first up was bp hall:

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when i saw this room, all i could think of was how effing dramatic it was. beautiful, right? all wood curves and an enormous ceiling that had giant skylights peeking through wood panels. plus, those fancy steps in the first picture? well, that is the entryway to get to bp hall. cool!

the second place we saw was the founder's room:

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this one had a really neat ceiling/art piece with wavy panels and all those naked light bulbs that you can see in the photo. not as dramatic as the bp hall, but did have it's own bar, a patio/garden area for a cocktail hour and it's own private elevator from the parking garage. it reminded me very much of a vintage-y gentelman's bar, both in terms of colour palatte and the overall design of the room.

the third room we saw was not in the WDCH, but in the neighbouring building- the music center. it's simply called the fifth floor, and it's a much more typical banquet hall with a killer view (floor-to-ceiling windows!) of the music pavilion and some of downtown los angeles. the cheapest of all three rooms, it was the most generic. since this dangerously crosses into my no-hotels rule, we had to discard it. plus, the 'rents weren't too thrilled with it, which I understood.

while we loved the look and the overall drama of the WDCH, the overall cost was proving too high, so we ended up not going with this great location.

next up: location two! or would that be location three?

on a lighter note...

let's take some time away from the church/ceremony/vows stressfest to focus on something that took up quite a bit of our time early 2009: the reception locale. casey and i searched diligently- and i mean we scoured that internets with some comet and one of those metallic scrubbing pads that scratch up just about anything they come into contact with- to find the perfect reception location.

so, let's begin at the beginning with some ground rules.

1. NO hotels. i cannot take the generic blahness one gets from holding their gig at a hotel. yes, it's convenient to have all of your guests to stay there and the catering usually is included and all that goodness, but seriously people. a hotel..? unless it's the Ritz (not affordable in the janine/casey household), a hotel simply won't cut it.
2. must be in la or pasadena. will not have family travel through southtorrancewood to get to our reception.
3. must have charm/rusticness/ je ne sais pas about it that we fall in love with

ok. rules are done. now for the fun!

the Huron Substation(source)

first of all/*swoon*/ so gorgeous i can't stand it. has everything i wanted in a venue and more- exposed brick, a staircase to a second floor, large and fantastic barn doors that open out to a quaint courtyard with bbq pits and bench seating. LOVES IT. great architecture! exposed rafters! charm, whimsy, rusticness! all check!

so casey booked us a reservation and we went and visited said palace of wonderfullness. and left dejected. see dear readers (all three of you), there are a few problems with this castle.

• one bathroom. yes, you read that right. only. one. the size of a closet.
  
• the space only holds about 100 people max and there isn't a real good fix on how many people will actually make it there. questions as to where to put the dance floor arose, and when the manager suggested putting away the dining tables to make room for it after dinner, i knew we were done.
  
• the proprietress of this mecca lives there. with her son. and while i love and jealously admire her awesome taste in living abodes, there is something slightly off about having a rip-roaring party in someone else's house. at least while they are there.
  
• the second story of casa awesome is off-limits to everyone except the area right at the top of the stairs. also so is the kitchen. that puts a slight damper on things.

so. while it broke my heart to say goodbye to this gem, we had to say no and look elsewhere.

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goodbye, fantastic lighting opportunities. so long, clever seating arrangements. we'll miss you, open floor plan. le sigh.

securing the date aka pandering to our priest

yeah, you read that right. we had to jump through some pretty darn big hoops to get this date. (and don't get me started on the next set of hoops, which are apparently lit on fire and hanging over a pit of alligators)

so. case managed to secure a meeting time with our monseigneur only after we had to meet with weird-counselor-lady for a second time. loved us, "approved us" and we were set to meet with the monseigneur. secret to the win? me wearing a freakin' dress. i kid you not.

that strategy obviously working in our favour, i wear same magical dress to meet with the monseigneur. and decide that it's a better idea if casey talks to him instead of me, cause it's hard for me to talk around the foot that's apparently permanently lodged in my mouth. guess what? the priest applauds my deferral to him. AS IF I WOULD, p.s.

so he hands over a large folder containing the aforementioned hoops. first, we need letters from our close family members signed in front of a priest to prove that neither casey nor i have been previously married. cause we would lie about that for sure.

then we need to sign up for pre-cana for a whopping $250, get copies of our baptismal certificates, get copies of our confirmation certificates and choose our readings/vows/prayers to be used in our wedding ceremony.

then some awkwardness ensues the moment casey asks about using another priest to be our celebrant. ok, a lot of awkwardness. but says we'd have to check with that guy. then some more awkwardness and finally we get the hell out of there.

on the way home, i decide to peek through the little booklet of readings that we can choose from. each part of the mass has about eight or so readings that we can pick from, one that best suits us. well, let me enlighten you: they all suck. some of my favourites?

"when one finds a worthy wife, her value is far beyond pearls...Charm is deceptive and beauty feleting; the woman who fears the Lord is to be praised." - eek

"a woman is like a fertile vine" - wtf?!?

"Wives should be subordinate to their husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of his wife...so wives should be subordinate to their husbands in everything." - ummm, pass.

NOT COOL PEOPLE

yeah, so we're struggling with that particular hoop. though one shining light amidst all that anti-woman sentiment: one awesome reading that i really can't share with you because it'll spoil all the fun for the wedding. oh, a hint, you ask? it contains references to both stalking and wild animals. well you asked.

silver lining #2 - this will make whittling down which readings/vows/prayers to choose for the wedding super easy. we just have to eliminate the ones referring to women as a lesser sex. which does happen to be the majority of these readings. yay...?

we got our date!

and by date, i mean the day in which we are to be wed which, very surprising to me, was extremely difficult to nail down.

first / and let me just say duh right here / my cute-faced bridesmaid will be going to college next year, and my original plan of having a september wedding was crushed in the face of her pending education. so backing up to an august wedding. perhaps late august? that's still september, right? labour day counts!

second / the rest of my family with small childrens would not be able to make a late august wedding due to their super awesome private schools starting before labour day. and being the good parents that they are, they can't justify pulling their kids out of school for an extended period of time. *sorry kiddos i feel your pain*

so. date got pushed to august 14th of 2010. to which it has held for the past couple of months. but no, dear reader, it's not official until the priest says it is. in an official meeting and all. he needs to write it in his official planner. does he do it?*

next up, the details of...Meeting with the Monseigneur...bum bum BUM! it's very dramatic. i would advise all three of you reading this blog to be seated before viewing our next post.


*um, yeah, he did. hence the title of this post. sheesh, people, pay attention!

happy date-iversary!

not to be confused with our proposal-versary or our soon-to-be wed-iversary.

so we've been dating for eight years people. eight. years. if we were actors, we'd deserve some award for the longevity of our togetherness.

take that, renee and kenny!

engagement pictures part II

hey, long time no blog. miss us?

not too much was happening on the wedding front, what with christmas, the rose bowl, my birthday and all sort of work craziness happening at once.

BUT.

we found a great deal on engagement pictures from the ever-so-helpful weddingbee blog and hired one matthew nistor to photograph us trapeezing around pasadena. we had three (yes, we're vain, but you already knew that) costume changes and lots and lots of fun! check out the goodness below:

first of all, people, a public service announcement: we are effing models.


costume change number 2:

costume change number 3 plus best photo of the day (my opinion):

the obligatory ds shot. cause we love our ds'. and our xbox. and our ps2. not so much the 64 in casey's opinion, but it will always be my baby.

we spent two hours cavorting around oldtown pasadena and we had a blast. stay tuned for the next installment of the engagement shoot series 'we love ourselves', coming up next year. maybe we'll do a themed shoot. suggestions?

hi people we're taking tests now

so here's the deal with our church: 1. it costs money to get married there 2. we couldn't meet with our priest until we'd been registered members for more than six months 3. we couldn't meet with our priest without taking a test 4. we couldn't meet with our priest until we met with a counselor to discuss aforementioned test.

so basically, we haven't met with our priest.

but what we have done so far is take that test. a one-hour long multiple choice test that both casey and i had to take separately. no sitting next to each other, no talking, no nothing as long as we had the test in our hands.

and with what could they possibly fill an hour's worth of test? some gems include "i'm afraid of my future spouse", "my future spouse uses sex as a way to control me" and "we have discussed and agreed on how many children we're having". in this 146-question exam, the dominating topics were sex and money, though questions touched on our in-laws, religion and children. you could only answer agree, disagree and uncertain, which was beyond infuriating. so i sped through the test. and managed to beat casey by a good ten minutes. here's me waiting for casey:

what's that you say? i wasn't allowed to take pictures during the test? damn straight i wasn't. who knows, i might have tried to communicate answers via my flash or someting equally nefarious. but we're rebels and whatnot.

meeting with the counselor on november 15th. we'll let you know how that goes.