A Xyron! And I got a big one. Because that's how I like it.
I’d been wanting one for a while, but I was just waiting for an excuse… with the wedding and a Michael’s coupon I had two. For anyone who doesn’t know, the Xyron 900 is a sticker machine, laminator, and magnet maker all in one.
It’s already been put to use on a couple wedding related projects (posts to come soon!).
What was your first wedding purchase?
-PL
So now we had 7 amazing venue choices in 3 different cities. So here’s how we broke it down:
Chicago
-Salvage One, amazing, but the only dates available were over a year away or in the dead of winter.
-Ravenswood. While they had more dates available, we began to realize a Chicago wedding wasn’t in the cards for us. I love Chicago with all my heart, and I loved the idea of showing off my awesome hometown to all my Cali people, but we (I) didn’t want to plan from 2,000 miles away. Plus we wouldn’t want to ask people to travel to Chicago during the colder months, which meant a longer engagement (and hey, we’ve been together a decade, we really didn’t want to be engaged more than a year), and a lot of the venues in the city get snatched up quickly during those prime months anyway.
And then there were two:
Los Angeles
-The Smog Shoppe. Oh, how we love you. The look and vibe is perfect. The coordinator is great. The price… a bit hefty.
-Union Station. Think of the amazing photos! But the event manager wasn't the best.
I was really excited about the possibility of having my big Chicago family all see the great city I’ve been calling home. But I kept imagining the days before the wedding—all the guests were in hotels all over the city (so I wouldn't have any time to see them before/after the wedding), I was in our tiny place, which would be a cramped mess full of wedding stuff, and I knew I’d be running all over town getting last minute details finished. Then I imagined the wedding in Palm Springs. All of our guests would be staying within a couple miles of each other, if not the same hotel. I’d still have last minute details—but most of those would have been done before we left LA. The house is still a mess, but it’s 2 hours away . I talked to the fiancé and he felt the exact same way.
Palm Springs it is!
Now we just need to decide the venue…
xoxo,
PL
Hope you like pictures--because there are a bunch coming your way!
Now we had three location choices for the wedding, Chicago, LA, & Palm Springs. Our plan was to check out venues in all three cities to help us make the final decision. Since I *may* have done some research before we were engaged I already had a few venues in mind. We only had a few criteria items. It had to have space for the ceremony and reception. It had to hold enough people (guesstimated at 150). And it had to be awesome.
Chicago
The city where I grew up and the majority of my family still lives there. Since my relatives were going to make up a large part of the guest list it would be easy for them to attend. Plus I loved the idea of having some of my friends visit Chicago for the first time. I wasn’t going to be in Chicago for a few months, so the search began online. Here are the top 2 Chicago contenders.
Salvage One
OMG, guys. This place is awesome! It’s a salvage/antique store that rents out it’s space and furniture for events—that means you can use their furniture for your wedding and create seriously amazing spaces for your wedding. Check it out:
There is even an amazing outdoor area for the ceremony during the warmer months.
Ravenswood Event Center
I first heard about this place from my mom. There are three incredible spaces available for weddings:
The Billboard Atrium and Loft
The Billboard Showroom
If you look in the back you can see there are vintage neon signs in the space!
The Industrial Ballroom
I love all three of those spaces and could totally picture getting hitched in any of them.
Los Angeles
Planning from our home city would definitely be the easiest option, and we both like the idea of having out of town family and friends spend some time in the city we call home. Since it is home, we were able to visit a few venues in person, which was great. Here are our faves.
The Smog Shoppe
This place has been all over the place lately, and rightly so. This place is the sweetness. As soon as we walked in we felt instantly that this place was “us.”
Union Station
The main train & bus hub in LA, Union Station is equal parts Deco and Spanish and all awesome. There are a few spaces that can hold weddings at Union Station, but we would use the Harvey Room areas, perhaps with a ceremony outside.
Palm Springs
Since if we went the Palm Springs route the wedding would be a semi-destination we focused more on hotels where we could stay, eat, drink, & be married. After researching a bunch online, the Mr. Cheetah and I made a day trip out to the desert. Okay confession time. This was our very 1st trip to Palm Springs ever. Yes, we were seriously considering getting married there and asking a bunch of friends and family to spend their time & money to travel there, and we didn’t even know if we liked it yet! I had been dying to visit Palm Springs for a while and I am pleased to say that we gave the city two thumbs up. It was pretty, relaxed, and we loved the 3 venues we visited.
The Viceroy
This hotel is one of the reasons I started thinking of a Palm Springs wedding. I saw photos from wedding there years ago and I bookmarked it in my head. It was even better in person.
Ace Hotel
We loved the vibe of this place. Plus a friend had just had her bachelorette here and absolutely loved it.
The Colony Palms
We loved the rooms and layout of this place. If we had our wedding there they close the hotel and only our guests could stay there!
Our final location decision coming up next!
Option 1: Sweet Home Chicago
Thankfully we were able to narrow down that 3rd category pretty easily. We decided early on that we didn’t want a full-on destination wedding. I wanted to be able to plan hands on and we didn’t want to ask all of our guests to travel too far… but we still liked the idea of everyone being on vacation and in one place—so the idea of “semi destination” came into play. To us, semi destination is anywhere that’s out of town, but still close enough to plan with some ease. Santa Barbara and Palm Springs quickly came to mind. Both cities are only about 2 hours away, so we’d easily be able to make numerous planning trips. Santa Barbara was an obvious choice since it’s where we met and fell in love… and hey, the fact that it’s crazy gorgeous didn’t slide by us either. I had always been interested in Palm Springs and I had recently seen some amazing Palm Springs weddings in the blogosphere.
See. Awesome-ness.
So, the fiancé and I talked about it. As much as we love, love, love Santa Barbara, we’d had already been to a few (amazing) SB weddings and my midwestern family had already traveled to SB and we kind of wanted something new. And that’s how our list became: 1) Chicago 2) LA 3) Palm Springs.
Stay tuned to see what we picked!
So, here’s a little introduction to me and the fiancé. We’ve been together over ten years, yup that’s right, over a decade. I’m a Chicago girl and he’s a Nor Cal boy but we love living in the City of Angels. We’ve decided to make this relationship legal and throw a big party, hope you enjoy the ride!
Us:
And now some wedding porn:
