- Blog
- Bios
- Boards
- Classifieds
- DIY
- Gallery
- Vendor Reviews
- Shop Weddingbee
Weddingbee Blog
Part I – Location, location, location!
I love planning events of all shapes and sizes, ranging from intimate surprise parties for my friends to large-scale conferences/productions. So when Mr. D and I got engaged and it was time to start planning our wedding, you can imagine my excitement!
That excitement was cut short, however, when my parents informed me there had already been a decision that our wedding would be in Los Angeles. Apparently all of the parents had discussed location prior to our engagement, and since the engagement was a surprise, I had been left out of the discussions. As Mr. D had a very large extended family, all of whom reside in LA, FMIL felt it made the most sense for the wedding to be there, whereas my parents didn’t have a strong opinion about the matter. Moreover, FMIL said it should be a Chinese banquet since most of their guests would be Chinese.
I consider myself to be a pretty thoughtful and understanding person, but I found myself feeling a bit stunned and slightly frustrated. Firstly, as a Southerner at heart, I had always envisioned a beautiful outdoor reception; I could see our family and friends mingling over cute dainty hors d’oeuvres and a warm early evening breeze. I pictured a beautifully prepared three-course meal, after which the evening would culminate in dessert and dancing. Chinese food had never even crossed my mind.
Secondly, was LA really the most logical? What about my family and friends? My parents lived overseas, we had relatives up and down the East Coast, and my childhood friends all lived in the South. Furthermore, Mr. D and I both currently live in Northern California and had our network up here.
Now before you begin to get riled up on my behalf, I just want to preface that the story has a resolution, and that FMIL and I have a great relationship. But I did want to share our story in hopes that others can learn from our experience and to also remind myself of the lessons I need to keep on learning.
Anyhow, as you can imagine, I was feeling pretty upset. Shouldn’t Mr. D and I get to call the shots, since it was our once-in-a-lifetime event? We were all splitting the costs as well, so it wasn’t a matter of who was paying. I lamented to Mr. D and to my parents, but after discussing with them at length, I came away with the advice of “think long term about the grand scheme of things” and “choose your battles wisely.” The two things Mr. D and I cared about most were personalizing the ceremony and photography, so we would save our efforts for those.
As such, we went with LA as the location, since it was true that Mr. D’s family was so concentrated there, and our college friends and my family tended to be a little more spread out. It would still be special, since it was Mr. D’s hometown and I had lived in LA for two years as well. Plus, there were a lot of tourist attractions around to keep our out-of-town guests entertained. Since in-house catered Chinese food was also of utmost importance to FMIL, Mr. D and I decided to compromise on a couple conditions – We could choose the venue and run the evening in the manner we chose. That way, we could at least make sure it wasn’t in a Chinese restaurant (which we really didn’t want) and still make the evening our own.
We decided on the Hilton in Universal City, since they had pretty nice facilities for a decent price range, both a Chinese and Western catering department and since it was only about a 15 minute drive from the church. FMIL agreed, and together, we visited the Hilton and worked out a package that would incorporate both our visions and ideas.
This story is to be continued of course, since our reception won’t be at the Hilton.
What about you? Were there any major debates for you over your wedding location? How did you ultimately decide?
my FILs are located in southern california and they tempted me with an all expense paid wedding if we were to throw our wedding there but i put my foot down. As a life long East coaster who currently lives in Manhattan, there was no way I was going to have my friends/family fly across the country for my wedding. Although i think disappointed, my FILs were ok with my decision to have the wedding in nyc. We basically discussed our logic with them and they understood. of course we don’t get the luxury of an all expense paid wedding but there are some compromises during the wedding process that i don’t think i should have to make - location being one fo them!
We were lucky in the sense that neither side really had strong opinions, so when FI and I found a venue in LI, we did not hesitate to book. Ultimately everyone had a say about our decision, mainly, why so far, why not in Chinatown, etc, but in the end my FI and I are financing it so we hold the cards. It’s great knowing that my parents are the most challenging ones and not my FMIL or FFIL….the FI’s side are just excited we’re finally tying the knot! Go figure!
I love my FMIL - I really do, any time that the wedding is not brought up - which is next to never anymore. We were allowed to choose our location, we chose to have it in the Rocky Mountains where we call home instead of in the City where all our family lives. In effect this means everyone coming to the wedding are from OOT. In this regard everything has panned out but originally I wanted to have our wedding out on my grandparents farm (where my parents were married) but my FMIL immediately snubbed her nose at the idea with a comment about “What are your guests going to think?”…. meaning what are her guests going to think because my family was thrilled at the idea. Apparently it wasn’t high class enough for her which didn’t just aggravate me but my fiance as well - enough so that we contemplated eloping for a few months before we decided on a compromise.
Wow. I would have been upset as well. I guess they were assuming that you wanted a traditional wedding. I understand that whoever pays has a say, but I really do think it is a bit out of control for them to do that behind your back.
My family all live in MN/WI and his live from San Diego to Vermont. We live in Savannah, GA. Our wedding is going to be here. My family didn’t understand why we wouldn’t have it there, but if we’d had it in the mid-west, none of his family would have come. We tried mentioning it once to his mom, and it was immediately clear that it wasn’t an option. So pretty much everybody’s going to be out-of-towners for our wedding, too. My family isn’t thrilled and very few of my relatives will make the trip. But we’re sticking with this decision anyhow.
I had a similar situation like you, but they weren’t insisting on a Chinese banquet-phew! They wanted it in the LA area and I was upset and hurt, too! I was wondering, “well, what about my side?!” Anyways, we ended up having it in so cal, because we looked at all of the venue’s up in nor cal and in so cal. It just so happened that we found our perfect venue in so cal.
Oh boy where do I start? There was a lot of drama immediately following my engagement because Mr. Peony and I are both the oldest kids in our families. Not only that, Mr. Peony is the oldest male cousin in his generation, which is considered a very important role in Asian cultures. And while I’m Korean, he’s Chinese. Let the games begin!
To make a long story short, we decided to have two weddings: a western and a Chinese. The western one will be primarily planned by Mr. Peony and myself, while the Chinese one will be done almost entirely by my FMIL.
I’m from NorCal while my SO is from SoCal so we had a bit of a disagreement over the location of nuptials. I was really pushing for NorCal for number of reasons — venues, weather, traffic,etc — but ultimately we chose SoCal. The main reason for the compromise is that our families are financially, on two completely different levels. My family would be inclined and have the funds for SoCal trip while his would not for NorCal and family for us is very important so I understood. Camarillo is a nice compromise. 
I just got engaged and his grandmother expressed to us that she would like our reception to be at the Hilton in Universal City. I’m not opposed to the idea, but after reading your post, I was wondering, what happened?
wait, so you chose the universal city hilton, but it won’t be there after all? can’t wait to hear the rest of the story!
My FI and I had the same debate (though the distance isn’t as bad as yours). I grew up in SF while he grew up in SJ. We both have very large families and large network of friends in both locations but in the end I compromised and allowed the venue to be booked at a *GASP* chinese restaurant in SJ.
Anyhoo, I hated the idea of a chinese restaurant so to make me happy FI let me have the following things:
-Scott Robert as the photographer
-Chair covers and sashes for the yucky chinese restaurant chairs
-Whatever dress my little heart desired (tho I ended up going w/ an inexpensive one)
Since the venue was a big thing, we’re not entirely even stevens yet but we are getting there! =) hahaha
dots, i am so sorry to hear about that! The Rocky Mountains do sound like a beautiful place though…I am sure everything will turn out wonderfully! I totally sympathize with you though.
Chrissie, that is totally how I felt! To be fair though, they didn’t mean to do anything behind my back per se, it was more because they wanted to keep the engagement a surprise and happened to begin discussing logistics. Even though Mr. D had told all of our parents we’d discuss later, in their minds, the decision had already been made.
doleju, i will definitely get to that in a post coming up! i’m making this a 4-part series, and i’ll be addressing the Hilton issue in part III.
haha jen, that’s totally awesome! those are basically the same things that i’ve allowed myself to have as a self-reward if you will 
for the compromise!
i know the pain. my mom is the one that’s fairly insistent on wanting chinese food, and i’m just going to have to put my foot down and go “no. second reception.”
this is why i advise people to marry local also… trying to appease my san jose parents and his san diego parents is NOT fun.
Yikes, that’s why Mr. EP and I are having two receptions, western and Chinese.
however, it’s kind of pointless now. I agreed to the Chinese reception so that we could keep the guestlist for the western reception intimate… so why is there an overlap of 100+ guests who are coming to both receptions?? As it turns out, our adorable flower girls are my second cousins and we can’t invite one second cousin without inviting the whooooole layer of second cousins, despite the fact that we’re not close to many of them. uhg.
personally, i don’t mind not inviting people and dealing with the backlash. but chinese culture is all about respect, and my mom doesn’t want to cut anyone from the list for fear of offending the family.
i give much props to you for being so flexible and accomodating. you are much less selfish than me.
This is hard. I am a meeting planner, and am used to planning events on my own, calling all the shots with very little supervision. I started my wedding planning with a checklist, and steamrolled through many items rapid fire (as I do for my job). FI trusts my judgment and is very busy, so would rather not be bothered with the minute details, so I ran with it. It never really occurred to me to ask FMIL’s opinion, because frankly, they weren’t contributing the lion’s share of the cost (that is coming from my parents (totally supportive and happily uninvolved) and the FI and I.
Now I find out second hand the FMIL wants to know about EVERYTHING and wants to “help”. I asked her to help me with a DIY photo project, and she said “sounds weird”. I know I’m going to have to throw her a bone sometime, but her tastes are vastly different from the FI and I, and the only opinions ever expressed are indifference or negativity. Ugh.
Miss Daffodil! How are we like….the same person, lol. My fiance’s parents are norcal and mine are socal. We’re also having our reception and ceremony in socal, and yes, we had to pick our battles. It was very hard because my mom and I are very stubborn people. Like you, I decided that I wanted to focus my energy on photography and the cake. Luckily, we’ve been very involved in the dishes that will be served at the banquet.
Aww…how sad…that sounds very frustrating! I’m not engaged yet, but now, I think I’m afraid to be in that position!
That’s why I want 2 weddings though hahaha, I doubt that will happen unless I miraculously win the lottery.
I’m really curious to find out what happened next!
You can get your outdoor wedding with catered Chinese food at Castle Green (Pasadena) and the Los Angeles River Center (not sure if I got this venue right). That is the one good thing with Los Angeles is you can still achieve both your FMIL desires and your dream wedding.
| Visit our sister sites | eHarmony Online Dating |
eHarmony Advice Dating Advice |
Project Wedding Wedding Songs |
JustMommies Pregnancy Calendar |
Mrs. Daffodil, San Francisco/Los Angeles Age and Occupation: 26, Nonprofit Strategy Consultant Fiance's Age and Occupation: 26, Resident Physician Engagement Date: December 29, 2006 Wedding Date: May, 2008 Blogging Since: August, 2007 Venue: Church w/ floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the Valley; Westin in downtown LA About Me: I moved around a lot growing up, but consider myself a Southerner at heart. I love scrapbooking, dancing, doggies, and diet coke. I am all about personalizing everything and hence, I'm a DIY bride who is just loving the entire wedding planning process! Mr. Daffodil and I met in our college fellowship group and were "just friends" for three years before we started dating. We've been together for four years now and can't wait to get married in sunny SoCal, Mr. Daffodil's hometown.
| Sun | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 29 | 30 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 |
| 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 |
| 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 |
| 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 |
Latest Gallery Pics