SoCal Venues / Beach wedding questions

[DMBFiredancer]

i made this to ask more questions about the chart house and other so cal venues as we;ll as beach weddings in general so that i dont keep asking questions in other threads.
if anyone other than traveling gal has had an experience at the chart house in redondo beach, please let me know what you thought of it.

a few questions i had...
what did you think of their ceremony area? did you use it? its a bit more private than the other side of the beach area, that is why i was leaning towards using it.

those who had beach weddings, did you find that it was hard to find a private spot? i plan on having mine in the late afternoon in july on a friday and i am worrying that there may be too many people on the beach at that time.

also, how did you have your guests see/hear if there is no sound amplification - was that an issue for you? we have about 50 people but we dont need to have all at the ceremony if we decide on a private ceremony (if its too hard to do it with 50)

thanks so much in advance!

 

[TravelingGal]

what did you think of their ceremony area? did you use it? its a bit more private than the other side of the beach area, that is why i was leaning towards using it.

I was not a fan of their site...I think the public beach adjacent to it is so much prettier. Plus then you didn't have to pay their fee. The coordinator herself said for the size of our party and the day we were having it, we should just use Hermosa Beach.

those who had beach weddings, did you find that it was hard to find a private spot? i plan on having mine in the late afternoon in july on a friday and i am worrying that there may be too many people on the beach at that time.

We had it on Friday morning in October. The beach was completely empty, as I knew it would be from many years of walking down that strand and knowing what the patterns are.

also, how did you have your guests see/hear if there is no sound amplification - was that an issue for you? we have about 50 people but we dont need to have all at the ceremony if we decide on a private ceremony (if its too hard to do it with 50)

Not an issue for us...I'm loud.

We were right by the lifeguard tower, a bit away from the water. You will find that if you are very close to the water, it will definitely drown you out. Our ceremony was also very short and sweet...so if people missed what we were saying, they wouldn't be bored very long. I do think everyone who wanted to hear us was able to (i.e. the people who sat close in the front vs my aunts and uncles who stayed in the back and don't speak English anyway).

Another thing to keep in mind...if you are doing it in the afternoon, you will only be allocated to a room at the charthouse, with no DJ/dancing allowed. The thing I loved about our day wedding is that we had the entire venue to ourselves.

ETA keep in mind if you have over 50 people or over, technically you need a permit.

 

[DMBFiredancer]

wow, you''re quick TG!
that lifeguard tower is my favorite because thats where we spend lots of our each time...i would love to do it there instead, too.

so, i need to have a day wedding to have that front room? i thought a fri night could have it too....i''ll have to ask erin that.

what time was your reception? was it right after the ceremony? part of doing a day one is that there''s still the night ot go hang out on pier with guests or at the hotel with free beer

thanks for your help - you have no idea how much this helps me out - i''d rather hear from someone who has used the place - its puts me at ease

 

[TravelingGal]

Date: 1/14/2008 2:31:48 PM
Author: DMBFiredancer
wow, you''re quick TG!
that lifeguard tower is my favorite because thats where we spend lots of our each time...i would love to do it there instead, too.

so, i need to have a day wedding to have that front room? i thought a fri night could have it too....i''ll have to ask erin that.

what time was your reception? was it right after the ceremony? part of doing a day one is that there''s still the night ot go hang out on pier with guests or at the hotel with free beer

thanks for your help - you have no idea how much this helps me out - i''d rather hear from someone who has used the place - its puts me at ease

The restaurant is open for dinner at 5 everyday (I believe). So therefore the restaurant would be in operation while you were having your reception. This also is a bummer when it comes to the parking that is included for your guests, since other patrons could park there as well.

Ceremony was at 10:30, then a few photos right after, then reception 11:30-4 (Erin let us stay until nearly 5.) If you do a day wedding, I would recommend NOT scheduling anything at night. We did another get together at the Harbor Cafe for those who couldn''t make it to the wedding, as well as other friends and we were pooped. It''s the only thing I would have changed...just spent the rest of the evening with the hubby at the hotel.

 

[DMBFiredancer]

thank you

we really need to go meet with erin this weekend or next to hash everything out, i guess. my FI wasnt too jazzed on a day wedding on a friday...for me i dont care - id actually rather do it during the day. the way i see it, the people who WANT to be there will get there no matter what day or time.

were you in the sunset room? i assume thats the big one facing the ocean. it looks like there is another room on the north side, too...

on the pdf i got it said the following, which is why i assumed we could still have it at night:

Sunset Room – evening events
• To have the Sunset room privately on Friday, Saturday or Sunday there
is a $4,000.00 food & beverage minimum plus tax and gratuity.


im sure with food and alcohol we''d reach 4 grand anyway.

chair covers are $4.25-4.50 each....did you use them? to me, it seems like it wouldnt matter if they didnt have covers on them, but im pretty no-frills to begin with.

also, how did you work cocktail hour?. what appetizers did you order?

(sorry to ask so much....as you can tell i am VERY clueless about all this!)

 

[TravelingGal]

Date: 1/14/2008 11:49:56 PM
Author: DMBFiredancer
thank you

we really need to go meet with erin this weekend or next to hash everything out, i guess. my FI wasnt too jazzed on a day wedding on a friday...for me i dont care - id actually rather do it during the day. the way i see it, the people who WANT to be there will get there no matter what day or time.

were you in the sunset room? i assume thats the big one facing the ocean. it looks like there is another room on the north side, too...

on the pdf i got it said the following, which is why i assumed we could still have it at night:

Sunset Room – evening events
• To have the Sunset room privately on Friday, Saturday or Sunday there
is a $4,000.00 food & beverage minimum plus tax and gratuity.


im sure with food and alcohol we''d reach 4 grand anyway.

chair covers are $4.25-4.50 each....did you use them? to me, it seems like it wouldnt matter if they didnt have covers on them, but im pretty no-frills to begin with.

also, how did you work cocktail hour?. what appetizers did you order?

(sorry to ask so much....as you can tell i am VERY clueless about all this!)

Hm...well then I am confused. Perhaps they have another room that faces directly west into the ocean? I am only aware of the room on the north side of the restaurant.

OK...just went and did a search and found this...

http://www.herecomestheguide.com/location/detail/chart-house-redondo-beach

I believe the room I am thinking about is the sunset room. This room is the northfacing room, but it also has some of its windows westfacing. Check out the 360 guide on the above link.

No, I didn''t use chair covers. Their chairs are not the prettiest, but I didn''t care.

I had the entire restaurant, which was awesome. It was nice just having the place to ourselves without worrying about lookyloos. We had cocktail hour from about 1130ish to when the meal was served. TGuy and I had to take extra photos on the beach, so it was nice to have our guests just mingle, eat and drink. We had for 50 people:

- 80 tuna sashimi
- 100 coconut shrimp
- 100 prime rib bruschetta
- 100 chicken satay skewers

Of course I thought we were going to run short. It was a lot of food and we had tons leftover.

Also, if this helps you, we chose prime rib, filet mignon, fresh fish of the day, and tomato basi chicken (Erin was sweet and let us choose four with no problems). Our total was close to 7K...I believe it was about 6300 on the day plus our 500 deposit. I also recommend Torrance Bakery between the two bakeries they offer. Overall cake designs and flavors were better.

 

[TravelingGal]

oops, here is the appetizer pic...

 

[TravelingGal]

And the cake from Torrance Bakery set at the other corner of the room

 

[DMBFiredancer]

TGirl, thank you for those great pics! i love the look of that cake...i want some of my theme to be beachy, so its good to know that torrance does nice ones like that! did the shells come with it or did you buy them?

erin is on vacation for the next week so we wontg et to go talk to her yet. i am very excited about this place - i just hope it all works out. my FI is set on an evening wedding, but i wouldnt mind a day one (id prefer it actually) so that might be the only problem we have when we go talk to her (if the still only have small ones during the day because of the restaraunt. i''d rather have the place to myself anyway!)

was our 6300 including tax and gratuity?
silly question- do you need to tip anybody above the ''gratuity'' as a courtesy? erin/bartender/etc? i dont know how that works....

 

[TravelingGal]

Date: 1/16/2008 2:39:58 PM
Author: DMBFiredancer
TGirl, thank you for those great pics! i love the look of that cake...i want some of my theme to be beachy, so its good to know that torrance does nice ones like that! did the shells come with it or did you buy them?

erin is on vacation for the next week so we wontg et to go talk to her yet. i am very excited about this place - i just hope it all works out. my FI is set on an evening wedding, but i wouldnt mind a day one (id prefer it actually) so that might be the only problem we have when we go talk to her (if the still only have small ones during the day because of the restaraunt. i''d rather have the place to myself anyway!)

was our 6300 including tax and gratuity?
silly question- do you need to tip anybody above the ''gratuity'' as a courtesy? erin/bartender/etc? i dont know how that works....

Shells on the cake came with the cake. Shells on the table are ones I had.

Yes, including tax and service charge. I was all set to add a tip, but interestingly, Erin said don''t bother, that''s what the service charge is for. I was surprised, so I didn''t. I did drop off a card and a little thank you check for her personally later on though, as she was very accommodating and I loved working with her. Again, don''t be put off if she comes off brisk...it just seems the way she operates, but I found her prompt and responsive, which is all I really wanted in a coordinator.

The place just looks prettier in the daytime to me. The water is so blue. In the afternoons, the sun is lower over the water and there is more of a glare. Either way, I hope it works out for you.

 

[DMBFiredancer]

thank you again TG! i emailed this link to my mom and she was so excited about the cake picture and the view from the windows! she is in NJ so ive been trying to incorporate her in planning as much as possible...its so hard because i want her to feel involved.
pictures are a great way to help her feel like shes there.
plus i sent her the 360 link you sent - she said she has been showing that page to everyone at work and shes so excited about the place. she is totally rooting for the charthouse! this is a huge deal for me, since i went through a hard time of feeling like i SHOULD have the wedding in NJ where i am from. i could tell months ago that my parents were disappointed when i said that i was even LOOKING out here.

to have my mom this excited about a place means alot to me.
i cant wait to go talk to erin....i just hope the FI goes for this place. when we were out the other night i overheard him saying to a friend "even though i didnt want to get married in hermosa, we''re going to go check it out...it looks cool"

he told me long ago that hed rather not get married where he lives. i''ve been working on getting him to rethink that

keep those fingers crossed!

 

[DMBFiredancer]

we went there today to talk to erin...we LOVED the place (although we see what you mean about their private beach area)

they have upped some of the minimums....it would be $8000 min for us before tip/tax....so we''re looking at over 10k just to have it there.

a bit over what we wanted to spend so now we are back to square one...and back to me just wanting to go to the justice of the peace, get it over with, and call it a day....using any money we would have gotten from family to put towards a house.

 

[TravelingGal]

Sorry to hear that. Are you having it on a Saturday during the summer? If so, that would explain the higher minimum. We were on a Friday in the off season. Erin was very flexible since no one really gets married on a Friday during the day.

Hopefully you will find something!

 

[DMBFiredancer]

i asked for a friday in the summer....i was so set on that place, now i am back to going through that phase of not wanting anything. the cost of everything is really getting me down. im going to try to talk to the hermosa rotary club to see if we can have alcohol there....maybe we''ll rent that place out and just cater some food in. but then we''d have to decorate too, since its a plain room. i''m far from crafty so the idea of that stresses me out.

or maybe i''ll talk to erin about how she can work with us and our budget. maybe we''ll just have to get married in the offseason, as much as didnt want to.

or maybe we''ll cut our guestlist from 50 to about 25 and just go out somewhere for a nice lunch. i REALLY wanted dancing, though....but its starting to feel like so much of a hassle to find any place that is reasonable around here.

im beyond frustrated with the whole thing

 

[TravelingGal]

Yes, summers come at a premium around here. I''d either pay the 3 thousand extra (and figure you deserve it!) or just find something in the offseason. I didn''t look very hard, but I didn''t find much in the area that I liked.

If you really wanted dancing, don''t compromise. I had dancing and it was one of the best parts of the wedding. Have it the way you want it...you won''t regret it.

 

[DMBFiredancer]

thank you TG......i will keep trying to find a place within our budget that we can dance, too....i need to keep remembering that dancing was always my big ''must have'' - as i get more and more frustrated with cost, i keep compromising and saying ''screw it, we just wont have dancing...we''ll just all go out to lunch...'' and things like that.....

i just have to keep trying..as much of a pain in the but this whole wedding planning thing is.

 

[DMBFiredancer]

TG, do you have any pictures of the mats you used on the beach...i think i remember you saying you used them. also, how did you set up your area? did you place your mats down to "save" where your spot was (although i know in october its more empty on the beach so that might not have been an issue for you)

just curious how you had the beach part set up....i do know for sure that my ceremony will be very close to where yours was by that lifeguard stand. i''m just nervous that a friday or sat during the summer might be tricky, but oh well...people will have to step aside!

 

[TravelingGal]

Date: 2/6/2008 11:10:58 PM
Author: DMBFiredancer
TG, do you have any pictures of the mats you used on the beach...i think i remember you saying you used them. also, how did you set up your area? did you place your mats down to ''save'' where your spot was (although i know in october its more empty on the beach so that might not have been an issue for you)

just curious how you had the beach part set up....i do know for sure that my ceremony will be very close to where yours was by that lifeguard stand. i''m just nervous that a friday or sat during the summer might be tricky, but oh well...people will have to step aside!

The mats I got from Oriental Trading Company. They can be found here. 2.95 each and I got one for each couple, plus a few for the singles. So about $75 bucks on mats, give or take a little.

Set up our area? Uh...no set up. It was kind of helter skelter. We had someone waiting at the charthouse, directing. A couple of people also were strategically placed to direct. In the end, people seemed to walk over in a big herd. We had the mats in a big basket-y thing. When I got to the site myself, people were actually still standing around (near the lifeguard stand). I just walked around them and made a beeline toward my hubby to be!

Like you said...it was October. Beach was empty. I just appointed someone to get there a bit before and make sure there was a spot, which of course there was. If you can''t tell already, I''m not particularly anal....it''s a big beach. We had no spectators.