--by Vrej Sarkissian, CEO of LA Banquets-- After the excitement of your engagement dies down, you and your partner may decide, why wait? With 40% of couples waiting over a year after their engagement to marry (and spending some 15 hours a week planning the wedding!), you may realize that married sooner, rather than later, is the best course for your relationship. But a last minute wedding, doesn’t mean you have to nix your dreams of an elegant ballroom affair and run down to the courthouse. In fact, a last-minute wedding, or any special event, can be just as magnificent as the year-long planned event. And, last minute deals may add up to big savings, as long as you’re willing to be flexible with your options. Location, Location, Location Your first step will be to secure a venue. Call around and find out if your desired venues have any availability in the dates you are considering. If the venue has had a cancellation, you’ll be in luck. The venue will want to re-book that date and may offer you inviting incentives to close the deal. With a last minute wedding or special event, ask for flexibility with minimum guest counts, per-head costs, incidentals and anything else you can think of! Once the venue is booked, you’ll have a solid date which you can use to narrow down the rest of your vendors. Food, Flowers and Photography Ask your chosen venue for help in sourcing vendors for catering, flowers, photography, and entertainment. They are likely to have a preferred vendor list and may even know off-hand who will be available for your event. Your venue will have a good relationship with these vendors and may be able to call-in a special favor. Again, many vendors will offer discounts if they have an upcoming available date that they’d like to book, so don’t be afraid to ask! For other wedding day musts like decor and dress, consider rentals. Yes, you can rent your wedding dress! If you’d rather keep your dress, your best bet will be to buy a preowned dress (at a fraction of the cost) or off the rack. Again, remember that flexibility is key when you’re planning a last-minute event. If you can’t wait to get married, or just want to throw an end-of-the-summer bash for 300 of your closest friends, know it is possible! And it might even be possible at your favorite LA Banquets venue. Give us a call and we’ll work with you to get your wedding planned or that party started in no time at all. Header photo pic credited to: Earls37a via flicker
---by Vrej Sarkissian, CEO of LA Banquets--- The newest wedding trend has nothing to do with flowers, dresses or decor. Not even food, or going green. Brides and grooms now increasingly want “unplugged weddings.” At the unplugged wedding, guests are asked to put away their phones and cameras during the wedding ceremony, and often during the reception. Some couples even enforce the “no tech” rule by confiscating phones before the ceremony begins. This trend is already common practice at high-profile weddings, where celebrities don’t want images leaking out to the media, which either destroy their illusions of privacy, or void the cash payouts they stand to rake in by selling the photos themselves. For the rest of us, unplugged weddings are a reaction to another prevailing trend: experiencing life exclusively through the smartphone screen. But unless your name graces the covers of the weekly tabloids, your guests may think you think too highly of yourself if you’re asking them to surrender their phones and cameras. If you’re unsure about an unplugged wedding, consider the following before printing up “no phones” notices in your wedding day programs. The “Screen” Life isn’t as Sweet There’s an argument to be made for putting away phones to truly be present in the moment. Yes, all too often we’re distracted by our phones, Instagramming and live Tweeting every instant of a new experience. But a draconian decree may leave your guests so indignant they’ll only be thinking about when they’ll get their phones back, instead of freeing them to contemplate the beauty of your marriage. (Hopefully no guests have to be asked to turn off the ringer for the duration of the ceremony.) Your Guests are Stepping on Your Photographer’s Toes Wedding photographers, however are thrilled “unplugged weddings” are catching on. As one photographer thoroughly explains, your well-meaning uncle standing in the aisle trying to capture the “I dos” on his iPhone (or iPad!) may ruin your professional photographer’s shot. And when you consider how much you’re paying for those professional photos, you want to do everything you can to make sure your photographer gets the shots you want. A More Intimate Look Embracing and incorporating technology in your ceremony and reception though can give you a more complete story of what happened at your wedding. Looking through each guest’s particular photos and social media status updates opens an entirely new perspective of your wedding experience. By creating a unique (and clever) hashtag for your wedding, your guests can create an instant digital scrapbook you and your family can enjoy the next day. You’ll miss out on this if everyone’s phones are tucked safely away. Like all trends, it’s up to you to decide whether to you wish to follow suit, tweak it to your own tastes, or ignore it completely. Whatever you choose, hopefully it won’t be a decision you regret when you’re looking at your professional pictures fifteen years from now. __ Photo via Sakosan Photography.
by Vrej Sarkissian, CEO of LA Banquets At LA Banquets, we strive to keep our venues looking fresh, modern and elegant. So even when we’re not actively changing or updating some aspect of the ballrooms, you can be sure we’re planning our next renovation. All this …
by Vrej Sarkissian, CEO of L.A. Banquets. We want to introduce a new feature on our blog and bring you real weddings from our L.A. Banquets reception venues. For the first post in this series, we have Ana and Grigor’s wedding that transformed Le Foyer Ballroom into a dreamy white wonderland. This was a particularly special wedding for L.A. Banquets as the bride, Ana, is the daughter of one of our vendors, CMC Party Rentals. We’ve worked closely with CMC Party Rentals on countless events, so Ana’s wedding felt like a family affair for us too. With anything she could imagine at her reach, Ana envisioned a classic, all-white wedding with gold accents. Our venue needed some extra touches to meet Ana’s requirements. With CMC Rentals, we hung up soft white drapes around the entire perimeter of Le Foyer Ballroom. Our red carpets disappeared under a blanket of white. And the hardwood dance floor was covered in pristine white tiles. We were all awed by how a few changes utterly transformed Le Foyer Ballroom to provide the setting for a glamorous, yet classic wedding. Ana’s dream wedding surpassed every expectation. Congratulations Ana and Grigor!
by Vrej Sarkissian, CEO of L.A. Banquets Browsing through the news a few days ago, I came across a story about moms who cite Pinterest as a source of stress in their lives. As a virtual place to share and find beautiful images of parties, food, and craft projects, Pinterest should be a haven for relaxation. But as moms try to replicate that level of fantasy perfection, and do it all themselves, they find the reality doesn’t often match their pinned perfection. And it’s not just moms. Every day I see brides who suffer from “Pinterest stress” too. Overwhelmed by all the “inspiration,” brides are driven to anxiety, or worse, jealous competition. Brides convince themselves they have to plan the most fabulous, unique, Pinterest-worthy wedding Pinterest has ever seen. Often without regard to what their budget allows. Many of these stresses stem from the sheer number of wedding related do-it-yourself projects brides undertake. From handmade centerpieces to home preserved jam wedding favors, wanting to DIY aspects of a wedding to achieve a uniquely personal look is a natural inclination. Not everyone has Martha Stewart skills and patience for crafts though, but Pinterest makes many brides feel that handmade and DIY is the true mark of a great wedding. For brides who aren’t naturally handy or creative, DIY can pose a real challenge and endless headaches. I’ve seen brides try out calligraphy for the first time with 350 invitations to hand-letter. The result is usually spilled bottles of ink and ruined sheets of expensive paper. And besides taking up a lot of time, DIY projects don’t always save any money. Especially if a frustrated bride or couple ends up finding a vendor to take over a failed DIY project. Wedding planning is difficult enough without adding the extra stress of trying to create a Pinterest-perfect DIY wedding. I say this to all the brides out there: There’s no shame in saying “I don’t” to DIY. Stand up to the Pinterest pressure and create the wedding you envision, not the one Pinterest says you need to have. Your guests won’t appreciate all the little handmade touches if you’re too exhausted to celebrate. Just remember Pinterest is a tool to help you plan, not the point of your wedding itself. Stay true to what you want and need, and be aware of time and patience limitations when it comes to DIY. Save the elaborate projects for your vendors and save yourself the headaches. Don’t worry if your wedding doesn’t match up to the Pinterest fantasy, because the real thing will be so much better.
By: Vrej Sarkissian, CEO of L.A. Banquets It's the morning of your wedding. Even before you open your eyes, only one thought buzzes through your brain: Today is The Day — The Day you’ve spent months planning, The Day you’ve waited for your whole life. Your excitement and anticipation made sleep nearly impossible, but you lie in bed a few more minutes, thinking over all the details: Roses and lilies delivered — check! Handmade decorations in the reception hall — check! The construction of your five-tier passion fruit and dark chocolate mousse cake — check! Everything has come together just like you and your fiancé planned, but... Then you realize that something, everything could go awry. What about the band? Did they get the playlist? Did the photographer get the right address and start time? Has the champagne been chilled? You bolt out of bed, about to call every vendor to triple-check orders and... Stop. Before you let stress consume you on The Day, remind yourself that you’re already prepared. To help yourself relax, think back to your last run of sleepless nights filled with anxiety... Preparation Beats Perspiration Remember finals week in school? Think of your frazzled friend, cramming at the last minute. She was so stressed out, she couldn’t concentrate on even eating. Then think of your other friend who stumbled into the classroom in flip-flops, coffee cup in hand, looking like she just came from the beach. Both had studied and were equally prepared, but who usually scored better? The friend in flip-flops, of course. She knew she had prepared, and that exam day is too late to learn more, so why stress about it? Her calm confidence helped her more than any last-minute cramming would. On your wedding day, emulate your second friend. No, don't wear flip-flops down the aisle (unless tropical beach is your wedding theme). Just remind yourself that you’ve done all that you can in the months leading up to this date. Anything that doesn’t go according to plan is beyond your control. Florist deliver flowers in the wrong shade of pink? Ceremony run a few minutes late? Only you will notice, so let others think about them — your parents, your wedding planner, the professionals at your banquet facility. Instead focus on the life-changing event that matters: marrying the person you love. Here's another tip to keep you stress-free and confident in the days leading up to The Day: while planning your wedding, keep the details organized. Try the Ultimate Wedding Planning Checklist at Real Simple, and the wedding planning tools created by Google and the wedding experts at Style Me Pretty. Share the documents with your fiancé and anyone else helping you plan. Using these tools will help free your mind, so instead of sweating the details you're savoring every moment. And while you're getting your hair and make-up done, try on a pair of flip-flops – they'll remind you that everything will turn out better than even you expected.
