LA: the venue short list

Finding a modern design/architecture-inspired venue in LA for a wedding reception shouldn’t be that hard right? Wrong! For bride-elects who dream of a wedding at the beach, amongst California-Spanish style architecture, or at a hotel/country club, LA provides many wonderful options. However, to obtain a modern-ish venue you have to do some serious research. Here is our shortlist. The baseline requirements included: modern, stylish, indoors, and minimum capacity of 150 guests.


Seven Degrees
If Laguna Beach was less of a drive, hands down we would be celebrating here. Initial thoughts were to make it an “at-home destination wedding,” but after considering the drive for in-state guests, it was seeming less feasible. Moving on to the true beauty of Seven Degrees, these guys offer a full service experience- event curation, design, floral, food, lighting—you name it, they do it. Working with them would have been a dream, esp since we are planning from 1k miles away. There would have been no gawking staff at our mood boards and table layout diagrams there.


The Social Hollywood
How rad to say that your wedding was at a Chodorow establishment? We loved everything about this place, except the large event space. The styling is exquisite except for that one room! We were also bugged by the fact that they Photoshop’ed elements into their brochure that didn’t exist in the space (fabric panels, staircase). It was a huge let down, but at least the staff was very friendly and accommodating. It’s a good option for a rehearsal dinner or a professional event.


The Luxe Sunset
This would get the mom and senior vote. The Luxe is a quaint boutique hotel nestled in the hills off Sunset. We like it, but the modern feel was a bit soft for our tastes + the color palette blah. The hotel as a whole is beautiful, however we have been hell bent against plunking our wedding into a hotel ballroom. The outdoor/cocktail reception area was perfect, but the indoor space would need a lot of dressing up. Also for a boutique hotel, there were some sloppy details- dirty outdoor furniture, chipped paint, etc. The true positive for this place in the end would have been the ability for guests to crash there and stay the night.


Republic
We heart Republic in all aspects, except that it was a total buyout for a Saturday event. Also, there wasn’t an elevator for accessibility needs. We lament the fact that we will not be dining on their signature lobster corn dog hors‘devours.