What venues are you looking at for your ceremony and/or reception?  I'm looking at the Lindley-Scott House in Azuza.  (I have an appointment to see the place on Saturday.)  There are so many places out here, but most are so expensive.  I'm curious as to where other brides are looking. =)

I posted this in the OC group too.  We'd love to have the reception at the Aquarium of the Pacific, but it's probably out of our price range.  More feasible options are a Long Beach Harbor cruise, or a golf course banquet hall.  A banquet hall isn't exciting, but it certainly meets the budget. =)

We recently booked our venue.  It's called BoxEight Studios and it is fabulous!  It's in downtown Los Angeles, they let you bring in your own food and booze, no weird fees, they have in house professional high fashion photographers and production assistants for you to use if you please (obviously for a price), there is a beautiful outdoor garden area for the ceremony, and a huge amazing loft style photography studio with wood beamed ceilings and gorgeous art on the walls-- this would be for the reception. we walked in and were sold pretty much instantly. $3000 to rent for the entire day (they also let you come in and set up the night before).

I wrote about boxeight and some other LA venues in my blog if you care to have a look: http://thebowiebride.blogspot.com/

We are actually doing a very budget wedding. We will have our reception at a community hall in Irwindale. $90.00/hr. with full access to kitchen...set up can be done the day before and same day for $20.00/hour.

Haven't looked seriously into caterers yet, but will very soon.  The hall, which includes nine 72" round tables, will seat a little over 90 people which is the perfect size for us.

The church we will be getting married in is right around the corner from the hall.

We've already bought our paper lanterns to put in the hall......different hues of purples and white.

(Shooting for a $3,000 wedding...not including wardrobe)

I have a very small budget for my wedding and am looking for a beach or garden setting in the LA area. If anyone knows of a place, I would love to check it out. Thank you in advance.

A little late to the party but we had our Hallowedding reception at Domenico's Italian restaurant in Monrovia CA and for approx. 160 people the final tally was just under $3,000 for the food. The bar tab was just under $900 (which my wonderful in-laws picked up for us). 

We had an all-you-can-eat buffet style dinner that included three different entrees, two types of salad and appetizers for the cocktail hour. 

They didn't charge us for the use of the room, nor did they rush us out (we had the whole upstairs from 4 p.m to 10 p.m.) and they can fit in a dance floor and dj.  It was tight but fun.  They also had a bonus room for us to set up cigar rollers, the gift table, the cake, and as it turned out a great place to take group photos.

The owners were so flexible when it came to extra stuff we wanted to do (i.e. letting my DOC's in at 11 a.m. to decorate)

This type of set-up is definitately for anyone going the "not-so-elegant" route but more casual, fun, laid-back and loud.

www.domenicosmonrovia.com