L.A. planning Odyssey

Who would drive 800+ miles in a car with a duct-taped-on rear bumper, all in under 48hrs, just to plan a wedding? We would! And so we did, over the course of the past weekend, and quite frankly, it was probably the most productive two days of my life!
First off, we left Mountain View around 7:15 on Friday night, and didn't stop until we'd conquered the "Grapvine" (the mountainous pass leading into L.A. from Hwy 5). This was possible in large part due to the magnificent driving of Renee, who managed the 2nd half of the drive while I drifted in & out of consciousness. We made base camp at a Days Inn somewhere around Newhall, about 2 truck stops from Burbank. The room was spartan, but adequate, and proved a good staging ground for our assault on the valley.
First thing Saturday morning, we drove to meet the one florist on our agenda. Her name is Jackie Combs (Like Sean "Puffy", but of no relation), and she's good. Real good. Her previous clients included the lead singer of the Goo-Goo Dolls (worst band name ever), and her taste seems impeccable. Most impressive was her matter-of-fact straightforwardness, which should make working with her a breeze.
Next up, we drove out to Claremont on the 210. I'd forgotten how crazy L.A. traffic/driving is. Thankfully, we arrived safe & sound, and even early for our 1st cake tasting appointment at "Some Crust" bakery.
The tasting was great: 6 slices of cake, each covered with butter-cream frosting. They were all good, in their own way, but my favorite was the chocolate with raspberry filling (I usually shy away from fruit/chocolate combos, but this was different). Anyway, if we hadn't gone to our 2nd tasting that day, that's probably what we'd be serving you all come August 1st... but it won't be.
Before the 2nd tasting, we checked in to our hotel, the Claremont Doubletree (Hey, that's one of ones listed under the "travel" section of this blog! Who knew!). For some strange reason, our room hadn't been cleaned, so we ended up getting a bigger one right by the pool. Alas, we barely had time to kick our feet up before it was time to taste some more cake... life is hard!
Tasting #2 was at "Sweet Addictions". I can vouch for the addictiveness of chocolate. My mom claims she used to eat a brownie every day that I was in the womb, and I still can't kick the addiction. Anyhow, the chefs at this boutique pastry shop can bake a mean Black & White chocolate cake, and that's what we'll be enjoying! I won't spoil the surprise, but there's 7 layers, and 1 is chocolate mousse. By the time we got done, it was close to 4pm, but the day was hardly done, as it was back to Pomona to meet the caterers at the Sagehen Cafe!
Sagehen is the "classy" joint on campus. It's where every student goes at the end of the semester to blow the left-over "flex" dollars on their meal plan. I knew the food was good, but I had no idea how fun working with them would be! Cheryl & Melissa are awesome, they got into it, and they bounced ideas off each other so much that sometimes it seemed like they were the ones planning the whole wedding! We spent an hour-plus designing a menu for us to "taste" come April, when we make our 2nd trip to L.A. After all was said & done, Cheryl gave us each a big hug :).
Sunday was photography day, possibly the most important part of our planning (especially for Renee). We took a long, long, drive to Beverly Hills, where we were to meet up with Max, of Max Wanger photography (what, you don't know Max?!). We knew this guy would be cool based on his website, and his portfolio (he worked with rapper Lupe Fiasco!), but we didn't know he'd be Max cool. We're pretty sure he's in a class of his own. It's only his 1st year doing wedding photography, most of his prior work was in the food and magazine fields, but he's already booked through 2010! Basically, we can't do him justice, you'll just have to see for yourself (check out the pics of "Shoko & Julian" those are Renee's favorites).
Funny story: on the way out of the parking lot, we were boxed in by a thuggish looking guy in a high-end Mercedez. He rolled his window down, and was gesturing for us to do the same, but Renee kept pressing the "up" button when I tried to roll her side down because she was afraid we might get in a fight. Finally, I managed to get the thing rolled down, and it turned out the guy was just some Frenchman with a thick accent who wanted to know "Who make zat car? It look just like a mini-cooper!" He somehow failed to notice the duct-tape (or maybe he was just being polite).
For the sake of comparison, and because we'd already planned to do it, we drove out to Simi Valley to meet with another photographer, Jennifer of Bella Rosa photography. Simi Valley is an odd place. It's like a slice of Utah's Bryce Canyon injected into SoCal. There's all these boulders interspersed between tract homes. The meeting was in one such home, in a suburban cul-de-sac (already, not as cool as the Coffee Bean in Beverly Hills).
Jennifer was really sweet, and she had some pretty cool albums to show us - stuff that looked like it's straight out of a wedding mag. But we ultimately decided to go with Max because of how much we loved his work.
Finally, we hit the road back to Mountain View. The rain made the driving less than awesome, but we managed an uneventful five and half hours drive, and got home almost exactly 48hrs after we set out, tired, but refreshed that we'd gotten so much done in so little time.
Matter of fact, this post may have taken longer than the trip!
-Alex Out!