About A Los Angeles Love

I am not that girl. You know, that girl who used to enact wedding ceremonies with Barbie and Ken, who carried around a mental list of her future bridesmaids, and who's been dreaming about the dress for ages.  Instead, I'm the girl who figured she'd never get married, so I never bothered to give it much thought. 

But a few years ago, my inability to picture myself married suddenly changed.  Because I was in love.  And it wasn't the sort of dramatic love I'd been involved with before, it was the heady-but-perfectly-comfortable feeling of life-partner love. Fast forward to the present, when we just got engaged and I'm giddy picturing the joys of our marriage and partnership, but still puzzling over picturing our wedding itself. I know that the poofy-white-dress-banquet-hall-event isn't for me, but the more challenging and important part is figuring out what is for me and for us.  So far, I know:

• The ceremony is important - we want to write our own vows and ceremony, albeit heavily infused with our Reform Jewish traditions. 
• The party is important - we want our wedding to be a giant party celebrating our love and our community. The reason we're having a wedding and not eloping is to spend time with our friends, sharing our joy.  
• The people are important - We will not edit our guest list to make it affordable but we will focus on the people who matter most. Instead of cutting people, we will cut wedding "traditions" that are unimportant to us or take away from spending time with our friends and family.
  
• We will not go into debt - we haven't figured out all the finances yet, but we expect to pay for most of the wedding ourselves, and our marriage goals are more important than paying for an expensive wedding.
  
• We want a local wedding that reflects our values - we love Los Angeles (the non-celebrity parts of this city that we know and explore regularly) and we want to share its underground treasures with our friends and families. We want to support local businesses. And we want to get married in our chosen hometown, in a way that reflects our religious, environmental and social values.
  

As for details, logistics and the process of making these ideas come to life... that's what this blog is for. I wanted a space where I can learn to picture our inexpensive, meaningful, joyful Los Angeles wedding, with a lot of marriage planning thrown into the mix. I wanted a space to gather low-cost inspiration for Los Angeles brides and grooms because traditional wedding planning resources weren't inspiring me or generally reflecting my well-under $30,000 budget requirements. I wanted a space that captures the ethos over at A Practical Wedding or 2000dollarwedding.  And I wanted a space that focuses on uniquely Angeleno resources and needs because, as much as I love  offbeatbride and kvetch, neither has particularly active Los Angeles planning threads.

So if you're reading, welcome to my blog, and welcome to our wedding planning adventure.