Upper Las Virgenes Canyon Open Space Preserve, a Magical Wedding!
Posted by Dana | Filed under L.A. Wedding Reception Venues
I had the pleasure of being the Event Coordinator for Felicity and Jack on their big day. Their wedding was held at a truly beautiful location, set in the Upper Las Virgenes Canyon Open Space Preserve at the top of a mountain in the San Fernando Valley. The property once belonged to the Ahmanson Family and was known as the Ahmanson Ranch until fairly recently. So if you’re searching for Ahmanson Ranch Wedding, you’ve come to the right place, it’s just changed names.
The property caretaker Joan was also on site and played an active roll with her assistant, to insure that all the aspects of the evening were taken care of. This venue offers a gorgeous outdoor setting for the ceremony and reception. Depending on the size of your event, creating the most romantic outdoor setting can be accomplished. In addition, the 1939 fully restored Ranch House is available for use, dressing areas, restrooms, and kitchen with scullery for your catering staff’s needs. The Open Space Conservancy allows you to bring in all of your own vendors and event professionals from catering, wait and bar staff, entertainment such as DJs and live musicians, décor and coordination. From the coordination perspective, this location allows me a great opportunity to be creative, the grounds of this facility are very large and offer a 360 degree view of the San Fernando Valley, but there are gorgeous trees everywhere and placing small areas here and there for different aspects of the event, such as dinner, cocktails, ceremony, dancing, and even designated smoking areas can all be created with an interesting design aspect. Also, a huge selling point to this property: You can party until 12:00am and potentially stay until 1:00am. Very few outdoor locations in Los Angeles allow events to go beyond 11:00pm and most outdoor wedding sites in Ventura County close you down at 10:00pm. So keep that in mind, you get to hire your favorite caterer and aren’t locked into an “exclusive” company, and you can stay and play past midnight!
DJ Jason Jones from Elegant Event Entertainment and I had a terrific time with all the wedding party and guests. Bride and Groom Felicity and Jack had a great community of family and friends. I have never heard so many heartfelt and wonderful speeches. The Groom and his family were from Norway and the culture of their weddings calls for lots of toasts, which was truly a wonderful aspect of this wedding and the venue provided a perfect setting for the intimacy of speeches without feeling long and drawn out. I credit the toasters and the Toastmaster Kixx Malone, a long time friend of the groom for keeping the toasts moving and adding that special intimate touch to all of the introductions and speeches, Kixx was awesome! Read the rest of this entry »
