On Friday we took a drive out to the American Jewish University’s Brandeis-Bardin Institute in Simi Valley (Google map). Kerry attends AJU in LA and visited the Simi Valley campus as a kid.
She had a feeling that it was going to be “the location” – we were really hoping that it would work out for us.
One of our biggest struggles in finding a location is food. Kerry has Celiac Disease and we’ve been limited to eating only from our completely gluten-free kitchen for the past six months. So, we need a place that is willing to have their whole kitchen cleaned and reserved solely for our party’s gluten-free meal.
We’d been tempted by the beautiful pictures taken by photographer Meg Perotti at a wedding on the campus. I went with Kerry to her Friday morning class, and we drove out there midday. Or I should say, Kerry drove and I worked using my fancy new 4G aircard.
There were a ton of options on the campus for our wedding, after all they have 2,600 acres of property, only 40 have been developed. But we settled on a building called House of the Book. To reach it you take a small, two-lane road up a steep hill. Kerry joked that she was glad no rugby coaches were around to make us run it. It’d be a tough bike ride, let alone run, but I bet my brother Zack would do it.
There is a patio in the front, and the sun in the afternoon is behind the building (google satellite image). Given that we would do a late afternoon wedding, the patio would give our ceremony some necessary shade. Around the back of the building and by around, we do mean around, we would have the cocktail hour. The building is circular and we were using water bottles to show the layout to our friends/family/teammates who were over for dinner this weekend.
The reception would be inside the House of the Book, which was build in the 70’s by a funder who insisted that the inside is the inside, and the outside is the outside. So there are no windows, just one skylight. It’s concrete inside and out. And there are three round rooms inside the main room that have books on shelves.
I know – it sounds disastrous. But once inside the building, there’s an unexpected lightness and strong design elements. Regardless, we will need to bring some life inside the building, with flowers, decorations, and of course, energetic guests.
The room is plenty big and there is a little stage on which the small band we are hoping to afford would likely fit. The building hasn’t really been renovated since the 70’s so it’s a little, um, 70s, but we can make it work. One of my favorite touches was the Warhol painting of building’s patron, hanging in a shabby frame in the foyer.
Some of you will recognize it from the Power Rangers.
Right now, we are waiting to hear back on a budget quote, which includes food, to figure out if the location fits our budget. But right now, we are feeling good about it.
(photo via katerw on flickr, under a cc license.)
Julia and Kerry and Baby 
A lovely location for the wedding and I might add nearby for those of us in the west San Fernando Valley, not so close for the dwellers in the ‘chood. And as a סימן טוב, if it was good enough for the Power Rangers, clearly it’s a blessing for you.
I would love to help you out with the food. My friend casey and I are pretty well versed in glutten free cooking, his boyfriend it’s completely gluten and dairy free and we could easily do it on a large scale. Email me if you are interested and we can see what we can work out. Not sure if you ladies are going kosher as well but what we don’t know already about that, we can learn:),