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!
The dance floor was the place to be as darkness descended and the beautiful globe lights glowed in the trees, Elegant Event Entertainment’s very own DJ Jason rocked another Wedding with his great selections of music and his flawless MC skills. It all started with the Bride and Groom’s very sweet First Dance and later he arranged one of the most touching Father and Daughter dances I have ever seen, pictured here, where Felicity and her dad danced to “The Blue Danube Waltz” by Johann Strauss. The moment dad began to lead the waltz, Jason and I simultaneously watched and read dad’s lips as he said to his daughter “I love you,” well, all I can say is, not many dry eyes around that dance floor! And finally, after dinner the dance music kicked in and the floor was packed until DJ Jason’s departure. Jason really got everyone going when he sang his smashing rendition of the Al Green classic “Let’s Stay Together” which has become a signature at many of his weddings. The crowd absolutely goes wild for him. After DJ Jason left, 2 friends of the Bride and Groom stayed on for the last 2 hours of the event to spin electronic music and club tunes. This wedding had a lot of talent and entertainment, there was never a dull moment.
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Most of the time Wedding Professionals feel a sense of responsibility or a romantic need to put a piece of ourselves into your wedding, and for the most part this is a true labor of love … On this particular weekend we had the wonderful opportunity to see love and work in the spirit of that love, and have the realization that love takes a community to complete its work. As an event coordinator, this was but one of hundreds of weddings and events I have had the pleasure of working with, but it was a truly special evening for me and I hope I’ll have the opportunity to continue working with Brides and Grooms as wonderful as Felicity and Jack. Take a look at the Bride’s website, she’s an amazing photographer in Los Angeles, you might have heard of her Felicity Murphy Photography
If you haven’t’ seen or heard of the Upper Las Virgenes Canyon Open Space Preserve (Formerly Ahmanson Ranch) you absolutely need to put a star beside it and make an appointment to check it out. Contact our office and ask for me, Dana, I can arrange to take you there and help you plan a perfect wedding!
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