First Reception Possibility: Old World Huntington Beach

This past weekend James and I happened to be down in Orange County, so we decided to check out a possible reception venue while we were in the neighborhood. It's a cute little German community off the 405 Beach Blvd. exit in Huntington Beach called Old World Village. There's a restaurant, a beer garden, a bakery, a deli, and lots of other German style shops. Here's a picture:

James and I have been there once or twice before for Oktoberfest and have had a great time. And in my initial google searches for wedding reception venues in South Bay Los Angeles and northern Orange County, Old World kept popping up. So I checked out their website. 

One thing immediately struck me as super awesome about this venue. It wasn't the pictures of wedding set-ups (though those were quite pretty), it wasn't the fact that they could do catering/baking on site (though that would be really convenient), it was the PRICE. HOLY CRAP does Old World have some awesome rental rates! After looking at price estimates of a handful of other places before this one, I had kinda convinced myself that locations this inexpensive did not exist in southern California. So Old World made this frugal bride very happy!

Old World has a couple different rooms available for wedding receptions, but James and I would be looking at this one: the Old World Lounge.

It doesn't show in the pic, but there's a small patio area off the back of this room where guests could step out for air.

Overall, I really like this location. Here are some pros and cons.

PROS

• This room feels cozy and intimate. But not so cozy and intimate that our friends would be stepping all over each other. It's a perfect size for our small-ish wedding reception.
• As I already mentioned, THE PRICE. We could do a room rental, a 4 hour drink package, and a buffet style dinner for $2,300. James and I aren't even sure we want dinner at our reception, but if you buy a buffet package through Old World Catering, they'll give you a 20% discount on renting the room. So why not?!
• This location feels very us. We are a low key couple. We don't hit up the clubs in our designer clothes and drink champagne on the weekends. We prefer to crawl into a warm, dark bar with an ice cold beer. Why should our wedding feel any different? Plus, we both have a lot of German ancestry. So it's fitting. 

CONS

• Our preferred dates aren't available. As one might expect, German places are very busy during September and October because of Oktoberfest. Old Word doesn't have a single thing available during either of these months. We would either have to move the wedding up to the last two weekends of August or push it back to the first two weekends of November... or later. 
• It's kinda far from our ceremony site. Old World is nearly 6 miles inland from the ocean. I had been hoping for something a little closer, even perhaps within walking distance of the ceremony site.
• This is a minor thing, but I was still disappointed by this news. Old World's main baker just retired and their new baker isn't quite comfortable doing wedding cakes yet. I had gotten myself all worked up over the idea of having a German pastry chef do our wedding cake *drool* But life goes on. We would just have to use an outside bakery.

So there you have it! That's Old World Village! It is definitely a strong contender for a reception site! We would still like to check out a few more places before making a final decision though. 

The next reception location we're looking into is right here in Long Beach. It's a restaurant/bar James and I already frequent and love. But the place is quite a bit nicer, so most likely it will be quite a bit more expensive. We'll see...

Until next time!

**Louisa**