Hyatt Huntington Beach, Vista Ballroom – 2011

Posted on: Monday, December 26th, 2011

My ladies and I love this ballroom at the Hyatt HB.  Just the right size, and the team at the Hyatt is so great to work with.  We are fortunate to have been on the preferred vendor list from the day the hotel opened.  Again this year we found ourselves in the Vista Ballroom quite often, sometimes with the CA Courtyard Cere site and sometimes with the Lighthouse Courtyard site.  See below for some of the different looks we saw/created this year, as you can see, our brides are so different in their colors and style, our job is never boring and no two weddings are the same, we love it:

Thank to www.tonyflorez.com for the above pics.  When Ramona and Doug and I started planning their wedding they lived here, then Doug got a promotion to Boston, he went first and Ramona followed and all the while we were getting things done.  Then he got transferred back about a month before the wedding.  It was a great, loving celebration with a lot of family celebrating with them.  For this one I matched Victor from Invisible Touch djs to them for their event, and he was perfect, he had to keep up with the different requests and styles of music being asked for, he was a trooper.

Please look below.  Isn’t this a beautiful look.  This was a Persian/Iranian cere I did at the CA Courtyard.  Picture courtesy of Elegant Sofrehs by Taraneh.  We have done a few weddings together in the past few months.  

The wedding below, photos courtesy of Katie Clark photographer (love her), was just a labor of love for me.  ‘My double A s’ I called the bride & groom, Alexander/groom meet Alexandra/bride!!   Too fun.  Something happened on this one when we were interviewing photographers that made me stop and really live in that moment, we had met with Katie re photography, she was the first we met with and we had 2 more appts following hers, Alex the groom normally has quite a bit to say (but not in an obnoxious way) but he was quite quiet during the meeting.  When we left he said to me ‘she is it, she is our photographer we don’t need to meet with anyone else’.  I said to him wow, what makes you so sure and his response to me was ‘I can’t explain it, but her work spoke to me’.  I think that is the greatest compliment any photographer would like to hear someone say about their work/passion, this person ‘got’ them and their style or what their eye saw.  Fabulous.  Well I did make the three of us go to the next meeting, who happened to be a fabulous photographer and I just needed to be sure Alex knew what he wanted, and after that meeting he was still adament Katie was for them, so I cancelled the third meeting.  The pics below are what I need for my blog/portfolio, but I know from the xmas card I just got, that they got the artsy look/feel from katie in their photos of them they were looking for, it was a beautiful xmas card.

This was also a wedding where I was already booked for another wedding on their date, so they met with Peni and me at the initial meeting/interview and were aok moving forward,  with me from budget through every aspect/detail of their event, vision to reality, moments, food/beverage choices, and then had Peni orchestrate the actual event on the day itself (per the detailed timeline/order of events we had all created together).  The neat thing was, my wedding was at the Hyatt also, so I was able to pop over a couple of times and say hi and get/give hugs.

Well I loved my time with the bride and groom from the wedding below, my bride was Italian and just sweet and pretty and kept me laughing.  I had trouble pronouncing her name and at one of our first meetings told her I was renaming her and called her a new name and low and behold she liked it!!  I was kidding.  From that time on, each vendor we met and I would say her real name she would correct me and want them to call her the name I gave her.  Cracked me up.  One night we sat in the office while on her IPAD she showed me where they were going on their honeymoon and by using the google earth or whatever it was we were able to actually see the sand/clearness of the water and feel like we were there.  So then we got suckered in and I took her via IPAD to my home in New Zealand, the street I grew up on, my parents houses, and then we ‘drove’ around my neighbourhood where I was suprised to see how many of my neighbours have pools in their yards!!!  That was when it became scary and I decided maybe the internet/computer age has gone a bit far and privacy really is a thing of the past.  Good for honest/usefeul/normal research, but that is where it should stay, right!!  Anyway, she loved butterflies, so we incorporated them into everything but to where it was just right/not too much (no butterfly release tho, have yet to see a ‘good’ one, doves no problem), we had so much fun taking the words (I have all couples I am starting from the beginning with use words to describe what they want their guests to feel or what they want to feel when they see their event in pictures) and making them a reality.  Thought we were done, and suddenly a week before the event the groom said to me, Lisa she really hates those drapes in that room what can we do, the only thing we can do is drape the room I said, so drape it we did.  It looked fabulous, first time I have since the hotel opened seen anyone drape here, we do it further south a lot, just don’t seem to get the op here, so I was thrilled with the end result and so were they.  Also this cake exceeded the amount alloted in the package, so they did have to pay more to get more tiers and the look she wanted, but it was worth it, it was a stunner.    Thanks to www.tonyflorez.com for the photos, great working with Jeff Holmes/Moondance dj as always and linens/dancefloor/draping, chairs were all thru my good friends at Fusion Linens, never any suprise charges to get things done when they need to be done, and you will notice we also added some seating areas on each side of the cake table which were well utilized once the dancing began and people started moving around and chatting.

You will be noticing that I set this ballroom up a lot where the couples table and the cake are centered and most of the time my couples table is against the service wall looking towards the window – I really don’t see why you should be facing a wall but some of my couples want the windows behind them.  By setting the room this way, all guests are as close to you as each other, nothing is off to the side missed by some or seemingly not important.  Also I had started doing it towards the end of last season for some weddings, but it seemed this year all the brides loved the flat hang fold napkin, very clean/elegant looking,  so you will notice that is the fold used in the majority of the photos I am posting of some of my 2011 weddings.  It’s these little things that each year can be different/make a difference.

Above are just a sampling of the weddings we did in the Vista ballroom, there were quite a few more.  It seems a lot of the lunch time weddings tend to use the hotels standard linens/chairs and are a little lighter with florals/color, whereas all the weddings above were evening, so those weddings tend to want to create a complete environment.  What you think the couples above spent and what they actually did spend, will suprise you.  It’s all about us using the right vendors to match the couples style and budget and that is where I really get to have fun working out who that team should be and then guiding you along the way.

Again, thanks to the wonderful team at the Hyatt HB who we love working with, from the team in the office, Cheryl, Jessica, Sarah, Mark and the wonderful assistants Jamie and Cathleen, all headed by Nancy, to the banquet team we work side by side with on the wedding day, headed by Glenn (who I have known for around 20 years,  he is the banquet manager and very seasoned from a variety of properties in S CA and really leads the team by example),  the great banquet captains as well as the banquet staff/servers and bartenders (headed by Javier who is excellent) some of who we have worked there with from day one when the hotel opened.  Really really nice team, all there to ensure the success of your event, and of course Hyatt style, service and amenities, not to mention, the wonderful location of the hotel for visitors to S Ca but also locals that go to the beach but never wander across the street to the hotel that looks so nice!!

Till next time

Lisa

www.lisasimpsonweddings.com

714 305 7112

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