On the big day, the ceremony will be held at 11:30AM, in the narrow park along Ocean Avenue, between Washington and Montana Ave. Right around here, in fact:

And the immediate area looks a little something like this (link instead of minimap to save space):
http://tinyurl.com/2d2lt5a

There is street parking and there are meters, though of course they are first come, first served. If you take a run past this area and don’t see anything, you can park a bit further away at Public Garage 2, at 1235 Second St (between Wilshire and Arizona):
http://tinyurl.com/2fltcob

The reception will be several blocks south on Ocean, here:
http://tinyurl.com/25oxrox
There is valet parking for $6.50 at the restaurant.  The lot entrance is on the south side, just past the pier if you are coming down Ocean, just left of the pier if coming down Colorado. Some of us plan to walk from the ceremony to the restaurant, but this is a healthy-sized walk, so feel free to drive if your boots aren’t made for walking.

Dress for the wedding: Shall we call it California country-club business casual? Just something nice that is appropriate for the warm weather, but think more Hilfiger than Bahama (between the Tommy brothers).

As long you don’t wear t-shirts, jeans, polo shirts, Hawaiian shirts, flip-flops, parachute pants, clear jelly shoes, green-and-red plaid golf pants, wrestling singlets, Carhartt coveralls, shiny harem pants or pink neon terry-cloth scrunchies, then you will be fine. Double standard alert: shorts not allowed for men but okay for women!

Just look good and feel comfortable!

Rather than hiring a wedding photographer to capture our wedding in one mood and at one shutter speed, we are “crowd-sourcing” the photography. In other words, we are trusting entirely in the cameras that you bring along in your pockets and purses. We can do this only because you are a friendly and clever bunch with a sense of fun and an eye for composition…and because there are at least a few amateur (and not-so-amateur) lenspersons who enjoy this sort of thing!

So here is the plan: Take whatever pictures you like on the day; then send us the ones you think turned out well.

That means if you want to take pictures at any given moment, just go for it. If you don’t feel like taking pictures or you don’t want to trundle out the old Brownie, rest assured that someone else will have it covered. Of course, they might not catch that charming moment that only you saw…but no one should feel obliged to take photos.

Then when you get a chance, just email the ones you like to Shawn — or if they’re prints, mail them to us in Yonkers — and we’ll be forever grateful.  (We can always give you our contact info again but we don’t want to post it on an open website.) If you are savvy enough to convert your digital shots to jpegs of a convenient size (say, under 2MB each) that is even better.

Once we have them all, we can put our favorites up on this blog, post a bunch to Facebook and send the very best ones to all of you by email. We hope you like our idea! It sounds fun to us, and we thought it would give everyone a chance to put a little of their personality into the wedding.

After lots of searching, we came up with these four suggestions. There are approximately 3.1 zillion hotels in L.A. but these four are in the right part of town and represent fair trade-offs between location, amenities and cost. Anyone who is driving and wants to try hotels futher afield in L.A. — say, in Hollywood or West Hollywood — just tell Shawn your maximum rate and he will find some good choices.

Since we don’t have enough people in need of hotels to qualify for a block of rooms, the rates below are the hotels’ prevailing rates for those days. Remember when reserving, it never hurts to mention your AAA membership if you have it. Here they are in order of price.

Radisson – Los Angeles Westside
6161 West Centinela Avenue, Culver City CA 90230-6306
Reservations: 1-800-395-7046
http://www.radisson.com/culvercityca
Rates from about $105.
North of LAX, about 8 miles (15 minutes) from the wedding. Free shuttle to and from the airport. Close to the Culver City Mall and around the corner from Dinah’s (http://www.dinahsrestaurant.com/) — if you stay here, you should eat there!

Comfort Inn Santa Monica
2815 Santa Monica Blvd., Santa Monica, CA 90404
Phone: (310) 828-5517
http://www.comfortinnsantamonica.com/home.nxg
Rates from about $159.
In Santa Monica, about 3 miles (10 minutes) from the wedding. Relatively close and guest parking is free — would cost $8 to $30 per day elsewhere — but the hotel is nothing special, and there’s not much to see within walking distance.
 
Embassy Suites LAX North
9801 Airport Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90045
Telephone: 310-215-1000
http://www.laxembassy.com/
Rates from about $199 (or $163 prepaid) for 2-room suite with sleeper sofa.
Next to LAX, about 10 miles (25 minutes) from the wedding.

The Georgian
1415 Ocean Avenue. Santa Monica, CA 90401
Telephone: 310-395-9945 / Toll-free: 800-538-8147
http://www.georgianhotel.com/
Rates from about $255. The “Inclusive Package” starts at $325.
Art Deco-era hotel with a famous veranda, within walking distance of the wedding, the beach, the pier and Third Street Promenade. Rooms in front have beach views, while those away from the street are quieter.

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