Vibiana — Local services in Los Angeles

I officiated my friends' wedding this past weekend. I must report that this was one the most amazing wedding venue that I ever attended. Look at my amazing photos and videos.

MULTIMEDIA cathedral ceiling of the Vibiana acts like a smaller, scaled-down Vegas SPHERE, where hi-def protectors can display the most amazing likelike images and videos. Check out the last video where realistic FIREWORKS are simulated onto the ceiling. It's the one where Katherine Ho is singing "Yellow" from Coldplay. She sang this for the movie Crazy Rich Asians. Watch it 2/3 through to see the fireworks on the ceiling.

SOUND. The sound technician was a pro. My lavilier mic and handheld wireless mics were all ready and available. The major complaint is that the tech team should check the battery levels. My cordless lavilier transmitter was almost empty. Luckily it was swapped with new batteries just before the service. Secondly, the handheld cordless mics had either battery issues (again) or something else. It was corrected, with a slight delay in the evening performance. Near the end of the evening, the DJ turned up the sound and the place quickly turned into a nightclub. Boom boom bass.

FOOD. Since the venue has a direct ownership or partnership with RED BIRD restaurant next door, I expected better banquet fair. I give the food 4stars. Nice presentation and service, but my wife's sea bass and my short rib were both overcook. We'll, it'd not easy to prepare a meal for 200+ guests.

Scalability and Flexibility. I appreciated the good and efficient use of the back curtains to hide banquet tables during the service and quickly covert from a church service to a grand banquet hall. The back curtained area allows for surprise setups which magically appear while the guest attentions are at the front of the hall.

Old and New AC. This old cathedral had very good AC inside. Nice and cool, but the hallways and the long flight of stairs to the 3rd and 4th floor Bride's and Groom's waiting rooms was not well air conditioned and was hot and stuffy. The old elevator broke just before the ceremony and the bridesmaids, and the bride with her long train, had to walk down 4 flights of stairs!!! OMG. Luckily, this did not ruin a beautiful wedding. The bride kept her cool and composure. She was gracious.

Like the Sphere in Vegas, the banquet hall has so much potential. Vibiana is a great venue for creative artists with...

DO NOT BOOK YOUR EVENT HERE

We decided to book our wedding event at the Redbird restaurant for our 2021 wedding. Our event captain was changed multiple times during the weeks leading up to the wedding. I understand that things happen, especially during the pandemic but there was a lack of communication between event captains and our event didn't turn out as planned. Our music cues got screwed up, we did not have the correct processional music, we had no recessional music, no first dance music ready to go. They told us that they would handle all the music cues and that they were the only ones to handle the music but when they failed to do their job, none of our guests could play the music because only they were allowed to handle the music.

We gave them our schedule the week of our wedding and our event captain, Andy said he just never received the schedule. We were supposed to have Evan Adkins for our event captain but they changed our event captain YET AGAIN the DAY of our wedding and didn't even notify us until after the wedding. At the end of our wedding, they overcharged us for dinner, charging us the more expensive option after our contract explicitly stated that we ordered the $125 per plate versus the $150 per plate.

They reimbursed us our service fee, which was nice but appropriate since they mishandled our wedding so poorly.

To top it all off, they mishandled the check because we found four fraudulent checks were written that were copied from the only check we wrote to Redbird. We called Amy Knoll Fraser, the owner of Vibiana, and she was less than sympathetic and didn't even apologize to us. She claims that the check could not have been stolen from the restaurant but we had given check only to the event captain of the restaurant and then a week later, money was stolen from us. Do NOT book...

I came here for a wedding and was absolutely stunned at the venue. It is beyond gorgeous and apparently used to be a cathedral which definitely makes sense given the decor and spacing. If you're coming here, keep in mind that there is a valet option that you'll want to take advantage of unless you want to park in self-parking lots that are just around the block.

PRO TIP: use the lot that is directly across from Vibiana and not down the street and around the corner like I did.

The staff here is more than friendly and the event planning team did an excellent job with the decor. One other thing I want to note is that the restroom is actually shared with a restaurant next door and isn't actually located inside the venue but rather in between the two. Other than that, it was a beautiful event and I highly recommend it but be warned, your wallet better be ready for those...