Scripps Seaside Forum

I’ll be honest and say that I didn’t actually book this venue for my wedding (thanks Mom and Dad!), but I will say that it was absolutely breathtaking and everything I could have ever wanted for my wedding day.
The venue has a large grassy area where most couples choose to have their ceremony. Since we are in San Diego, you have a high probability of getting a beautiful day for your ceremony. Sometimes you don’t, but the best strategy (in my opinion) would be to have the ceremony in the concrete dance floor area. Anyway, Cam and I were fortunate enough to have a typical sunny San Diego venue with a drop dead gorgeous sunset.
There are a lot of restrictions on the venue (i.e. music has to be off before 10pm, no sparklers, no rose petals, etc.) that are detailed in the contract. I didn’t find anything too off putting, but was a little annoyed at the parking sign that had my last name and Cam’s first name instead of both of our last names. Weird, but whatever, Scotty made us an awesome chalkboard sign for our guests.
Parking is kind of a nightmare since all of your guests need to ensure they get a parking permit. For some reason, my grandma didn’t get the memo and was cited for no permit, so that was a bit of a downer to find out after the wedding. That being said — make sure all of your guests know to get a parking permit!
As far as the actual venue, you have to go with Giuseppe for serving alcohol and ensure the rest of your vendors have their insurance filed with the venue. You also have to insure yourself for decorating purposes and general usage of the venue. I’m a little hazy on these details, but I do know that there were a couple of extra charges. I also believe that there are only a handful of catering and rental companies that you are allowed to choose from, but I didn’t find that policy to be too different from other venues.
Since the forum is naturally beautiful, you really don’t have to do much to spruce it up. I opted to pay our rental company (Classic Rentals) extra for a curtain to hide the stadium seats on top and our DJ (Matt Phipps, Choice Entertainment) added some Tiffany blue uplights to the rest of the room to match our theme. My mom took care of the beautiful centerpieces, and the rest of the venue spoke for itself. I know a lot of our guests really loved the ocean view and got to enjoy a beautiful sunset while at cocktail hour.
Additional information that I didn’t know about. We used the typical bridal waiting room (the green room) as a small daycare center for the children coming in attendance. This worked out perfectly because our catering manager shooed Cam away when I arrived, and it gave our babysitters a nice enclosed space to watch the kids. It’s not that big though, so 8 kids is pretty close to the limit for that room.
You should also definitely talk about how the space will be used — my photo booth (The FotoBox) ended up getting pushed to the back corner and I ended up with no cute backdrop for the photo booth pictures because we didn’t plan on how the side hallway space would be utilized. We were supposed to use the wooden walls, which would have been beautiful, but I ended up with a blank white wall.
Overall, Scripps Seaside Forum is definitely a great place to get married. I know that I got super lucky with my date, but there are a lot of brides waiting to get on the list — last time I heard, there’s a 2 year wait list.

I recommend this venue for anyone who would like to have the perfect setting for their wedding.

I don’t know what to say about this venue except HAVE YOUR WEDDING HERE!!! You will not regret it. Yes, they have some strict restrictions as far as what you can have on site and when you need to be done with your event, but I can’t imagine a more breathtaking venue. My husband and I got married here, and people are still raving about the location. It’s such a great mix of modern, but beachy — making it such a classy and timeless venue! It photographs well, and it’s nice to have an indoor/​outdoor option. I don’t regret booking this venue ONE BIT! Make sure you book early though — I had to wait a long (but well worth it) year and a half!

Had the most amazing and beautiful wedding here in July! Bibiana was extremely helpful, attentive, and organized when getting all the event details squared away. This is definitely not the least expensive venue but trust me the beauty of it is so worth it and will make every single guest fall in love with you. If you are looking for an ocean background without having your toes in the sand this is pretty much the only venue in San Diego area that will make your dreams come true.

My husband and I had our wedding here on 4÷11÷2015.
It was perfect in everyway. We saw the venue about 2 years before our wedding and knew it was the one. We did not even look at other venues.
In the months leading up to the wedding, the Forum staff were super accommodating and even helped my future mother in law step up a surprise video presentation for us at the wedding that left not a dry eye in the house.
We had many guests come from out of town and they were amazed at our venue. The sunset was incredible. The views were amazing. It was like something out of a dream.
Picking Scripps was one of our best decisions!
If you are looking for a wedding planner that knows how to coordinate a wedding at this venue — Melissa Barrad of I Do Weddings is truly the best!

We are super excited to get married at this beautiful venue this summer. Matt and Brody (and everyone we have talked to in order to deal with the venue) are amazing. They helped us every step of the way and give you all the information you could need and want. We are very thankful to them!

Scripps Seaside Forum is a dream venue. The location being right on the beach, the modern architecture, and the open air feel of the space is hard to compare to anything else in SD County. I coordinated a wedding here a few weekends back and the event manager Matt was a great guy to work with. He was able to roll with some schedule changes, and I appreciated that he was easy to find during the event (instead of having to run all over the venue!) I honestly can’t wait to work this venue again!

Beautiful venue and well priced. Went to a wedding here a few years ago when it first opened and wanted to have my wedding here when the time came around.
Didn’t work out and I think for the better ultimately BUT I still think it’s a great space.
They are very quick to respond to emails when looking to book the venue, not sure if that continues once you’ve booked but hopefully so.
Also, you bring in everything yourself — catering, bar, décor, furniture, etc — which can be hard for a bride but can also allow you to make your exact vision come to life.
Only downside is that they book up so quickly you seriously need to hold dates 1.5 to 2 years in advance.

Yeay we’re married! Me and my husband had our wedding here and our guests LOVED every element of it. Words cannot describe the venue. it’s the perfect combination of modern, classy, beachy and romantic. This venue provides a great ceremony space, several options for cocktail hour and a great space for your reception; all in one site.
Coordinator: we had Julie Meola, who is also the coordinator for UCSD catering. She is so sweet and nice. She put me at ease and was there to answer any questions that I had beforehand and was there for the vendors upon arrival. She has done weddings and events for UCSD and for weddings at scripps seaside forum so she is VERY familiar with the space and available options. If you are going with UCSD catering, she is a must.
UCSD catering: i’m sure you’re thinking «college food???». Yeah they stepped up there game alright. We weren’t looking for fancy over the top food, but just good meals done right. We loved that UCSD is focusing on Fresh, local and organic options. THE BRAISED SHORT RIBS WERE OUT OF THIS WORLD. When i came back to work, my coworker told me he was still dreaming about the salmon he had. The beets were perfectly juicy and flavorful. My bother in law complimented us on the great food and that he really enjoyed it (food was a big part of their own wedding, so that says a lot). Basically, people were raving about the food! We knew it would be good, but man everything was done excellently. nom nom nom…
Cake: Cute Cakes San diego– delicious. absolutely delicious. will make another 5 star post on their page.
DJ– Dancing DJ productions (Will Chitwood). he was very professional and gave him a glowing review as well.
Bar Services– Guiseppe Bar Service: option to bring everything. they did a stellar job. Yes it may be a little pricy but they bartenders we had were busting their butts and were very pleasant. We had absolutely no problems with them. Maybe the guy that had the bad review had rude friends?
Catering– Classic– Great job no complaints, working with them beforehand was easy.
Drapes: Thistle Dew florists. Drapes were beautiful!
Photo Booth: One Touch Photo booth– great job. wrote my own review on their page.
Florists (Glendora florists) Great job! will be writing own reviews once we get our photos back.
Photographer: True Photography (Voytek and Heather) they did a wonderful job. They were easy to work with and super nice. Will be writing our own reviews for them.
If you’re thinking of a non-​stuffy, gorgeous beach location for your wedding, you must check out Seaside Forum.

When we started looking for a wedding venue, we made a wish list:
— near the beach
— ceremony and reception in the same location
— lots of parking
— central San Diego
Scripps Seaside Forum had everything we wanted, and an excellent staff too! Matt Anderson was exceptionally helpful and accommodated all of our requests when he could.
Our guests loved the venue and we heard constantly about how beautiful it was — just a fantastic venue for a wedding.
It’s very important to note that catering and bar are totally separate from SSF, so keep that in mind as you read other reviews.

WOW! This place is as good as it gets… I had the pleasure of DJ’ing a wedding here last weekend and I truly was amazed! If you want to have a wedding on the beach then this is your place. It sits up on the edge of a small cliff that over looks the beautiful shores of La Jolla. The fresh sea blown air, the breeze from the ocean, the sun setting over the water and the amazing beauty of La Jolla’s view of the Pacific makes for a very romantic setting and perfect place to have a wedding. I took a few pictures with my iPhone from where I was set up inside the ball room. You can see them below.

Pro: Pretty location, shiny new building, right over the water
Con: Useless parking assignment, jackass bar service that you can’t replace, non existent audio equipment, soup nazi food portion control.
Just went here last week for buddy’s wedding, and at our age, we go thru quite a bit of them cuz everyone is getting hitched, so there is some expectation to the quality of the venue. This place was pretty much a disaster from the management’s arrogance due to their location.
Yes, it’s La Jolla, it’s one of the prettiest place to host a wedding in San Diego. But it doesn’t give you the right to treat people like some 3^rd world country refugees because you own the sunset spot. Here is the break down of the cons in detail.
1. Parking — managed to spell the groom’s last name wrong on the parking sticker. on the day of the event, got the time of restrictive parking down wrong, which our tiny 20 spots were being taken up by random vehicles. I hope those cars didn’t get towed due to incompetent management.
2. Bar service — have to use their bar due to insurance, I understand that 100%. Bar refusing to talk to the groom before hand about ANYTHING via phone/​email, that’s just rude. Once again, just because you own the right to a place, don’t treat end users like crap. Yes, my buddy isn’t a wedding planner and doesn’t speak your language, but at least talk to the man.
3. The building is a shiny new LEED building, which means it have all the latest and greatest technologies to keep it warm/​cool/​efficient. The audio system inside was quite impressive… if we ever get to use it. The event starts at 3 pm, I got there at 1 pm to setup outside audio… yes, I had to bring my own speaker for outside because their don’t provide that. No one was around for 2 hours to let me hookup to the internal speaker system, so I just moved the sound bar inside and hooked a laptop to it for music. Come 4:30 pm, I talked to a staff about it and the management produced a «Matt», whom was annoyed by my request to use HIS equipment. «I saw you brought your sound bar so I thought you are good to go». No, that wasn’t the point, management failed to let you know what we signed up for and you were just too lazy to care. No standard 3.5 mm, mono, spdif, hdmi hookup… it needs to be on a thumbdrive. Matt is the world’s most useless audio/​video tech.
4. Food — I loved UCSD catering from the previous 2013 Ocean Gala at Sea World, the tomato soup was to die for and was really good for the wedding… but the kids serving the food was not professionals, they are just kids from the school looking for a few bucks. Telling people off for getting extra food on first round? Where in the world did that policy came from? Granted, that was only issue with food service, everything else with them was great.
If it wasn’t for the catering staff that was on point the whole time, I would of given this place a 1 star. If you are using this place, have a wedding planner get some rules down for you, because the management here will abuse the bride and groom directly.

Forever a perfect memory.
Who knew this auditorium was going to be the most amazing wedding venue of the century. Said to tell everyone reading this. but I’m pretty sure the are booked for the next 2 years haha. We even booked our wedding on a Sunday because we were so in love with this venue space! Nothing was going to stop us. and the weather (Thank God) was 100% perfection. Everything was a perfect memory.
I’ve never been to a venue space where all the guests just continued to say «OoOooo’s & Ahhh’s». It exceeded our expectations that an empty space can look so amazing. And the view was the main picture where very few decorations needed to be involved.
I am proud that this was our wedding venue. And Bibiana was the most helpful!
Note: Beware of the parking police though. they are on there 24 – 7. But don’t worry too much, unless you follow Scripps Seasides directions you will be fine :)

Amazing Wedding Venue, As a vendor, I hope to work here again. So Many great photo opportunities. Gorgeous views, you can not go wrong here.

We were married this past November at the forum (above Scripps). Working with UCSD as our caterer was a wonderful experience from start to finish. UCSD Catering far exceeded our expectations. Julie Meola was our main contact and was a pleasure to work with. She helped us plan ever detail of the wedding from menu to decorations to day of schedule. Julie is a true professional and a very sophisticated designer. Julie did our flowers and they turned out fantastic/​beautiful/​breathtaking.
Our menu was as follows:
Tray passed sliders and mango chili shrimp cocktail during the cocktail hour. In addition, UCSD Catering created an elaborate meat and cheese table.
At the table we had an arugula, shaved parm with a light lemon vinaigrette.
Main courses were cedar plank salmon and spare rib with mash potato’s and fresh vegetables. Delicious. Our friends and family are still raving about it.
UCSD Catering created a very sophisticated and elegant event.
I highly recommend working with UCSD and their team.
The head of the department, Doug Martin, joined us for the tasting and helped us create the menu. Julie and Doug are wonderful. They truly made our night remarkable… a million thanks still wouldn’t come close enough to our appreciation and gratitude!!!

I think most people know how amazing the Scripps Seaside Forum is for a wedding. However, what most people don’t know is how amazing UCSD catering is!!! When you decide to have your wedding at Scripps Forum they give you a list of vendors that you can choose from for catering and alcohol. Unfortunately, there is only one option to go through for bar service, which is Guiseppe (they did a fine job, but were very pricey!). The catering list has about 15 vendors to choose from, and UCSD is at the very bottom because it is in alphabetic order. We didn’t even get down the list with quotes. It was by chance that we ended up having a tasting at UCSD Catering (since they don’t have many Unilocal reviews). UCSD Catering was so fantastic, all of my guests said it was the best wedding food they had ever had!!!
Please please please have a tasting with UCSD Catering if you are planning your wedding at Scripps Forum, Julie Meola, specifically was amazing to work with! UCSD Catering sits you right inside the kitchen during the tasting, it was so fun! We loved this since all the other companies sit you in a room by yourself and you see the chef very rarely if at all.

I play music for weddings (Eliana Strings) and we had a wedding here last sunday. It was one of those rare San Diego days where it decided to rain! They were able to move the ceremony inside and it was still a stunning venue. The big glass windows looking out over the ocean — beautiful.
After the ceremony they opened it out to have the cocktail hour and me and my musicians all were surprised by the versatility.
Also plenty of toilets (A huge plus for a wedding venue! haha)

My company had a party here and I had a phenomenal time ! The venue is steps from the beach and has huge windows to showcase the gorgeous La Jolla coast. The space itself isn’t a massive ballroom but can fit a comfortable number of people for a reception, conference, etc, while there is enough room outside to set up tents and house even more people (popular much?). I think between the tents & the actual forum itself we had around ~200 people. There is a small lot and street parking is ample, but be wary of surfers that will probably overrun the street-​spots during peak daylight hours.
Anyways, if I can ever trick anyone into proposing to me & money just flows freely from ‘my’ (aka: ‘his’) pockets, THIS is where I would want to get married. The venue itself is simple, elegant, understated but BAM WOW LOOK AT THE OCEAN TO YOUR LEFT! You can enjoy the view without melting in the sun or having makeup smear in the rain, all while remaining safely enclosed in a high beamed golden wooden shelter. Are you impressed because I sure as hell am. Even if everything else at the event sucked, people would still leave thinking ‘wow, that was amazing’.
However, it’s quite pricey and tends to book up months in advance so plan accordingly !
Side note: If the owner of the venue (Scripps family? SIO? UCSD? HELLO?!) would kindly let me live here for an indefinite amount of time, I’d appreciate it. KTHXBAI.

BEST wedding venue in San Diego!
Matt & the entire staff are so incredibly helpful and kind. They accommodate each request and work well with each client to make sure everything goes well.
Vendors can access the venue as early as 10am day of — amen! They even allowed us to store some wedding items the night before. The bathrooms & venue are always freshly cleaned and you truly cannot ask for better weather or view.
I beg each bride I work with to get married here, they are never disappointed! Heck, I love just sitting on the lawn and watching the sunset.
Go between 11am and 3pm, grab lunch at Caroline’s upstairs — food created by the best Chef, Giuseppe and the best view in San Diego!

Beautiful venue for lectures, weddings, or other receptions. Overlooking the ocean, listening to the waves crash, state of the art acoustics… what more could you ask for?