The first order of business is to set the mood well in advance for your date.  Having both parties of the date in the right frame of mind well in advance is like, “Dating foreplay.”  The single most overlooked resource in the dating arsenal is the mode of transportation chosen for the date.  If it’s one theme you will see over and over in this publication, it will be LIMOSINES! 

I know, I know, the cost of a limo is significant.  But let’s stop and think about the cost vs. impact factor.  (limo company name here) says they will provide a limo for four hours at the cost of two hundred dollars.  Now let’s assume you are going out on a date on Friday, and it’ now Monday.  Call your date and tell her “The limo will pick you up Friday at 7.”  Right then and there, the excitement of your date has started.  All week your date will be mentioning “the limo” to her friends at work.  Not a single day will pass that week, which she won’t think about the limo arriving at 7.  Immediately, that $200 expense starts paying for itself at a rate of $40 a day in bragging rights.  You want to break that down into hours?  That’s $1.60 per hour for her to brag about the date she hasn’t even gone on yet!  Never think of the limo as the cost per hour you are inside the car, think of it as the cost per hour it is creating a positive effect on your date.  She will be excited all week, and trust me, she will put considerable time and effort into making sure she will be beautiful for the date. 

Chances are, the female on the date will spend just as much money getting ready for her date as you will spend pampering her on the date.  If the limo is coming to pick her up, rest assured, she will be, “Limo Ready”.  This requires a trip to her hair stylist, (where she will tell the story of the Limo coming).  If she doesn’t have a special dress waiting in the closet for a special occasion, she will go buy one.  See, you have turned a date into a “special occasion”, well worth the expense.  Of course she will have to buy new shoes and accessories for the date, earrings, bracelet, and maybe a necklace that accentuates the neckline of her new dress.  These are things women gladly do to get ready for special occasions, so don’t think your effort to make it extraordinary will go unnoticed.

The next aspect of the date, is of course, the destination.  Pick someplace you can enjoy more than one experience if possible.  Remember you have a limo for a limited amount of time, you don’t have time to go to multiple venues and still enjoy yourselves at each location.  Supper clubs are a great option for these situations.  They provide wine, dinner, and live entertainment all-in-one convenient location.   Higher end locations will provide you with options for wine tasting, gourmet, meals, and top flight entertainment.  One club we can recommend is Red, White, and Bluezz, in Old Town Pasadena.  We actually loved the place so much; we shot this article on location at the restaurant. 

So let’s play out the date.  The limo arrives to pick you up, and you have a nice leisurely drive in a plush limousine to go pick up your date.  You can sit back, relax and even have yourself a couple of drinks from the bar, with no stress at all.  You arrive to pick up your date, and you escort her to the car.  One nice touch about limos, the driver will open the door and close them for you and your date.  Now for men, this little perk may be lost, but for women, it solidifies the “pampered princess” role in their minds.  The date has now officially started!

Instead of worrying about your drive, you now have a great opportunity for quality time while you are chauffeured to your dinner location.  You sit in comfort and luxury as you sip drinks and enjoy each other’s company.  Do not underestimate the importance of having the right frame of mind for a date.  If you had picked her up for dinner in your car, then her mind might still be on her day at work, or the laundry she has to do when she gets home.  The added benefit the limo will provide will remove her from the monotony of her everyday life, and transplant her into the luxurious and lush reality you are providing her.  You want to make your date feel like a princess, and you don’t pick up a princess on a donkey, you provide a carriage.

You arrive at the venue in a great mood, and in the right frame of mind to enjoy the rest of your date.  You just enjoyed an amazing ride over, you might be half drunk already from the bar in the limo, and you don’t even have to worry about parking!  The limo will drop you off at the door, and you walk in feeling like superstars!

You enjoy a nice relaxed dinner with your date, as you eat and drink, knowing you don’t have to worry about drinking and driving that night.  During dinner or afterwards, you proceed to the live entertainment the supper club will provide.  There you are, after a relaxing limo ride, pampered dinner, and now, live jazz!  You and your date enjoy live entertainment, a mini-concert in an intimate setting, then head back to the limo for your drive home.  After a fabulously enjoyable evening of pampering your date, you enjoy a nice, quiet, romantic limo ride home.  What you do in the limo on the ride home is up to you, but you have setup the perfect situation for romance.

You drop off your date, and the limo takes you home.  All in all, you spent about $350.  Now I know that seems like a lot of money for one night, but remember, you aren’t adding this up as a one night experience.  You have to consider the excitement before the date, and of course, the bragging that will happen after the date, when she tells the story to her friends and co-workers.  If you are in a stable relationship, this is a perfect way to show her how special she is to you, and at the same time, break up the monotony that inevitably plagues most long term relationships at some point.  If this is a special someone who is still single, you have now set the bar very high for any other potential suitors to match, and very well likely have positioned yourself as the leader of the pack.  Remember all those people she told about the date before the date even happened?  Well, now they are going to all ask her how the date went.  They will want to know what she wore, what you wore, where you went, and what you did.  There will be mix of girlfriends she will tell the story to so they can all he happy for her, and a mix of haters she will tell the story to so they can hate her even more.  Keep in mind; she will enjoy telling the story to both of them, immensely. 

A typical “normal date”, will cost you about $150 just for dinner and drinks.  That $150 won’t get you bragging rights for the rest of the month.  That money will go on dinner and a few drinks, and be tossed in her mental rolodex as “standard date”.  Double your budget, and make yourself the king of LA in her mind!  This is Los Angeles; we spend $150 on sneakers!  Leave the sneakers on the shelf, and put that money into an investment in class.  The citizens of Los Angeles all live like superstars in our minds, that’s why we live here.  When you go out on the town, treat yourselves like superstars, it’s not as expensive as you may think.  If you don’t like living plush, we understand, that’s why Americans invented….. Wyoming.