Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Westin KL - The One

I must say, the search for the hotel venue was pretty painless. We hadn't yet engaged a wedding planner but still managed to sign and seal the deal to book the Westin KL in less than a month.

Although to be quite frank, we didn't bother with other hotels at all save for a cursory sniff around Mandarin Oriental (and we all know how THAT one turned out). Due to some parental controls in place (ie boo to Selangor state hotels), we had to stick to KL 4-5 star hotels. My personal opinion was that KL Hilton wasn't good value and Shangri-La was pure overpriced snobbery ala MO but with more dated banquet facilities.

Gold, black, deep wine red, all mashing together in one Shang ballroom. Kill me now.

On the other hand, Westin seemed just right from the start. Nice banquet manager (a jolly-looking accomodating type called Chester, whom we privately call Chestnut), cosy ballroom (45 tables max, but 40 tables would be comfortable), and very flexible in altering the contract terms per our request, and throwing more freebies into the package.

Here's some of the extras we negotiated for above the standard contract:-

1) To allow us free corkage for 2 bottles of liquor per table instead of just wine
2) One extra free hotel room (we now get 3 rooms + 1 bridal suite)
3) Free tea ceremony venue in one of the meeting rooms + tea and refreshments for 30pax
4) Flexibility to switch the soups into sharksfin soup at no extra charge 
5) Accrual of Starwood points from our wedding expenditure
6) 6 flower stands instead of 4
7) More flexible payment terms with larger back-loaded amount on the wedding day

If choosing a hotel was akin to making a marriage match, I'd say we were just about suited for Westin like how Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michael Douglas suit each other. Beautiful, classy fit, EXCEPT for his shocking mane of brown-bronzey waggley locks which look like it needs a real big brush taken to it.

That was exactly how I felt when we viewed the ballroom itself. Can you see that weird spiky brown monstrosity sticking out of the ceiling?

Apparently it's art. Chestnut could see it on our faces, and hurried to defend his spiky brown monstrosity by saying it looks good with the spotlights, and he suggested we not drape the ceiling otherwise the effect would be lost.

Damn him, how did he know we were thinking of doing exactly just that?!!


Below is the standard Westin Weddings signage, but I've commissioned a good friend to design our couple logo (for lack of a better word). And we've decided to be cheeky and not put our names up, instead just a J&J. This is so we can sneakily enjoy the uncomfortable looks of guests who barely know us and who we barely know (but were arm-twisted forced persuaded to invite) when they try to sneak a look at the stage to learn our names when greeting us. *evil cackle*

 Westin also offers a variety of table linen designs, in sand and pearl colors. I initially didn't want dark tablecloths, but after seeing them at one wedding (as below), it's starting to grow on me. This bears a further think in coming days.

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