Deciding on Wedding Venues and Wanting Jimmy Choo Shoes

And talking about shoes, guess who my mum wants to invite to my wedding? Dato Jimmy Choo! Hahaha! I don’t think he’ll come though. Isn’t he still based in London? Since my mum has move to the Middle East in the last one year plus or so ago, I don’t think they’ve been in contact much. She’s also invited a host of other designers, datuks, datins, editors and ambassadors!

And I was hoping that my wedding will be a small, quiet, low key event.

The Chinese wedding dinner will be at Flower Drum, a Tai Thong Group Restaurant. There will be 400 guests and there will be many people I don’t know but will be my family after that night. It’s a pretty high end place and is not too Chinese-y for a Chinese restaurant, thanks goodness!

So the Chinese wedding banquet is settled but I’m still trying to find a good location for my cocktail wedding.

It was stressful enough trying to find a venue which has exquisite food, impeccably service staff, in a gorgeous location, has an indoor area as weather contingency and has ample parking. Now I’ve got high profile people attending the wedding. Looks like the pressure is on and I’ve gotta up the ante in my expectation of a venue.

Courtyard Garden is extremely pretty and will need very little décor to create the ambience I’m looking for. The restaurant is surrounded by plants, has a slightly elevated wooden deck which will be a great area to place the band and there’s even a small pond with koi in them. However, the people I spoke to were passive, unhelpful, slow, uninspired and had a look like “I really can’t be bothered and I don’t want your business”.

Bijou is really pretty too. It has a white and pink theme and sweet flowers here and there. They also have a small outdoor garden for al fresco dining. But Bijou can only seat 80 guests. And I’m looking at 100 guests. And they’re slow coming back to me with the menu. The previous manager in charge, Amy, was really nice but she’s been transferred to the HQ. The guy replacing her is more gruff and merely said that they were busy and they can only provide the menu in the following week.

Jarred & Rawlin’s (Damansara Heights branch) isn’t that pretty when compared to Courtyard and Bijou. However, their staff is excellent! I’ve been talking to this manager, Kumar who talked me through what they can do for the wedding. I commented that the area isn’t very pretty and he suggested that I go over again in March when they are having 2 weddings so that I can look at the set up. Poor Kumar was ill in the last few days but he still called me to apologize that the menu was late and in the end got his chef to do it up and fax it to me on his behalf.

I’ve short listed the 3 locations above. So far I’m leaning toward J&R as their menu is excellent and so is their service. I just need to see how much more the place needs to be dressed up for it to be truly magical.

Oh and Dato Jimmy Choo, Uncle Jimmy, if you are indeed coming for my wedding, can I have 2 pairs of shoes as my ang pau? I know that you’ve sold off your retail Jimmy Choo’s but Jimmy Choo Couture Shoes would be even better! Hehehe! Thanks!