Dinner Venue Decorations

I was quite particular about the wedding dinner decorations at Bankers. I didn’t want to overdo the deco but yet, I wanted something with style. Fortunately, Sze left the deco all up to me, so I had the freedom to decide on what I wanted the place to look like.

I had done some research and I already had several ideas in mind. 1st of all, I wanted our theme color to match the classic wood environment in Bankers. We saw some photos of a few previous wedding dinners there and found that light purple blended in very well with the Bankers interior. The color was very unintrusive and gave me a nice, warm feeling. Even Shangkar, the Bankers event manager, loved that color.

Now, wedding without flowers would be no wedding at all. I wanted a floral centerpiece with a pillar candle and 2 bouquets at the base of the staircase railing with netting to cover the spotlight.



(Nobody could imagine what I wanted, so I did the centerpiece myself. Bought the flowers 1 day before our wedding and DIY the bouquet myself. But that was not such a great idea as I did not have time to relax at all.)

Shangkar would also scatter rose petals and place tealight candles on the stairs, window ledges and tables.



We saw from some photos that too much deco could crowd out the classic and elegant environment in Bankers (which would then defeat the purpose of choosing this venue). Hence, we decided to keep our deco relatively simple (when compared to those photos… hehe).

Although Bankers did provide chair tiebacks, we did not take up that offer as they did not match our theme color. So we sourced for the tiebacks ourselves. We went to meet Hassim at one of his wedding events. We chose the tieback color we wanted from his color palette but we missed each other and did not get to meet. Everything was done through the phone and we would then bank in the money for him after our dinner event was over. Unbelievable as it may sound, this business deal was all based on trust!

More photos of our dinner venue decorations at Bankers can be viewed at:
http://www.zenetlife.com/wedding/dinnerrec/dinnerrec.asp
http://www.zenetlife.com/wedding/AddDinner/adddinner.asp

Makeup Artist

Looking for a makeup artist (MUA) did not take too long. Although I had been monitoring the forum for contacts, I did not really need to check them out. This was because I already had several contacts of my own.

When I went for our pre-wedding photo shoot, I enquired about hiring Ivory Romance for their makeup services but that arrangement did not suit me. Ivory’s MUA would give me a makeover in the morning at my place but in the evening, I would have to go to their studio to get my face colored, which would be quite inconvenient on such a busy day.

A friend of mine then recommended her MUA, Vivien, to me. I checked out her pre-wedding photos and I thought the makeup was very natural. I also checked out a few other MUAs but they were all not suitable. So I decided to hire Vivien as my MUA. She was charging a standard rate of RM600 (in 2007) and we made arrangements to meet up to show her the way to my place.

I found Vivien to be a petite and nice lady. She would do the makeup in the morning at my place while she would come to Bankers for the evening makeup session. I explained to her that she could do the usual natural makeup in the morning but I wanted bolder makeup for the evening as that would look more prominent in the dim Bankers environment. Vivien was quite receptive to my request as she never really had much of a chance to apply more daring makeup until this. I paid her a deposit before she left.

(Btw, Viven did a great job with my makeup on the wedding day. She also did some makeup for Mom on that day. Mom, Godmom and Sis were all very impressed with her skills. They even thought of taking makeup lessons from her!)

Photos of the evening and morning wedding events can be viewed at:
http://www.zenetlife.com/wedding/dinnerrec/dinnerrec.asp
http://www.zenetlife.com/wedding/TRADC/tradc.asp

Photographer and Videographer

Our wedding was getting closer each day. Everything and everybody were being booked fast for the year-end wedding peak season. We really need to confirm a photographer soon before it’s too late.

I had been checking the malaysiabrides forum everyday in my search for a decent photographer. I read about Jim Liaw and was quite impressed by his portfolio, but his quote was a little too high for us. I also contacted Louis Pang from Sabah but it was a similar problem. In addition, we would have to pay for his flights, accommodation and allowance too, which would add up to a big sum. By the way, both photographers’ fees range from around RM4,000 to much higher amounts.

Soon after, I short-listed another 3 photographers, whose rates were closer to our budget and their styles to our liking too:
Kok Weng RM1,100
Aivee RM1,000
Kevin Han RM1,300

It took us several days to decide on the most suitable photographer. But in the end, we decided to opt for Kevin. So, what made us choose him? Although Kevin had the highest rate, we still picked him over the others because of his very natural lighting and nice photography. And especially in a dimmer environment like Bankers (our wedding dinner venue), his wonderful lighting would be crucial, and that made the decision quite easy when we compared their photos side-by-side.

(Btw, Kevin did a great job on our wedding day. 2 of our photo albums taken by him can be viewed at:
http://www.zenetlife.com/wedding/dinnerrec/dinnerrec.asp
http://www.zenetlife.com/wedding/TRADC/tradc.asp
We also heard that he has already increased his fees.)

We would not hesitate to hire a photographer for our wedding but a videographer was optional. Fortunately for us, Sze’s brother from Canada, Kin Yuen would be attending our wedding, and he would be bringing a brand new video camera along with him… yay!

(Turned out that Kin Yuen was too busy to be the videographer on the wedding day as he was also the best man. So Sze’s cousin Boon took over the job instead. We were very impressed with his commitment as he was working like a full-time videographer! We had not expected this kind of dedication from someone who was just doing it for free. We were quite thankful but at the same time, we also wanted him to have time to sit down and enjoy the dinner. That was one of the reasons why we hired a photographer, whereby Kevin was an equally committed professional.)