The Ultimate Venue - Walt Disney Concert Hall

Walt Disney Concert Hall a.k.a WDCH located at downtown Los Angeles just diagonally cross the street of MOCA, was completed in Fall 2003. It was the year when I came to US and started my grad school in USC.  The breathtaking and unique shaped concert hall was designed by my favorite architect - Frank Gehry.  People who's familiar with downtown Los Angeles would know that downtown is normally deserted after 6pm.  The extravagant concert hall created an odd beauty standing alone in the quiet lonely city.  There was a vivid memory of my strolling around that area alone after dark after one of my mid-term. It was an impulsive visit that I simply just went there to check it out and took the humongous scene all in.  It never occurred to me that I would host my wedding reception here in this contemporary and beautiful place.

Fast forward to 2010, I happily found out that WDCH is one of our wedding venue options.  Patina Group is the proprietary catering company for WDCH.  Patina Restaurant originally located at Melrose Ave. Beverley Hills.  It has been known for their extraordinary French cuisine.  Their flagship restaurant moved to WDCH and the reputation remains.

Jill Halferty was the sales person who showed us around and became the primary contact for us through out the year.  She was engaged before our wedding!! So congratulations Jill!  She showed us both WDCH and the music center cross the street on the 5th floor. The music center was also very nice as it has a fantastic view but of course we were more drawn to the WDCH itself.

BP Hall is the primary space to host the reception.  It claimed to be able to host 300 guests. However, with the dance floor scoped out in the center, to host 100+ people it wouldn't make the space look too empty.  The natural light shining through top ceiling down to BP Hall set the space itself apart from most of the regular ball rooms which are normally a confined space. Of course the non-square hall makes everything so much more interesting.


BP Hall

Bar Area

2nd floor where the stairway leads to was the Bar Area that we could potentially rent as a cocktail hour or to place the bar of reception.  If you had 300+ guests for your event, I'd say it being a good idea.  However, firstly we were having our cocktail hour at the Blue Ribbon Garden, which costed only $1 to rent and for our wedding day in June, the outdoor garden should be beautifully decorated by all the natural flowers and plants in the garden.


BP Hall closer look

 

Skylight

Blue Ribbon Garden

Pretty amazing venue huh? We couldn't be more happier!

After visiting, we went to couple more places like Cafe Pinot and Il Cielo.



Cafe Pinot



Il Cielo 1





Il Cielo 2



It came down to WDCH and Il Cielo restaurant at Beverly Hills, which is a completely different style that we were deciding. It wasn't a 3 second decision like the Wayfarers Chapel.  Overall we tried our best to do pros and cons analysis. (A complete nerdy well trained engineer couple would do.)  I kept saying that the ideal wedding would be "Simple and Elegant".  WDCH is like a white canvas that we could do anything we want with it or leave it as it is and it'd still be fabulous.  It is however at the edge of being affordable and out of our reach.  I remembered it was on our way home back from Costco, in the car we agreed with each other that WDCH is the one.  It represented our personalities, it suites us best! We couldn't be happier.

And there, we had our ultimate wedding at the amazing Walt Disney Concert Hall.