Wedding Preps- Part I: The Venue

Sorry for the mini-hiatus! Mr. C and I went back to Singapore for a week to do some wedding preparations for our big day next January. We just got back last night and we're feeling pretty homesick now.

Anyhoo, I'm going to be blogging about our wedding preps as this will be my way of recording our journey into marital bliss. 

Our chosen venue for the Chinese banquet is Marina Bay Sands (MBS)! Because of our small table number (~20), the choices of decent venues was greatly reduced. Most hotels require a minimum of about 25 to 30 tables especially on weekends. We decided on MBS for 2 reasons- (1) It's an iconic place to hold our celebration dinner at, and (2) my Dad managed to help us get a really good deal.

My initial venue of choice was St. Regis, a really beautiful premium hotel with stunning, regal ballrooms but sadly, their min. table requirement was about 30 or 35 and each table was well over S$2,000 so it became a little impractical for us, considering that right now, we don't have the cash to splash around so freely due to Mr. C's Masters course and the impending downpayment for our little apartment in Singapore. I also scrapped the St. Regis plan after looking at their menu. They serve what seem to me like fusion food when what we were after is a full-on traditional Chinese banquet.

Our next other choice was ParkRoyal on Pickering, a new hotel with very interesting architecture. Their ballroom is also very unique and fits the look and feel of how I want my wedding to look like. However, Mr. C said the ballroom looks like an expo centre. It's probably because the ceiling is too high. Anyway, the price per table (~S$1,700 nett) was too expensive for the brand of the Hotel so we didn't think it was worth going with them.

Image taken from http://pejn17.blogspot.com.au

Anyhow, here's the iconic MBS that we chose in the end!

We met Jeremy, our co-ordinator at MBS one afternoon, to discuss our banquet options. Mr. C managed to borrow his Dad's car for the day so we drove to MBS and to be honest, it is a really confusing place. We got lost within MBS itself! FYI, the banquet will be held at the Convention Centre next to the Hotel, so that in itself is pretty confusing already. It doesn't sound confusing, but it really is. We will have to make a note in our invites and include detailed directions on how to get there.

Anyway, I really quite like the hallway of the Convention Centre although many people have commented that it is an open hallway with many rooms along the sides, and that it has more of a "going-for-a-meeting" feel rather than a "going-for-a-banquet" feel. To me, it has quite a grand feeling, I love the warm lighting and the crystal lights are really pretty to look at.

Here's the main door to our banquet ballroom! It's the Peony Junior. Again, this is where it gets confusing- there are many rooms named Peony, and they are only differentiated by room numbers (ours is 4110). I anticipate many complaints on the night regarding this and the overall complexity of finding the right place.

There will be a big display screen with our photo on it, so hopefully people won't get too lost. Ha!

And here's our banquet ballroom! This was set up for someone else's wedding. Brown linen lined chairs with gunmetal linen lined table tops. It was quite pretty but a little dull. When we were there, the floral decor for the room was not put up yet so perhaps it would have looked brighter after.

What I really love about the room apart from the cute ceiling lights and high ceiling, is that it is pillar-less! No one's view will be obstructed on that night. I have been to banquets with low ceilings (absolutely claustrophobic) and banquets with poorly placed pillars, so we were pretty pleased that this ballroom had neither of those issues.

And here is where the cocktail reception (pre-drinks) will be held. I specifically asked for a ballroom on Level 4 as rooms on this level have access to a little verandah outside that overlooks the entire city skyline. It already looks gorgeous in the day so I'm sure it would look even more stunning at night with all the city lights. Guests can walk in and out to admire the skyline or just for a little breather. I think this concept is really special and sets MBS apart from other hotels.

So after doing a once-over of the venue, we proceeded to the nitty-gritty details like deciding on wedding favours and linen colour. 

So here are the choices of wedding favours. We can choose 2 and the favours would be alternated but we chose to have only 1 to make the table look more uniform. The choices include a keyring, a table-top bag holder, a luggage tag, a letter opener, a crystal pen and a lock. It was a no brainer for us, we chose the pen. It is the most useful item that looks very pretty too. The wedding favours will be held in sturdy gold shimmer boxes lined with black felt.

We only managed to confirm the wedding favours with Jeremy. We will be confirming the other things like choice of songs, choice of linen colour etc. with him at a later date because we haven't yet decided on them. Here are some the linen choices:

For table tops, we have white, cream, purple, gunmetal, brown, blue, black and red lining all in lovely textures, and for the chair covers, I think they have only white, brown, cream and black. I can't decide on the color scheme as I'm having a hard time visualizing what everything would look like together. 

The red, round box at the back will be given to us with compliments and it will serve the purpose of holding all the red packets given that day. We were given a choice of either a red one or  an ivory one. We chose red because the ivory one Jeremy showed us was a little dirty and used, and it gave us an insight into what it would look like in the future as it sits somewhere at home collecting dust. I do like the box though, it's very sturdy and made of thick, plump leatherette.

My parents think that for the VIP table, we should pick the red shimmer with gold filigree lining (see below). I think it mightn't suit my theme colors of cream, green and brown but we'll see. I might change my mind again. 

We have also yet to decide on whether to have silver or gold holding plates, napkin colors and Lazy Susan colors etc. Here's a silver holding plate with silver-capped chopsticks stamped with the MBS logo:  

I am absolutely in love with the all the textures on the linen, the plates and even the wee caps of the chopsticks! It's the little things like that that make me really appreciate MBS. This mightn't be very important to others but I think it's really wonderful as I'm really into details.

I simply had no idea that we could customize so many things! To be honest, I have read many not-so-good reviews about banquets at MBS on forums and was bracing myself prior to our meeting with Jeremy (there are even numerous bad reviews about Jeremy as a co-ordinator) so I was really surprised and relieved to find that this wasn't the case for us. Jeremy, although slow at returning my emails (but fast at SMS), was a very patient, unassuming and nice person. We felt well looked-after. I was very impressed that he remembered that we'd only be in Singapore for a week, and that he actually called me at 8.30pm the day before our meeting to try and organize a food-tasting session for us. I thought it was our job to get that sorted but we've been completely flat out lately and didn't have the time to get round to that, so I was really happy that he took the initiative and assisted us with this. 

So far so good, I'm enjoying the level of service at MBS and do not regret going with them. The only gripes I have about the venue are superficial ones e.g. the garish red carpets and the ridiculous S$8,000 initial downpayment (most places charge only S$2,000 or S$3,000).

Shall blog about our food tasting, invitation card-picking and florist experience in the next few entries. I need to sleep now as it is almost 3.20am and I need to get up early for work tomorrow.