#RabbitMuffin Wedding Banquet Preparation
Our Wedding Banquet Preparation was more complex in scale as compared to our Church Wedding’s. There is more detailed planning required and I’m not one who has the patience for that. Hence Sweetie Muffin was the one who was stressed over the itinerary and all.
Wedding Banquet Preparation
We decided to hold our banquet at Marina Bay Sands – have blogged about their Wedding Showcase HERE and my personal experience HERE.
Our organiser in Marina Bay Sands was this pleasant lady named Tan Aih Kim.
She provided us with the Wedding Banquet Preparation Kit with a timeline of what is expected of us as below.
This Wedding Preparation Kit proved to be really helpful in our Wedding Banquet Preparation as we stuck to it religiously throughout.
~ 3 Months Before Wedding ~
Decide and Choose Designs for Wedding Invites
Wedding Invites were included in our Marina Bay Sands package and the vendor they used was American Wedding Treasures (AWT).
We paid a visit to American Wedding Treasures and selected the fonts and text to be printed on our wedding invites.
I requested them to include customised logo from LINE Stickers as they look so so cute!
American Wedding Treasures
Location:
14 Jalan Pisang, Singapore 199081
Tel: 6834 0662 / 9006 2229
Operating Hours:
Mon – Sat, 13:00 to 19:00 (by appointment)
Website: http://www.eawt.com
Food Tasting on 2 January 2015
We had a food tasting session based on the menu set we selected.
Menu B
Deluxe Suckling Pig Platter 乳猪拼盘
– Suckling Pig, Sesame Jellyfish, Pacific Clams, Salad Prawns, Spring Rolls
Braised Bird’s Nest Soup with Conpoy in Chicken Broth 高汤燕窝烩海味
Steamed Garoupa with Spring Onions 古法蒸海斑
Wok-fried Scallops with Greens in Spicy Sauce 翡翠炒玉带
Braised Abalone with Bean Curd and Vegetables 鲍鱼鲜支竹扒菜苗
Roast Chicken with Crispy Garlic 五香辣味烧鸡
Braised E-Fu Noodles with Abalone Sauce 鲍汁焖伊面
Chilled Cream of Avocado with Sago 牛油果西米露
We chose Menu B (out of the 3 Chinese Lunch Menus provided) as we thought it was unique to have avocado in their dessert. Also, the Chilled Cream of Avocado with Sago was not too sweet for my Mom who has diabetes.
Our parents were very satisfied with the dishes served during the food tasting as the food was prepared in the cantonese style by a Hong Kong Chef. We even got to feedback to the Chef face to face after the food tasting session and my Mom suggested the Chef to prepare the Braised Bird’s Nest Soup with Conpoy in Chicken Broth in the sour and spicy flavour because the original dish tasted pretty bland and jelak.
Floral Arrangement
Marina Bay Sands work with 3 florists – June Florist Pte Ltd, Sing See Soon Floral and Landscape and Woodsville Florist Pte Ltd. We get to choose to work with 1 of the florists of our choice and place our order with them.
After browsing through the websites of the 3 florists, I decided on Sing See Soon Floral and Landscape as their designs suit my style. Liaising with the florist was effortless as everything was confirmed via email without us having to travel all the way to Punggol East to select the florals. By the way, I liaised with Jingyi from Sing See Soon and her response was prompt and I was happy with her recommendations and decided on the below:
Colours / Flower Types
6 Cocktail Tables / Reception: Standard Design
Guests’ Table
VIP Tables
10 Floral Stands along the Aisle
Stage Backdrop: Ivory
Sing See Soon Floral and Landscape Pte Ltd
Location:
32 Punggol East, #01-01
Singapore 828824
Tel: 6285 2777
Can’t help but feel excited for my Wedding Banquet’s decoration! I think its gonna look real grand 🙂
~ 2 Months Before Wedding ~
Confirm Co-Ordinator and Master of Ceremony
Mail Printed Cards
This process was tedious as we need to fold the envelopes for the wedding invites and write the names of our guests manually on the cards.
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| Burning midnight oil to fix the envelopes |
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| Mass production… |
Nonetheless, we felt accomplished to see everything fall into place!
~ 1 Month Before Wedding ~
Second Deposit to be Paid to Marina Bay Sands
Check for Special Dietary Requirements with Guests i.e. Halal / Vegetarian
Pay a Visit to the Hotel
It is recommended that we pay another visit to the hotel with the wedding consultant (Aih Kim) and review the below details:
- Confirmation of Floor Plan – we revised the initial floor plan to incorporate 2 VIP Tables
- Finalisation of Menu, after Food Tasting Session (done earlier)
- Choosing of Wedding Favours and Linens (settled during Food Tasting)
- Finalisation of Wedding Programme (will be settled by Sweetie Muffin)
- Confirmation of Guest List and Attendance
- Confirmation of Special Dietary Requests
However as most of the confirmation has been done during the Food Tasting session earlier, we were spared the hassle to have to visit the hotel for a second time to finalise the above details.
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| Initial Floor Plan of the Melati Ballroom |
With regards to the guests’ attendance, our parents did pull some last minute stunts on us by requesting for more seats for their guests and change in seating allocation etc.
Thank God we managed to settle all their requests and the wedding banquet preparation went pretty well.
~ 10 to 3 Days Before the Wedding ~
Bridal Gown
As I had my church wedding on 12 April 2015 and the banquet is exactly one week later (on 19 April 2015), we visited Digio Bridal to return the church wedding gown in exchange for the Banquet gowns.
Digio Bridal
Location:
69 Tanjong Pagar Road
Singapore 088490
Tel: 6225 1612
Operating Hours:
Mon – Sat, 12:00 to 21:00
Sundays, 11:00 to 20:00
Wedding Shoes
I wore this pair for my pre-wedding photoshoot HERE.
Since it looks as good as new, I will be wearing it for my banquet as well 🙂
Montage and Video
As our church wedding and banquet wedding is one week apart, that gave me leeway to prepare and edit my own montage and video to be played during the banquet reception.
I wonder which bride does her own wedding montage and edits her own wedding footage? HAHA I did save ALOT of money for doing them by myself! And.. My videos can run as long as I wish as professional videographers will normally limit the video length according to the package taken.
Final Confirmation on the Seating Allocation
As the final stage of our Wedding Banquet Preparation, we have to confirm on the seating and allocation.
Some guests do enjoy playing last minute stunts on us by backing out or by bringing extra pax. Hence there is a need to choose our guests wisely.
We only hosted 20 tables because we believed that wedding is an intimate affair and we would love to share our joy with only our close ones.
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2016 Saga – Bloggers Friends No More Because of “Missing” Seat?
Understand that there was a recent saga on how 2 bloggers became loggerheads due to a boo-boo which happened during a wedding banquet held at Marina Bay Sands just a couple of months ago. You might want to read the stories HERE (Part 1) and HERE (Part 2) if you do not mind boosting their blogs’ traffic.
In short, blogger A failed to get a seat allocated to her during blogger B’s wedding banquet and left the venue grudgingly on an empty stomach. She then ranted about it on her Facebook Page and accused blogger B for her poor planning skills.
Both bloggers were arguing via WhatsApp and their nasty exchange of messages were being published.
*Disclaimer: I have no feuds with BOTH the bloggers involved in this saga and I am not related to them in any way. Opinions are purely based on my own experiences with Marina Bay Sands.
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My take on this is that Blogger A has nothing better to do than rant about this on social media because I know that this issue can be easily resolved by the staff at Marina Bay Sands.
Why so?
Our wedding consultant – Aih Kim suggested to reserve 1-2 extra empty tables for standby to cater for unforeseen circumstances. These extra tables would only be chargeable if they are utilised on the actual day itself.
And to be honest, a similar incident actually happened on my wedding because of my “poor planning”. Well, you can’t exactly blame the bride for unintentional omissions because she has so many things to handle during the wedding banquet preparation stage. Moreover, I’m sure both the bride and groom would be so stressed up that day and hence might behave a little cranky when provoked.
So what happened was that I forgot to include one of my guest’s name into the listing although he RSVP-ed. However by God’s grace, my receptionists (Samantha and Tracy) resolved this issue tactfully by directing him to a table with an empty seat (as another guest couldn’t attend last minute). As it so happened that that our common friends were seated at that table as well *phew*
Also, Blogger A need not walk off without checking with the receptionists / staff. She had every right to ask for a seat to be allocated to her if she realised that her table was fully occupied (by a baby) on the basis that she was an invited guest. I trust that all invited guests should be able to provide some form of proof i.e. invitation card. There is nothing to be ashamed of to request for a seat to be assigned to her anyway.
Somebody asked what would I do if I were Blogger A. The answer is simple – I will decline the invitation politely if I am not on close terms with the newly-weds. Moreover, attending a wedding alone (if there are no common friends around) is simply too boring.
What would I do if I were Blogger B? I believe that most of us do not enjoy receiving the “red bomb” from others especially when the newly-weds are not very close to them. Hence do unto others what you want others to do unto you.
The moral of the story is to choose your wedding helpers and guests wisely. Hiccups do occur during events as such despite us having done our Wedding Banquet Preparation cautiously. All we can do is to have good crisis management skills to reduce the damage of such hiccups to a bare minimum and pray for the best 🙂
x♥x♥
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