Concorde Hotel

Concorde Hotel might not sound familiar to most people, its located at where the old Le Meridien Hotel is.. Our last stop for recce yesterday..

The hotel exterior really looks old and once stepped in, you'll face alot of massage palours before reaching the lift up.. The ballroom is also hidden in one corner of the hotel, have to walk passed some travel agencies before reaching..

There was no wedding yesterday, so didnt managed to see any wedding setups.. But they have a showroom of their wedding themes in a room near the ballroom and we managed to see some themes.. Overall, I've moved Concorde up my list of short-listed venues.. It has a pillarless, high ceiling ballroom.. Straight march-in, the wedding themes are nice.. Price are good as well.. Not to mention its quite near Somerset MRT too..

Now we only negogiate whether if we can keep the minimun tables to 25 and hopefully try to get free flow of beer and/or wine.. Orchard & M hotel are offering free flow now.. Will call up the wedding coordinator soon..

The current wedding themes of Concorde..

the last pics is the newest Glitter theme

Goodwood Park Hotel

Goodwood Park is my dream wedding venue.. Fall in love with the old colonial feel of the hotel exterior..and being a 5 star hotel, the interior is equally "wow".. The food from Min Jiang has also a lot of good reviews.. and AH loves their durian puff..and he hopes to get some free durian puffs if we ever sign with them.. Thou the price is higher than our budget, but we still decided to have a look since everything is good about them..

Once stepped in the hotel, I was taken in by the entire ambience.. the swimming pool is surrounded by colonial style buildings, the lobby is very clean.. and I totally loved the stairways that leads to Winsor Ballroom from the hotel lobby.. very romantic feel!!

Everything about GWP is just so lovely.. The ballroom has its own reception area.. Size of the ballroom fits our table requirements.. Pillarless & high ceiling ballroom.. Straight march-in (no L, U or whatever shape).. Everything just fits so nicely into our citeria, until we saw... A LOT OF MIRRORS! the whole ballroom is surrounded with mirrors, thou I know that mirror will have an effect that the ballroom is bigger, but its gonna be photographers' nightmare!

Some other cons..:

• Can't negogiate for additional carpark coupons as the carpark is operated by external vendors, not by hotel itself..
• No wedding themes.. AH feels that the white seat covers are just too plain for weddings..

Hence my ideal GWP is striked off our list :(

Winsor Ballroom

Wedding Banquet Venues

Since we have settled our pre-wedding photoshoot, its time to move on to another big item.. the ideal banquet venue..

Having gone to a few weddings before, I have thus listed down some citeria that will help to short list some venus..

1. Min 25 tables, max 30-35 tables.. want to keep our guest list short. My sister's wedding had about 50 tables and I think its really tiring to move around so many tables.. Keeping the guest list short will also allow us to have more time to mingle around with the guests.. Moreover, we do not want to invite people just to fulfil the minimum required tables..

2. Pillarless ballroom.. Been to some hotels before and was quite turned off by the pillars in some of their ballrooms.. Pillars really make the guests feel uncomfortable.. Imaging you have to keep shifting your seat in order to view what is on stage or the video montages.. Otherwise, the couple would have to spend extra to install projectors/tv screens on the pillars so the guests can view properly.. With a pillarless ballroom, the guests can view the stage with comfort, and the couple can just save $ on projector rentals :)

3. March-in format.. Y-shaped, L-shaped, U-shaped.. you name it, you have it.. actually before looking reading SG Brides forum, I never knew there are so many different kinds of ballroom layout and march in formats.. ideally, a straight march-in would be good.. since I'm gonna have a big gown with train.. even my EG has a train.. would prefer one thats march-in straight..

4. Solemnisation room.. Its getting more common to ROM on the same day as the wedding banquet, and NCC being a church without its own premise.. It has always been a tradition to have the Holy Matrimony right before the start of the banquet dinner.. Have to discuss with AH whether we want to have it in a seperate function room (for a smaller group of people) or have it in the same ballroom..

5. Location.. being a car-less person, it's important to me where the location of the hotel is.. since I know the "hardship" of travelling to places that are inacessible to MRT..  Walking for a short distances is inevitable, but definitely not those places that you need to walk uphill, down slope...

The search begins!

Orchard Hotel

Went to 3 hotels for recce yesterday before heading to BOWS (Bridal Outdoor Wedding Show).. First stop was Orchard Hotel, will go for Ballroom 3.. Through reviews in SG Brides Forum, this venue suits our budget, guest list & ballroom citeria..

Pros:
- Pillarless & high ceiling ballroom
- Long march-in
- Fit our budget for about $1K per table

Cons:
- Shared reception areas with other ballrooms, there might be 2 weddings on the same night
- Hotel exterior looks old
- About 15 minutes walk from Orchard MRT

Shared reception area

Credits: SG Brides Forum

Ballroom 1 & 2

Credits: SG Brides Forum

We are going USA!!!

yooohooo!!

We are finally going to USA, 5 years since we embarked there for our Work & Travel experience.. Has been yearning to go back ever since I came back to Singapore.. The memories of California are still vivid in my mind till this very day..

We have planned to visit San Francisco, Santa Cruz (must-go!), Los Angeles, Las Vegas & New York.. Besides holiday-ing there, we have decided to do our pre-wedding shoot there! This is our promise to each other when we were in USA 5 years ago.. And I'm so glad that we are making it come true :)

Air ticket scare..

Booked our tickets from SIA 2 months ago, was really a roller coaster emotions for AH.. The sweet deals promo for 2 are priced at $1796 per pax to San Francisco.. I was contemplating should we buy the air tickets so early or hold on a little while more.. So I told AH that we should wait a while more, perhaps we can get a better deal.. Actually was a very good deal coz the other airlines are more expensive during our travel period, but being a typical Singaporean.. The cheaper, the better...

BUT one day I got a panic call from AH that SIA increased the fare to $2096 per pax during our travel period! My heart literally dropped and poor AH got no mood to work the entire day.. Finally in the evening, got a call from AH that the fare became $1796 again, but the departure timing would be different from our ideal time.. No choice just book first..

Later in the week, we found that there's available seats for our ideal timing and no price difference.. So hurry call SIA and change the timing.. Paid $60 in all to change timing, oh well its better than paying $600 difference in the beginning..

Praise Jesus that everything is doing well...

Engagement Photoshoot

Engagement Photoshoot is pretty uncommon in Singapore, but its up & coming.. so photographers out there be fast & catch on the train!

I suggested doing the engagement PS not only to symbolise that we are engaged but also to have a feel what is it like to to be doing a PS.. We paid a hefty price to have our pre-wedding PS in USA.. so must make sure it runs smoothly..

Searched through a photography forum to look for photographers who wants to build up their wedding portfolios and managed to get quite a good deal :)

Here's a slideshow of our engagement PS.. enjoy!

Secret Photography (Samantha Tan)
http://www.secretphotography.com.sg/