Marina Mandarin Singapore

[jelly_bean]

Hi Winnie,

thanks.. becos they did not mention to me abt this at all .. Even the 2 given songs that u mention, I was not given the song title yet...So they suppose to give me the 2 song title to choose by now?

By the way, just to check wif u, me using vanda as well.. is the table no.4 very far away from the VIP table?

 

[kazooie]

jelly bean
MM provided me a song list and I could choose the songs I liked from there and let the coordinator know. But my hubby burned mp3 cds with all the songs from our own collection and did not use their list. You should let them know which you prefer or else they will probably select for you and you may not like it. How about the other songs, like 1st and 2nd march in, have you told them what you want?

 

[cho]

hi kazooie,
my helpers did check the wedding favours b4hand for each table, tat's y i was not sure wat happened in between.. coz according to my guests, her entire table got no wedding favours..

anyway to avoid tat, better to distribute wedding favours at reception table then 1st come 1st serve lo..

overall was pretty ok.. i have also highlighted to my coordinator.. abt e rush.. coz we oso tink tat e servers wan to go home early tat's y they try to finish everything by 11pm.. despite many guests feedbacking to e servers and banquet managers on e day itself not to hurry, the food was served in a rush still..

oso, aft e banquet, i forgot to inform my dad to valet park his car n he oso forgot to keep 1 set of carpark coupon.. end up we asked him to get a coupon fr e reception.. n reception ask him to speak to banquet manager and banquet manager aft e whole event couldnt be reached so my dad juz drove out n paid e parking.. it's an oversight on our park la.. but i felt MM could have done sth abt it..

 

[winniethepooh07]

hi jelly bean,
The 1st dish songs, yup you can ask for the song title then u tell ur coordinator. These 2 songs are abit "cha cha" type,so it suits dancing.

Table 4 is it just beside the vip table? at the front row? nope its not far. Vanda ballroom tables are not far apart at all. Mine also Vanda ballroom.


Cho,
My banquet also starts at 830pm. Cos a few guest come at 820pm (Expected). So we r told to start latest at 830pm. We ended at 1030pm. I dont have the problem of them clearing the plates too early leh, didnt realise it maybe

 

[kazooie]

cho

Re: Wedding favours
I had wedding bears for mine and as there were around 30 kids who attended my wedding, they basically went on a bear scavenger hunt during the banquet. 2 of my nephews collects 10 bears between them! I had 27 + 2 reserved tables but I don't know whether they added 20 more bears on the reserved tables. Anyway, I did not use my reserve tables. I think if I put out the bears at the reception, the kids will definitely take more than one. Some favours, like cake or chocolates are okay to put at the reception. But all wedding banquets I've attended here, favours are placed on the table. When they look cute, most likely guests may take more and then you would have the same problem.

 

[carrine14]

I attended a wedding recently,and i am also not very pleased with the food and service. It was completely different standard from what i attended 1 yr ago and last month.

It was a dinner at vanda ballroom and i feel all the waiter are rushing like mad. They clear the plate even when we have not finish the food. This is terrible.

Other than that, i think the food is ok.. but the presentation is not fantastic.

 

[star_diamond]

hi cho,

sorry to hear abt your saga in MM. I too had the bad experience with MM when i had my wedding in NOV 08, and since I had lodged a complaint and they too gave me the excuse of casual labour so there maybe a slight difference in quality of service.

I was so shocked and disappointed and i questioned them that as a wedding couple paying a premium price for the menu, in a 5 star hotel and all we get is such a service...and i did forewarn that alot of my guests were not happy with the gravy, water spilled on them, and food cleared into smaller plates like throwing all remanants of food into a plate (hawker style)....sigh....it was simply too awful and can you imagine one of my guest actually took a picture of the scene and showed it to us.....*faint*

 

[iciclediamond]

hi kazooie,
thanks for your reply on 15 nov ^_^
i was simply too busy for the past 2 weeks due to my work...
today suppose to meet my coordinator but end up i dun have time to meet her till next week..
any idea what i shld prepare before meeting our coordinator???

hi mei ling,
when r u gg for ur HM??

Hi wish upon a star..
so sorry to hear u had a bad experience with MM.. hope they would have change the group of lousy waitor and watiress.. haiz.. now a bit worried...

 

[happy_ting]

hi all

i am having my wedding in march next year, after seeing all these comments, now i am getting worried too.

anyone here having Sen as their co-ordinator? I have just received my wedding invites card (sample to chose) and they have attached Wendy's name card together. I wonder has Sen's left MM?

 

[kazooie]

iciclediamond
Just your own checklist so you can run through with her, maybe email your coordinator your program schedule before you meet so she can run through and see if it needs to be fine tuned to suit their service needs? She should have a list of things she needs to run through with you. If you are bringing in your own items to the hotel, you can arrange when is the best time to send it over just before the wedding, i.e., own wine, decor. Make sure you ask to arrange a time slot for ballroom rehearsal with the A/V and your helpers so you can get a feel of the place.

Meiting
Sen was my coordinator, too. Heard she's expecting next year Feb? Anyway, Wendy (different Wendy to the coordinator Wendy) is the person who sends out all the samples to couples. Unless Sen tells you otherwise, she should remain your coordinator.

Re: Concerns on Banquet Service
Do bring this up with your coordinators on your worries. Some comments from the above posts seem valid. But I also go through other 5 star hotels like Fullerton, Four Seasons, Shangri-La, St Regis threads after reading these recent comments. All of them also have different sets of issues regarding, food, service, extra charges, etc. I still believe MM is value for money in terms of package, food and location. As one of the brides in one of the other hotel threads mentioned, perhaps we'll will need to manage our expectations. Anyway, talk it out with your coordinators to see if anything can be done. Good luck.

 

[happy_ting]

hi kazooie

oh it's a different wendy, i thght is another coordinator replacing sen. She is expecting next feb? congrats to her hee hee.. maybe i will check with her who will be taking over her in march then.

anyway, thanks for ur advise on the banquet service!

 

[cho]

wish_upon_a STAR:
hi, when was ur AD? mine was on 1st nov 08.. prob e same grp of servers i guess..

apparently some of my guests were happy to have their plates cleared fast and some were less than delighted.. so mixed comments..

However, i tink there shld still not be any service which is "hawker-style"...

oh well.. i have already feedback to my coordinatoor.. seriously, i tink MM still has got q a good package to offer.. but alot of wedded couples-to-be are not considering them coz of banquet service..

kazooie (kazooie):
hi, i tink having e wedding favors at e reception would be better so that those at reception table can keep track of it.. mayb not to display all wedding favors but hav a few at e reception table and when guests arrive to find out e table they r seated at then dish out e wedding favors to them.. =)

 

[kazooie]

Meiting
Yup, have to check with her to see who's standing in for her. But she really took care of my event really well.

cho
Doesn't sound practical to hand out the favours after they are seated unless you have enough helpers to do it. Not practical especially if it's a big banquet. I'm sure the banquet staff will not have time to do that. But I do think that MM is responsible if there's not enough or missing favours on the table. They should ensure all guests receive a favour as we have paid for it. The only other suggestion I would give to the BTBs is what you've mentioned, to just give out when guests go up to sign at the reception. But if the favour is really nice, some guests may take more then you'll have to have more on standby. So, best is still the pre-set favour for each guest, anything missing, just inform the MM supervisor since they are responsible.

 

[cho]

kazooie: i tink u misunderstood me.. i mean to hand out e favours at e reception table when they "sign up" =)

 

[kazooie]

cho

Apologies about that.

Anyway, just to add, the only weddings I've attended that have wedding favours handed out at the reception tables are either during Church weddings or if the couples sourced/ purchased the wedding favours from outside the hotel (usually have extras). Most of the wedding favours provided by hotels here in S'pore are always pre-set on the tables. MM only gave me the exact no. of bears for my wedding so would be quite paiseh for the helpers at the reception if some guests request to take more bears (give or don't give?) and end up the last guests that arrive get nothing.

 

[baylee]

Dear All,

I had my wedding dinner Yesterday on the 30th Nov!!!!! I am glad it was a success.

Many guests commented that the food was pretty good..i am very happy to know that and would like to share with you guys. So Brides to Be..dun not be too worried abt the food quality k.

Anyway my Banquet Manager is also a Superb nice guy..i am so glad to have him..He is Mr HOW.

For service wise...not too bad..as i did highlight to my Catering Sales Manager abt it and true enuff service wasnt that fast...based on feedback lah..but abit slow in topping up WINE hmm..I cant ask for more...

I wanna Thanks Sen & Mr How & the whole team for their great work!

 

[cho]

kazooie: no worries abt it! =)

anyway, true.. most guests would wan a "bear couple" instead of either e boy or gal bear.. initially i tot of selecting e other wedding favours such as magnets or coasters etc.. but e bears r so cute!!

mayb MM can consider making smaller bear couples for each guest.. keke

 

[kazooie]

bay

Congrats on having a successful day!

Glad it was all worth it.

cho

Yea, I second that. When we had our wedding, there were just 2 or 3 favours offered by MM. The coasters and magnets only came after our wedding. I did ask if MM could give a and pair of bears for each guest, but there would be a top up $$ required. I personally love bears which was why I chose them over the edible stuff, but didn't know they would be so popular amongst the young and old at our wedding.

 

[cho]

kazooie: yup, i agree! e bears were so popular.. actually at most weddings each guest only got 1 bear oso.. but i tot it was q weird to get only 1 bear instead of a "couple" bear..

yeah, it's more exp to produce a "couple" bear.. tat's y i tot to keep cost low, they shld produce smaller bears but in "couples".. but i guess all these favours are all outsourced.. so no choice..

i oso tot of getting non-edible and non-bear items.. but still, bears r cuter..

 

[kazooie]

cho
Hehee, ya, if only they made it a couple stuck together, then surely many BTBs will want this for their wedding.

My hubby also said at the time not very good leh to "split" the couple so he wasn't too keen. Anyway, cute as they were, I tried to figure out whether there was a possibility to top up for more bears, I also found the blue bears to be a bit smaller than the pink bears, haha, hmmm which also look a bit odd to give off as a pair. So, in the end, just took it as it is.

The best cuddly favour in my wedding favour collection was from the Mandai Zoo wedding. They gave out all different beanie animals. They are like approx 15cm, and very plush material, plus cute. My 2 beanies are one gorilla and a lion.

 

[cho]

ooh.. plush animals r cute!
for bears-wise, i tink swiss*tel ones r nice.. e bears r in black tux and white gowns.. and bigger!

even for Grand Mercure Roxy (for my ROM) e bears r oso in tux n white gown..

personally i oso dun like to "spilt" e bear.. then everyone will juz bring back either a male or female bear.. n usually it'll juz end up as someone else's dog's toy.. haha

but i din tink it was tat nice n worth a top-up so oh-well.. haha

 

[baylee]

Thanks Kazooie hee...

Yup i agree bears are cute..the best i received are from Shangri La..they are forever frens bear..and its in a pair in a bag dressed one as groom and the other as bride...superbly cute!

 

[starzy]

oh dear..i am really really quite sian after hearing all the negative feedback on MM food..i wonder if they will improve if we tell them many ppl have negative feedback..

 

[mary_poppins]

Just did my wedding lunch last month. Received many positive feedbacks such as the food and ambience was good. One friend even commented that it was one of the few weddings she truly enjoyed.

How is really a good banquet manager. He used to be the banquet manager in charge of one of our emcee's wedding in a very reputable hotel. With him and Wendy Lou, the whole wedding event was a big success.

Of course there were also comments that the banquet staffs are very rushed and a few of them are not so experienced. But to me, it is acceptable to us since it is the norm in the industry.

The only not so good feebacks were that the sound system was not so clear even though hubby did rehearse before that and the mikes were ok. Another issue was that the food portion for the lunch was small and that came from tables of 9 or 10 ladies. These were minor issues so long as our guests enjoyed themselves.

 

[winniethepooh07]

ya loh, some of my guest also commented that its the one of the few good wedding dinners they have ever attend.

 

[~sblbee~]

mary poppins,
glad to know dat everything turned out well for u n congrats on d success of ur wedding banquet, do enjoy ur honeymoon

 

[cho]

yup.. i tink MM's food is still considered q good.. for e price..

as for food portion, i did feedback to my coordinator during food tasting tat it was too small..

during e wedding dinner itself, at least i din hear any comments on food being insufficient.. =)

so starzy, dun be sian la..

 

[jelly_bean]

hi All
Just came back from my honeymoon. I had my wedding on 30th Nov , same as Bay. Everything went on smoothly that day.

The feedback I received from my relatives n friends is that the food is pretty good but the portion for some of the dish eg. the prawns is rather small. Personally i only get to eat the lst 2 dishes but really glad to hear that they like the food. Next, one of my friend requested 3 times for a babychair n it never came. Other than that everything is ok.

 

[star_diamond]

Dear all MM BTB,

I have 7 bots of Red Door Merlot 2004 ( same as MM wine served at dinner) to let go at $18/bot...anyone is interested for their upcoming wedding??

 

[silly_bride]

hi all,

attended a wedding at marina mandarin last month..felt that the hotel was over-rated no doubt it was termed as a 5* hotel..

here is what i've experienced..

- asked for wine top up for 3 times before it came; the same for a fren who asked for warm water..
- when scooping the shark's fins soup, the waiter kept dripping the soup on the table, making it look very untidy and dirty
- dishes were cleared too fast as if they are very rushed to end the dinner
- food portion was rather small and some of the dishes when served, was not hot already..

overall, i felt that the deco of the ballroom is also pretty normal..maybe too much hype about it as i previously heard..so expectations tend to be kind of higher perhaps. food wise, it is totally not worth a close to $1K per table quality of food..

 

[xiao_qing]

Hi,

I just wanna ask if anyone had encountered the problem of not able to meet the minimum number of guaranteed table? If yes, how did you go abt solving the problem with MM???

 

[sunqian]

Hi Kazooie, Cho, Bay and Marry Poppins,

Do you all have wedding co-ordinator for your wedding? Or just rely on the banquet manager to co-ordinate with yourself & hb? Reason for asking is because most of my xiongdis and jiemeis are inexperience, and experience ones are acting as MC and AV controller liao, so they can't be the wedding co-ordinator. Any suggestion? TIA

 

[kazooie]

Hope everyone's having a great year end celebration!

sunqian
Nope, we didn't have a wedding planner. My hubby and I shared all the wedding tasks between ourselves. We only involved our helpers for the AD. We had 7 jiemeis and 8 brothers. Apart from the gatecrashing, our brothers did very minimal on the day. It was the jiemeis who really helped me. There were 4 jiemeis who were really on the ball for us. They were demanding gals! Haha... but they really worked hard and got the job done. We had 2 MCs, my Maid of Honour jiemei and hubby's Bestman bro.

My suggestions:
- You don't really need a helper to be the AV controller. But need to get your CDs/ DVDs in the right order and just instruct the Hotel AV guy on which ones to play first.

- It's important to get the day's sequence right. So type out all your instructions for the relevant people involved on running your show.

- To keep things well paced, keep fine tuning your AD sequence so that everyone/ everything has some small allowance for errors, delays, last minute changes, etc.

- Conduct pre-wedding briefing with your helpers and give them a free treat at the same time! Make sure everyone is comfortable with their given tasks and know what to do.

- Have more helpers involved by pairing them up if you think they are not very experienced. But assign one good helper to be the "leader". The leader should be able to guide the rest to do their tasks properly.

- On the AD, you can't do anything except smile, look magnificant and follow all your leader's instruction. So that one person should know your precise wishes and every little detail that has to be carried out on the day. So, keep going through your mind what are the things that needs to be done on the day.

Hope it helps.

 

[sunqian]

Hi Kazooie,
Thanks for all the useful advices, we have had the briefing and they more or less know what they are suppose to do, just that nobody is leading. We thought that my hb will lead the ppl, I think I should try to fine tune the resources and see who is the best person to lead. Thanks again.

 

[iciclediamond]

Hi girls!!
i just had my wedding lunch yesterdday and etg turnt out fantastic!!
guests commented tat it was the best one they have attended so far!!

i am really v pleased with their svs!!initially they gave us a suite with the sea view but end up the air con was noot working so they upgraded us to the meritus suites on the 20floor!! was such a pleasant surprise!!

both the coordinator kaylynn and the banquet manager eugene has been fantastic and provided us with excellent service!!really happy that things turnt out so well

wishing all future brides will share the same experience as me!!

 

[piyo_piyo]

Hi all,

Can share with me 2009 wedding packages? kindly send to [email protected] i need it urgently. Thank you so much!

 

[piyo_piyo]

Btw, can anyone share with me ur wedding photos with MM? Thank you so much..

 

[necrosis]

hi all...
had a fantastic and fun wedding at marina mandarin.

all the guests thought the food was good, most of my guests appreciated receiving chocs as wedding favours as they dont like to keep small keychains or other stuff.

the staff was very helpful.
wendy and fanny. excellent peeps.

the banquet manage was very pro---took albums/frames/guestbook etc and got them all laid out even before my helpers were done with out bollywood rehearsal.
they even packed up everything and sent to the room, we didn't even need to worry abt anything.
excellent service.

 

[winniethepooh07]

agree with Kazooie,
- You don't really need a helper to be the AV controller. however u need to make sure that ur montage is in DVD mode and ur songs CD is correct mode also. No need to waste 1 bro/sis on this area.

Sunqian,
The banquest manager is v experience, he can help u to coordinate most of your stuffs. But he will ask you to provide a "Chief/leader" so that he can coordinate with. This leader must be a very important person to make decision for you cos you or your hb will be v busy entertaining pple on that day

 

[kazooie]

sunqian
You're welcome. Your leader should preferably be someone who's attention to detail type of person, fussy/ bossy type even! Usually for big events like this, they are real assets.

iciclediamond
Wow! Meritus Suites! What do they do like?!! That's great everything turned out well. Enjoy your new life as a Mrs!

nec
Excellent to hear, too! Yea, I still remembered, despite the fact that we only managed to sleep 2 hrs that day (too excited/ anxious/ nervous), think our day and the MM banquet was really "fantastic and fun" and both my hubby and myself couldn't stop smiling throughout.

 

[octo]

Hi,

We might not have a place to hold the tea ceremony for the groom side as my in-laws just shifted to my bro-in-law place and rent out their apartment.

So Im wondering if its possible to do the tea ceremony at the bridal suite ? Have anyone had their tea ceremony at MM before? Care to share the experience?

 

[colt_26]

Hi Shir,

You can request your wedding coord to reserve a function room for you to hold the tea ceremony. They will prepare the chairs and tea set for you as well.

 

[winniethepooh07]

hi Shir,
You can have the tea ceremony at one of MM function room. Some pple do that. Its entitlement, so no extra cost

 

[kazooie]

Shir
Yup, yup, as what colt and BigPooh mentioned, just ask your coordinator to help you book a small function room to hold your tea ceremony there. As my banquet was held in the Vanda Ballroom, I was given a function room on level 6 upon request before signing the agreement at no extra cost. But seems like most couples get it free anyway.

 

[necrosis]

yes, function rooms seems to be provided for free at MM.
i needed a room to rehearse with all the bros and sis, and they provided a function room with attached bathroom so later the bros just used that room as a day room to change/freshen up/keep valuables etc, so the bridal suite was slightly less crowded and remained mostly females.

this also solved the problem of many pple wanting to go up to the suite to collect their stuff after the banquet---all their stuff is in the function room, keys with them.
less hassle of coordinating who is holding room ket etc.

 

[~sblbee~]

hi nec,
im so happy for u n glad dat everything turned out well....congrats! welcome to d mrs club...

 

[octo]

Hi colt26, Bigpooh and nec,

Thanks for the replies. I didn't know they will provide a function room at no extra cost. I had already signed the contract early this year. Not sure if they will ask me to pay for it now. I guess I'll check with them.

By the way, how does the function room look like?

 

[mary_poppins]

Hi sunqian, I assigned one of my jiemeis as the overall coordinator. Everyone, including my parents and the banquet manager goes to her for whatever issues. If you are concerned with the AV, arrange with you MM coordinator to go down a few days before the AD to test out the music, DVDs and confirm the sequence with AV controller at MM. With that, you no longer need someone in charge of AV. Hope it helps.

Hi Meiling, thanks. I enjoyed the honeymoon. Guess you too rite?

 

[sunqian]

Hi Mary Poppins, thanks for your advice, I am going to assign the initial AV controller as the "leader" now. Will have the rehearsal done 6 days in advance so that the hotel technician and ourselves are familiar with the sequence.

Happy New Year to everyone!!

 

[shakingheads]

Hi,
I have shortlisted MM as one of the potential places to hold my banquest in the 4Q09 as the package seems quite reasonable(cos its weekday), but was a little concerned over the reviews I read here about the food and service quality
Can anyone who had their wedding there advise ...??