This post is for anybody who is considering Orchard hotel as a potential location for wedding. I just had my wedding dinner banquet in Orchard Hotel in Feb 2017 at ballroom 1 & 2 and it was not a good experience. Despite the bad experiences in service, guests said that the food was pretty good except the "mantou with chilli crab sauce" being a tat too oily and over cooked and the "duck with 8 treasures" looking like it's intestines exploded in it's body.
Firstly, throughout the entire process, my husband and I had to follow up with the wedding coordinator on dates for food tasting, dates for rehearsal for our solemnization, seating arrangements and our change in menu. Almost everything. We will email him in advance and he takes a minimum of 1 month to reply to our email. Because of the delay in communication, it was impossible for our bridesmaids and groomsmen to come down for rehearsal and we had to rehearse on the day itself.
Secondly, on the day of the wedding, they changed our solemnization room 2 hours before the event itself. We had to personally go down to the room to ensure everything was still in order. Because the change was so last min, we didn't have sufficient time to inform our guests and our pastor. We were furious and had to raise the issue to the wedding events manager and he said the previous room allocated to us was being given to someone else for some other event and we should have been informed weeks before. He said he will investigate on the matter and get back to us however nil feedback even after 1-2 weeks later. To be fair, the manager did offer to extend our stay to 4pm instead of checking out at 12pm and offered us a free lunch at the Orchard cafe however we did not stay on . Just to add on, from the beginning till the end of the banquet, the wedding coordinator only appeared once during the dinner banquet itself for about 20 seconds to say hi (and nil apology about the solemnization room chaos).
Thirdly, the projectors for videos and photos are horrible. Videos and photos appeared really dark and unpleasant to watch.
Fourthly, the bridal suite's carpet was wet from the TV area all the way to the bed area when we checked in. We called the room service and they came to correct the problem however told us the carpet is as so because we came earlier than expected. We were supposed to come at 2pm however we reached at close to 1pm. Despite reaching at 1pm, we waited in the lounge till almost 2 pm. The toilet also smells of sewage.
Reception wise, ballroom 3 and the function rooms were all fully booked. The scene was chaotic. The orchard hotel ushers were not prompt in ushering the guests and some of my guests gave feedback that they almost went to the wrong reception areas.
Lastly, the decor (chose crystal theme btw) and wedding cake is just disappointing (please refer to the photos attached). The entire "cake" is made out of foam with a damn big slit made to indicate where we were supposed to slot in the knife. It looked hideously fake as compared to what they promised during the open house for wedding events. You can hardly see any decors except the decors for tables and chairs.