Hi ladies!
Just had my wedding banquet at OH on 2nd Jan! The general feedback from my guests was that the service and food were good. A little sad that it's over but happy at the same time that my guests enjoyed themselves. Would like to share some of my experience with you all. Can't write everything here but if you wanna ask about anything specific, just let me know and I'll be glad to share.
I'll start with the suite first…
I won a prize from OH at their annual bridal show last year so I managed to upgrade my bridal suite to the presidential suite. The presidential suite is big! The living room and dining room alone is spacious. Even the bathroom is spacious. I had about 15 people arriving earlier to help out. The suite was big enough to accomodate all of them. I didn't even need to arrange another day room for the helpers. Besides, having more people in the suite helped to create the celebratory & festive mood.
By the time I was ready and changed, it was about 730pm. According to my husband, the reception area was already full of people by then! So they had to open up the ballroom for the guests to be seated. Considering I had 600 over guests, we felt honoured and lucky that most of my guests didn't arrive too late and we were able to start the banquet abt 830pm. The dishes were quite spaced out so my guests didn't feel that they were rushed to finish the food, even after the 2nd walk-in. The banquet ended about 11pm and my guests managed to enjoy the dessert before leaving. So the timing was good, didn't start too late or end too late. We realised that it was our friends and colleagues who tend to arrive later. Relatives are usually the earliest to arrive. So if you have invited many of your friends and colleagues, do let them know to arrive early.
I must say the operations IC, Christopher was a great help! He and his team offered considerate suggestions to ensure that the guests were taken care of. He constantly updated us on the banquet progress and even arranged to have the sharks fin brought up to my suite so that I can have more time to change into my 2nd outfit. The only sad part was that I couldn't enjoy the rest of the dishes until the dessert. Luckily I had my share during the food tasting!
On the whole, I liked the way the ballroom was set up, it wasn't overwhelming and the lightings & candles helped to create a romantic mood. I chose the western theme. Here's a pix taken by my friend.
I had 65 tables (including the reserved) and a dance floor in the middle of the ballroom. And yet the ballroom didn't look cramped. In fact, it looked pretty spacious. As I was going round to take photos, there was enough room to move around too. The high ceiling and pillarless setting definitely helped. But because of the dance floor, I couldn't have the red carpet aisle. My OH coordinator arranged to have rose petals to mark the aisle instead. I was a little disappointed and contemplated putting the dance floor near the stage. But I'm glad I stuck to having the dance floor in the centre. My friends performed a dance routine and more guests were able to enjoy the performance. At about the 5-6th dish, the dance floor was opened and my friends took to the dance floor. While they were dancing, OH staff served the food and left it on the table till they're back to enjoy the food. My friends were impressed with the service as they had previously experienced (at another venue) their food being taken away even though the food was practically untouched!
Well, I'm very happy on how my wedding turned out. The OH staff was helpful & my guests enjoyed themselves. Something I learned was to communicate as much as possible to your coordinator on your requests/ ideas. They'll try their best to accommodate but sometimes, we can't get what we want. However, there are ways to make the wedding as special and unique. Because they are experienced, they can provide suggestions on what can be done and even warn you on what could happen if you insist on doing it a particular way.
Of course, there were some glitches here and there (esp with the table seating) but it was kept under control. I didn't know about it until after the dinner so I was able to relax and enjoy myself. So do as much as you can before the wedding and on the day itself, relax and be a pretty bride!
