aldora: Weddings On The Bay Showcase 2014, Marina Bay Sands

Final Decision: Marina Bay Sands

Weddings On The Bay Showcase 2014 - 29 March 2014

Hey guys! So sorry for this ultra backdated post as Sweetie Muffin is unwilling to reveal our "golden choice" for our wedding banquet venue till a later time and hence a throwback post for this.

Both Sweetie Muffin and I were hunting for the perfect venue to host our wedding banquet.

Having attended restaurant weddings before, we decided that we wanted to host our banquet in a decent hotel instead.

Reasons FOR Hotel Banquet:

1. Unrestricted View

The main drawback of restaurants is that they have beams / pillars which restrict the guests' view of the newly weds. We should be the main focus of the banquet and hence I felt that the pillars should not steal the limelight from us.

2. Spaciousness

Those who have known me will understand that I hate squeezing in confined areas with many other people. I would like to have some space to move around at least.

I want my guests to feel that it is 'worthwhile' to attend my banquet for the amount of Ang Pow they pay by allowing them to enjoy the ambience instead of being cooped in a small VIP room and compelled to watch the newly weds on the TV screen if the restaurant has limited capacity.

3. Better Audio Visual Support

Generally, the sound system in restaurants sucks and too bad wedding is a once in a lifetime thingy (I hope). I would want my guests to hear our speech in its best clarity and not be distracted by the feedback from the microphone. Also, montage is flashed on the big screens via projectors verses some restaurants where they used smaller screens or even TV screens.

4. Complimentary Overnight Hotel Stay

Yay to Staycations!

CONS of hosting wedding banquets in hotels:

1. Not Cost Effective

Hotel banquets usually cost (a lot) more.

2. Sucky Food

You pay more and yet the food tastes mediocre or even yucky.

3. Can Still Go Wrong

The staff hired are normally temporary staff who are inexperienced. Hence there might be blunders in their servicing aspect. The service might not be as prompt and guests might be annoyed by that as well.

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In short, we had our guests in mind when we decided going for a hotel banquet simply for the ambience.

We attended the Weddings On The Bay Showcase 2014 earlier this year whilst we were surveying for suitable venues to hold our wedding and we had 2 hotels in mind - Carlton Hotel and Marina Bay Sands (MBS).

We have visited Carlton Hotel the week before but felt that it wasn't too ideal as the Empress Ballroom which we were eyeing for requires us to commit to a minimum 25 tables (we might not have that many confirmed guests). Moreover, the menu items were not say very fantastic looking.

Arrival at Le' Event :)

Red Carpet Walk :)

Event: Weddings On The Bay Showcase 2014
Venue: Sands Expo and Convention Centre, Level 4, Orchid Main Ballroom
Date: 29 March 2014 (Saturday)
Time: 11:00 - 18:00
Admission: Free
Nearest MRT: Bayfront MRT

Upon arrival at the venue (we arrived at around 5pm after our Sabbath Church Service), we registered at the counter.

Registration at the counter

Schedule of Events

The ballroom looked very inviting with tables full of finger food to welcome us.

Also, we were marvelled by the ice sculptures of swans displayed on the tables where the food were served.

Check out the Ice Sculptures!! Swan Lake ~~

As we were famished after church service, we helped ourselves to some of the finger food and that was indeed rather comforting :)

Grabbing Some Foodie to taste :)

The food was prepared by the same team which was supposedly to prepare the dishes for the wedding banquet.

The standard décor for the wedding banquet looked pretty decent and romantic as well.

Greeted by soothing melodies from the violinists :)

We went to explore the Up-sell Decorations next.

If you are dissatisfied with the standard themed décor provided, you can customise the decoration to suit your liking by topping up extra money of course.

Going Purple...

At this stage, I was really annoyed with my Olympus Pen E-PL6 as the colours looked pretty wrong in the photos VS the reality. I would advice you guys not to use this camera if you are not 'pro' enough. I think I resorted to taking photos using my iPhone 5S which produced slightly better results ultimately. So much for spending SGD800 DSLM camera which failed to serve me well *MEH*

I wasn't very much amazed by this purply theme anyways.

This kind of reminds me of the demon's abode / cave in those ancient dramas.

See the resemblance between the décor and the demon's abode?

Purplish Demonic Aura...

*Image Credits: Google Images

Violet Upsell Decoration

In my opinion, I still prefer the standard décor as the upsell décor is not pocket-friendly and not necessarily better looking.

Moreover, you need to cough out more money to procure more flowers that are to be used only for one meal (not to mention that they are inedible)!!!

Solemnisation Room

After visiting the upsell decorations, we headed off to another room featuring the sweets that can be served during the cocktail reception before the banquet commences.

I must admit that they look very pleasing to the eyes except that some do not taste as good as we expected as they are too sweet.

Moreover these sweet treats are regarded as add-ons to your standard wedding package and hence you must top-up a hefty sum if you want to serve these to your guests.

The average pricing is approximately SGD3++ each - just imagine how broke you can be if each guest helps himself to a few of those sweets?

In addition, most guests normally do not arrive punctually for the wedding banquet and hence not many people would be present at the cocktail reception either. Hence is it really worthwhile to spend so much just on the cocktail reception alone? - Food for thought.

Oh yes, we arrived too late and the candy floss machine was shut down :(

However we managed to help ourselves to the cake pops and other candies.

Vibrantly Coloured Lollies ~ Tasted SUPER sweet :S

The main highlights of signing up a Wedding Package at the showcase are:

1. 10% off total banquet bill

2. Free flow of beer for up to 4 hours

3. Free flow of wine for wedding dinner

4. Consecutive 2 nights stay in Bridal Suite, with breakfast for 2 the next morning

5. Complimentary 1 night stay in a Deluxe Room for Wedding helpers on actual day

6. Corkage waiver for up to 5 bottles of spirits (750ml)

Despite the 'perks' provided, we did not sign up for the wedding package during the event itself as we did not want to regret afterwards for making a rash decision.

Our Final Decision

It took us another week to decide.

We finally signed our wedding package with MBS during our second visit with the marketing staff as the venue meets our below needs:

1. Spacious Ballrooms

The ballrooms are indeed very grand and spacious. The partitions are moveable and highly customisable - they can be moved to form a small room for the bride to change her clothing and touch-up her make-up etc.

You can view nice photos uploaded by others here and video uploaded here.

2. Accessible

Due to its proximity to the Bayfront MRT, MBS is very accessible via public transport. It is however, not very encouraged to drive to the venue as parking might be an issue during weekends.

3. Facilities

Guests can choose to shop at The Shoppes area when they arrive early or they can visit the casino (not recommended as we are not responsible for any financial losses incurred) after the banquet.

4. Environment / Great Ambience

The ballroom is conducive for wedding banquets, meetings and seminars.

Our guests can go sight-seeing at the Sky Garden or other areas or explore the Arts Science Museum before and after the banquet.

5. Stay-cation!

Yes that is one of my reason of choosing this place as I have never swam in the infinity pool yet!

6. Minimum 20 Tables

This suits our need whereas other hotels have a minimum table requirement of at least 25 - 30.

7. Perks

Last but not least, we managed to persuade the marketing staff to provide us the perks to match those offered during the showcase event :D

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However, my colleagues have feedback to me that they think that the food served by MBS sucks.

A fellow blogger has confirmed this in his review as well at:

http://fredoyolo.blogspot.sg/2010/12/wedding-dinner-at-marina-bay-sands.html

Therefore, we were still skeptical when we made this decision but still went ahead with it because MBS meets all of our needs and we cannot be too greedy. Let's just pray that the bad review is just an outlier *Fingers Crossed*

I have also attended my company's Dinner and Dance at MBS in September 2014 and have blogged about it at http://bit.ly/MarinaBaySands_DnD

So do stay tuned to find out whether my experience at MBS affirms my choice :D

Until Next Time :)