Hello readers! After signing our bridal package, we placed a deposit to secure our banquet venue at Orchid Country Club during the roadshow as well. Jeremy got the contact number of the sales mgr, Serene and she told us we could go down to the roadshow to look for her as they have some offers that they are providing if we book the venue during the roadshow even though she has checked for us the availability of the date for the ballroom that we want beforehand.
Besides ballrooms, Orchid Country Club do have restaurants that many do book it for wedding lunch or dinner. (If you can't book their ballroom because of the min number of tables or looking to invite just a small group of guests, you can consider hosting it at Orchid Country Club restaurants. Many do not know that Orchid Country Club do have rooms which they call it as Orchid Lodge, so you can book a room in Orchid Country Club so that when the wedding has ended, you have a decent place to rest instead of travelling back. For us, we were given a suite room that is included inside the package and we stayed there for 2 nights after our wedding.
We had our wedding banquet dinner at the Grand Ballroom which is the biggest ballroom in Orchid Country Club! We didn't go and compare or recee the different venues among hotels before deciding, except initially i did look at some restaurants but it was a no go from Jeremy and i wanted a place that i can rest after the wedding, (beside hotels) so we decided the venue pretty fast to be at OCC.
I went to research more on Orchid Country Club and reading other brides's blog who had their wedding held at Orchid Country Club before even though the info was quite outdated since those post was around 2014? I like that they had high ceiling for this ballroom making the entire place look grand with our selected decor setup. There were not many blog reviews for this, so i guess this post might helps for those looking to host your wedding at Orchid Country Club!
I think i had apply to what i learnt in daily life (studied marketing) that hosting in hotels is my last resort if i couldn't have the grand ballroom in the orchid country club. (I wanted to make sure that grand ballroom is available so we book it 1 year in advance.)
Before i continue, it's entirely each to own preference where you would like to host your wedding banquet. To me, i find that hotels are merely using their brand value so that they could charge the newly-wed higher per table cost because of their branding. You do eat similar dishes in a chinese wedding banquet even if you decide to host in restaurant, country club or hotels. But why does the price differ so much? Mainly because of the brand.
I totally do not agree that a 4 or 5 star hotels will definitely provide better service if you choose to host in restaurant or even country club ballroom like us. Everyone should know most of the waiter/waitress are all part time staff serving your guests during your wedding banquet, it really depend on the standard of the staff that is working during your wedding banquet. In fact, i do received positive feedback from my guests that the service provided by the waiter/waitress during our dinner were pretty good! They were replacing a new set of plates for our guests consistently, refilling their drink even before they had to call for them. (If you are wondering this should be the norm,yes it should be, but i had attended wedding in hotels whereby i had finished my drink and no one came to refill or after i requested to refill my drink, i had to wait for very long!)
Though there were case whereby for my halal dietary guests, the staff kept removing his fork & spoon and he had to request for a new set, but generally, everyone told me the waiter/waitress did a good job throughout our wedding banquet dinner.
I had attended a few weddings before for eg, in RWS, it is one of the worse banquet dinner that i ever attended. I think if i ever receive any invitation that are hosting their wedding there, i will not want to attend. I have told my friends around me not to host there too for their wedding. I do not blame the newlywed but question the banquet manager & the chefs who prepared the food. The newlywed should have enough to fret about and the last thing to expect was the food were not enough to satisfy their guests. The table per cost should be around $1.5k-$1.6k and to me its just not worth the value. Even though they have high ceiling too for their ballroom, but the food serving is just not enough per table.
The food servings in RWS is small, they don't provide extra 10% buffer for their food so for eg if there are 10 pax in a round table setting, there is just 10 spring roll, and its not even filling. No sharks fin as well. I remember i was finding vinegar when we were served a bowl of soup and i thought it was shark fin, later on to be disappointed its not my favorite shark fin dish.
Despite the high cost per table in hotels, many people are still willing to host their wedding in hotels, only to realised they do suffer major losses at the wedding banquet after the whole wedding has ended. Many chinese families will opt to host at hotels because of the brand and the impression they want to create since Chinese has always been known for wanting 'face' 爱面子.
Most chinese families would want a lavish grand wedding and to them, hotels has been conditioned among chinese families that it is a great venue and choice to host their weddings. Atas ma. But they have totally overlooked if their family & friends are rich enough to cover their table cost & regretted after they open all the angbaos at the end of the wedding. I am sure hotels do have their plus points but to me i am not willing to risk throwing a lavish wedding banquet at the hotel only to cry after that when i received all the angbaos collected. Hahaha.
Of cos if you are very rich and you have rich relatives & friends this will not be an issue. You can throw in as much money as you want to get a real grand wedding.
For everyone info, it doesn't mean that everyone will give you the exact angbao amount when they google the market rate of the hotels wedding lunch/dinner. Some people could only afford to give within their means and you can't blame them even if they are not giving you enough to cover your table cost. You invite them not to cover your table cost in the first place right? So if you are mentally prepared that they might not going to help you cover your table cost, the minimum that you can do is, get a less expensive cost per table for your wedding! Do it within your means and not get into debts after the wedding. This has provide me another good reason to host it at OCC.
I think many of our guests thought our table was $800+ but actually our table cost was $1100 per table after adding all the GST, this is due to the menu we have selected. I could have choose the cheaper menu which was $800+ but i don't like the dishes so we change to a higher range menu. (even though 800+ or 1000+ has shark fin but the ingredients is just different)
With no expectations, there is no disappointment. I do get very surprised the amount of angbao that i collected from my close friends!
Don't ever regard the wedding dinner to be a source of platform that you can earn. It doesn't work that way. I heard from friends telling me that they have friends who will tell them the table cost right at the start so that the friends has been 'warned' to give just enough to cover the table cost. Or, they would purposely inform them the table cost which is higher than the actual cost so that they can earn. Eventually i heard that couple do suffered losses after their wedding. Don't expect that you will not have any losses if you want to host a wedding. Demanding upfront is too much. That's karma i guess. But there are ridiculous amount that we received too, i think we were excited to find out the lowest amount, we could remember the top 3 lowest amount given till now. with the 1st & 2nd runner up angbao given to us coming from Jeremy side and 3rd runner up coming from my side! (My close friends do know that its impossible for me not to talk about this, just not in this post yet)
In order to book for this grand ballroom, you must have min of 40 tables because this grand ballroom is really huge, its maximum capacity could accommodate up to 120 tables which is 1200 guests! They had two levels for this grand ballroom. the cocktail reception area outside the grand ballroom is already like a normal hotel ballroom that could be set up to 20-25 tables.
They have a very long red carpet for march in even though when i looked back at our 1st march in video, i realised we walked real fast! Hahaha but best of all, for the 2nd march in, we are coming in via a buggy! The main highlight was the buggy. Hahaha, i mean so far i haven't seen any hotel that could allow a buggy for their march in and thought this was unique so having there was the main reason that i had initially, because of the buggy.
Serene was very nice to us when we told her we might have less than 40 tables so she checked with us tentatively our total number of table required and we told her we might only have 38 tables only but she is fine with it. But nearing our wedding date, our confirmed table was only 37 and they only charge us based on 37 tables only. she could have told us, nope we are still charging you 38 because the norm is 40 tables for this ballroom, but she didn't and we are grateful for this kind gesture! We pass her an angbao as our token of appreciation to thank her for coordinating with us for our wedding for the past few months.
Our package with OCC was as follows,
1. Free flow of soft drink & chinese tea during dinner up to 4 hours (This are the standard offering everywhere)
2. Free flow of beer for weekend packages (Our wedding was on a saturday so this was applicable for us)
3. No corkage fees for any duty paid wine, hard liquor & champagne brought in.
(I do know most hotels do charge corkage fees but there is zero charge for any liquor brought in to the ballroom, even though i told Jeremy not to divulge that corkage fee is free if he doesn't want to be a drunk man on our wedding day)
4. Sparkling Champagne Fountain on display with complimentary bottle of champagne for toasting (Standard)
5. Choice of guestbook (There wasn't a choice, there were only one kind) Haha (Standard)
6. Choice of wedding decorations and specially designed floral arrangements along aisle to create a memorable wedding march (Standard)
7. Specially designed angbao box for well wishes from your guests (We told the manager that we was not going to use their angbao box as i had arranged our angbao box to be a wishing well form that comes under my external decor vendor that i engaged.)
8. A luxurious bridal suite for 1 night with welcome amenities, breakfast following our wedding celebration the following day (I found this to be very useful so that we could rest in our bridal suite after the entire wedding dinner has ended, almost the same you get from hotel, though i am not sure if all hotels do actually provide you accommodation or require you to pay for the hotel stay)
9. An intricate design model tier wedding cake on display with a genuine cake for your private celebrations. (Standard)
10. Choice of specially designed invitation cards based on 100% confirmed attendance (cost of printing is excluded) (Will elaborate this in my next post on wedding invitation card, we didn't choose their vendor they provide us)
11. Pre-dinner snacks with freshly brewed coffee & tea for the wedding couple will be served in the comfort of your suite (This was nice! I am not sure if hotels do provide snacks beforehand but occ has ensure that the newlywed was not hungry to host their guests before the dinner officially start) Like! I finished my entire snacks, (their snacks consist of sandwich, snacks fries & juices )before doing my makeup. Which probably explains why i was not hungry during the dinner time)
12. Choice of specially designed wedding favor for your guests (Standard)
13. Fresh floral decorations & chair covers to enhance the entire wedding experience (Standard)
14. Complimentary use of video projectors to showcase the bride and groom sweet memories (Standard)
15.Complimentary parking available for all（OCC provide complimentary parking for everyone so this was a plus point, it saves me the hassle of getting the brothers/sisters to issue out the carpark coupon during the reception.
16. Free shuttle bus to and from Yishun Mrt station at 10 minutes interval for the convenience of your guests & departure experience (Standard) This was their standard shuttle bus schedule to ferry the public in.
17.Special invitation to a dining experience for 10 of your guests based on our confirmed menu ( complimentary) Food trial to be done on weekdays only (I always thought that food tasting should be complimentary but apparently i heard not all places do provide complimentary food tasting including hotels.)
18. 1 additional 40 seater bus will be arranged to provide further comfort and convenience to guest's arrival & departure. (This was a pretty thoughtful move for occ to add this into the package, 3 trip to fetch the guests from yishun mrt station to dropping our guests right in front of our ballroom & 3 trip back every 15min interval to Yishun MRT after the banquet dinner.)
19. Taxi & Limousine booking are readily available from hotel reception anytime.
As part of the wedding roadshow promotion, we can choose 3 offers as shown below on top of the package they are offering us. (Those highlighted in bold are our selections)
The smile offers available as follows,
1. Free flow of wines & beers during wedding banquet (4 hours)
2. One Night Anniversary stay with buffet breakfast for wedding couple
3. Second Night Stay with buffet breakfast for wedding couple
4. One Deluxe room for wedding helpers
5. five platters of chinese canape to be served during pre event cocktails
6. 10% discount off ROM package upon confirming the wedding banquet (min 50 persons)
7.Complimentary first round of House Pour alcoholic or non alcoholic drinks in Par Lounge for Stag/Hen Parties for a maximum of 10 persons.
To me, only the first 4 choices were attractive enough. I think they are quite flexible, we choose free flow of wines that includes red & white wine since red wine is usually provided at hotel at 1 bottle per table and will charge accordingly if you exceed total number of bottle provided. Of cos, don't expect the quality to be very good since its free flow. We don't drink so to me, i don't really care about this portion except to avoid incurring any extra cost at the end of the banquet dinner if there are more guests requesting for red wine. Frank enough. hurhur
We choose 2nd night stay which was a good choice because we stayed up late counting our angbaos after the dinner and imagine we had to check out by noon the next morning, that will be so shag. So i was glad we took the 2nd night stay.
For the last option, we select the 1 deluxe room for wedding helpers, we thought the room can be provided for the brothers & sisters to rest upon check in before the dinner starts in the evening or if Jeremy's sister & mum is going to do their makeup, they could use that room too. This option was 1 night stay for wedding helpers and i thought the room could be given to Jeremy's parents to stay because i presume the dinner will end late and they stay in Tampines. Since we are not going back, it would be appropriate for them to stay for the night. Initially, it was a deluxe room but i requested for a upgrade to family room & breakfast provided the following day. (Will post another time the photos of the rooms in OCC!)
However, Jeremy's dad need to run errands for his business so they didn't want to stay and i asked the sisters if they would like to stay instead. Initially they agreed, but last minute they told me they was not staying including my sister, OLM. Tsk! I think only JY could stay over and it was too late for me to ask Jeremy to ask his brothers by then as priority was given to my sisters first, so in the end i told JY to get her bf to come & stay with her for the night so that the room will not be wasted.
For anyone who is considering to have their wedding at orchid country club,
This is the lobby area before you climb up those stairs to the cocktail reception of the grand ballroom, For other smaller ballrooms, you will go down those staircase below instead of going up.
Carpet,wooden doors & design layout
Personally i think if OCC could work on their renovations & refurbishing, they would definitely be able to attract more newlywed to host their wedding at their ballroom! This is just my own view but the carpet definitely need to go, this carpet design is quite old fashioned and do spoil the overall look that any newlywed would engage for external decor set up. Maybe its meant to match with the door, but that door color & material is trending only in the past.. Nowadays many use more modern design doors & & carpet.
Those tables that you see in the photo above are their cocktail tables, initially i checked with Serene whether they have those high cocktail table because my guests are not dwarfs eh. Hahaha. She told me this was new as they remove the old high cocktail table and doesn't have any more stocks but i think it would be better to bring back those because usually everyone would provide high cocktail table that looks more professional.
I went to create a photo guide and posted in our facebook event page + sending all this info to my friends/colleagues and anyone who has been invited to our wedding so that they are able to have a rough idea of finding the place as OCC might not be regarded as accessible location if you haven't been there before.
This directional photo guide include 3 different ways to get there, be it taking the shuttle bus, cab & driving to reach the grand ballroom.
Wedding Decor Theme
For wedding decor provided by OCC, they only have 4 decor set up available for you to choose from, and of cos the theme that i select looks the most pretty & decent compared to the other 3 theme.
I just thought if they could have some fairylight or flower back drop stage setup would attract more newlywed to book their ballroom based on more variety of their wedding decor setup.
Though i think they could work on the renovation of their interior of the grand ballroom.
Our theme selected was Fantasy theme which comes with the huge L.O.V.E at the stage even though i had my external vendor to set up another one outside the cocktail reception.
Flooring in Grand Ballroom
If they could change the marble floor to all carpeted flooring would be perfect. They had carpeted flooring at the side & the red carpet at the centre of the ballroom. The chairs that brushed against the floors can be quite irritating as feedback from my guests.
Table cloth, seat covers, cutlery
I would suggest them to have various color that could match their decor theme for the table cloth/seat cover including the reception table cloth. It seems they have the standard creamy white table cloth except for VIP tables.
When i told my friends all this even though they already think its good enough after the post-wedding, they tell me if i am their wedding planner, they will become poorer after the wedding, or if i work there, maybe i will end up quarreling with finance side all the time. Hahaha Nothing is perfect so as much as i recommend anyone to consider OCC for their wedding, these are just some points to highlight for consideration!
I used my own tablecloth that i bought from taobao after i saw the tablecloth Serene show me for my reception table. The color looks something close like white or black color. To me, i think both are not very nice, there were nothing close to beige so I asked Serene if i could bring my own tablecloth, maybe she might be wondering this bride siao already to bought her own table cloth. I even packed in advance to ensure the sisters did brought along to OCC when we checked in. But later, i realised it would be better if i used pink tablecloth because i had the pink ones, that would match the entire reception theme color too!
If i could, i would have changed all the tablecloth & seat covers. Hahaha. The stage design structure need to change too. I just find that the lighting wasn't too good during the dinner to take any decent photos and it would be good if they could do something to their lighting. This will be very important because the venue is used for group photo-taking and its very important to have good lighting.
What i like about OCC is that you can choose either OCC menu or Peach Garden Menu. They are able to provide your guests with vegetarian/halal menu if you require. The best part is OCC do provide almost similar food that cater for our vegetarians & halal guests, i requested to have a copy of the halal & vegetarian menu from Serene so that i can show them and allow my friends/colleagues to choose the menu based on their own preference as i have some friends that prefer to eat the chinese menu. I thought this would be the ideal arrangement because i allow them to decide for themselves.
But this special arrangement is not zero cost as there will be an additional charge if you don't group for eg: all guests that is on halal menu in one table.
(It doesn't make sense for me to group them according to the special halal table just because i don't want to pay for the additional cost, the least thing you ever want to do was to make your guests feel awkward sitting with strangers.)
So for eg, my cost per table $1100 so out of this 10 pax and if i have 1 guest that request for halal dietary, that will be $1100 + $110 for that particular table.
I started my guest list as early as Feb even though i know there are bound to be some changes, but starting it early do saves me lot of trouble as i could focus on preparing other stuffs and i was flexible if there is any changes. To me, i think the most frustrating part will be the seating arrangement from relative side. For me, i was pretty straightforward to ask in my cousin group chat so that i can assign their seating, whether they are bringing their partner etc. I gave them an option, they could bring their partner if they want and I follow up with them on-going at least like 1-2 weeks before the wedding.
My mum told me that i shouldn't ask as it is disrespectful, but i think its not showing respect to us, the organiser as well when i leave a seat for you and you don't turn up. The most irritating part that i guess everyone would have expect was when your relative requested for 1 table but only half of the seats were filled up. Like hello?! You got problem isit? In the first place, if you are not sure of your exact attendance, basic courtesy is to inform IN ADVANCE if you are unable to attend. Usually it comes from relatives that does not even inform if they are not coming. i had unexpected empty seats just when i thought my assignment of seats was pretty awesome, if they do have the courtesy to inform in advance, i could make some adjustment and invite others that i was unable to because i was controlling my table seating to prevent going beyond 10 tables. Which i just find it was downright irresponsible, because for all my friends, i will check if they would like to attend my wedding before i invite them, so that they do not have to give me any angbao if we know they are not coming, as we don't gian for those angbaos, i just don't want my seats to be wasted! Thank god for my dad side, we don't keep in contact with his siblings so my relatives table were on par with my friends tables.
For my side, we had 10 tables, 5 table is set aside for my relatives & my parent's friends, another 5 table is set aside for my friends/colleagues. On the actual day, i had already expected all this kind of stunts with some of my relatives not following the correct seating that i had arranged. Before that, i did asked my parents for their opinion on the allocation of seating, they tell me everything was ok, on the actual day, suddenly it was not ok, actual turn up doesn't tally with expected number of turn out.
For VIP table seating, i told Jeremy i need to blog this out after our wedding is over because this do get on our nerve, during our table seating arrangement, does it really mattar who get to sit in the VIP table? Excluding our parents, i can never understand the rationale of other relatives that insist to be seated in VIP table. Did you help to contribute to the cost of this wedding? No! Did you help to plan the wedding? (Definitely not! The main organiser doesn't even had time to warm up her own seat!)
For our wedding, our VIP table was divided into 2 table instead of 1 as Serene told us if we want to combine, it will be 14 pax instead of 20 and Jeremy side has more relatives that wants to sit at the VIP table and won't be enough to fit in my side so eventually we had to spilt the VIP tables. Funny right, even though my dad was asking because he find this arrangement to be weird, i explained to them because Jeremy's relatives wants to sit on the VIP table, not enough seats. There's gold on those seats you know.
Except the different tablecloth from the other tables, seat cover, and food being served individually. The tables are pretty much the same isn't it?! Maybe you can look at the chio bu bride & handsome groom in close distance, but we barely even sit for 5min at that table?
Even though i was teasing Jeremy when i did my VIP table seating list and there was one empty seat for my side and i told him, maybe we can sit separately since our parents are not even sitting together because apparently, there are others that is more important than our parents sitting together at the VIP table! Sarcasm in the air and he was so mad. Hahaha.
For my side, no one is fighting who had to sit at the VIP table, just that last minute, they decided that my uncles should be the one sitting together with my parents instead of my aunties. On the actual day, frankly, i don't give a damm anymore because everything was live, But what could i possibly do? create a big fuss like Jeremy do over his relative table seating because they sit the wrong table? Nah. This is my day and i had plan this day for so long! It's time for me to sit back and enjoy the moment, for all this last minute change, i believe it will get sorted out somehow, no one should come & disturb me because i had already indicate so clearly, if they cannot use their eyes to see, and decided to adjust the seating plan themselves, they may do so as long as everyone get a seat eventually and everyone will be settled well before our 1st march in.
Throughout this whole wedding, i think communication is very important and that you really need to do more meet-up session as a whole group between your brothers & sisters as well as your siblings who can help you out & most importantly include your parents in as well. To me, this isn't the best that i can do.
For me, my sisters & I met up with the brothers for the first time on our wedding day. Thanks to Jeremy 'splendid' time management and inadequate briefing were given so there were some screw up on actual day which i seen it as flaws to our wedding as i am typing this down as evidence against him the next time! Whereas my sisters have been meeting up with me a couple of times except my own blood sister that missed the meetings and was unable to understand my expectations despite me briefing her separately vs when i realised the reality she had done on actual day. I had nagged at her for countless times at the gatecrash part and will remember this as long as this post existed in this world!
Till then!
To read more on my wedding planning posts, click according to the post you would like to read below,
*Bridal Package and why getting ala carte services might be better! Click HERE
*Wedding Gown Selection Click HERE
*Tips before your wedding photoshoot and during photoshoot. Click HERE
*Our Wedding Invitation Card, Bridal Furniture & Ordering of GUO DA LI Click HERE
*Food Tasting at Orchid Country Club, Peach Garden Click HERE
*Selection of Wedding Photoshoot Photos Click HERE
