*warning – boring post ahead, if you’re not into sieving out the best ballroom for your chinese wedding dinner ;p

Having had our date chosen according to our 生辰八字 (birthdates), we had only one auspicious date on a Sunday. Thus, we didn’t have to compare prices/ menus on different days.

Hotels under our consideration after surfing through some bridal forums :Meritus Mandarin, Conrad, Merchant court, Goodwood Park, Marriot, Raffles the plaza, Shangri La, Grand Hyatt, Intercontinental.

We did not really bother about the menu, but looked at things like wine/ beer/ layout etc. And our top consideration was that it must be a nice hotel, which explains the shortlisted names above. Personal preference: Hilton was not included ‘cos it wasn’t very well known (to us.. haha, although Conrad is under Hilton); Copthorne King, we didn’t bother cos the no. of tables was 40)

First, those hotels that do not meet our table requirements were removed (we had too few tables): Merchant court, Marriot. Shangri La removed cos it was inaccessible, Goodwood Park removed cos we didn’t really find Ming Jiang(the restaurant) fantastic.

Visited Meritus, Conrad, Marriot, Raffles, Grand Hyatt.

Didn’t like Raffles cos of the metallic doors and also the large number of ballrooms. Grand Hyatt’s Magnolia room was totally out when we saw it. Sir Stamford was not bad, but compared to Conrad, it was more expensive. And also, it was a small room, can’t exceed 30.

Down to two choices: Meritus and Conrad and we chose Conrad ‘cos it was exclusive (only one ballroom), one server per table and they serve the food individually, no pillars, nice layout, nice ambience… etc

P.S Our intial choice was Meritus, but after viewing Conrad, we really love it. Priced at around $1343 per table of 12, at Conrad, it was more expensive than Meritus’ $924 for table of 10. But doing our sums, we felt it was worth it, and thus we chose Conrad.

How to:

1. Choose a date / a range of dates (or look for a fengshui master/ any other xx here). (the most expensive is saturday, followed by friday and sunday, followed by mondays to thursdays) We would recommend to set a maximum of 2 dates as it’s really easier to shortlist this way.

2. Estimate the number of tables!! very important. Most of the cut offs are at 25/30/35/40. Thus just make sure of the range and you can choose the ballroom. Just note that the nicest ballrooms are the biggest. ;p

3. Check out forums for the reviews of both the hotel and the person in charge. Best is to have in mind some hotels you have went for wedding dinners or just do all the research through forums.

4. Shortlist hotels and email hotels to check out the rates. Set budget.

5. Visit the hotels

6. Choose the hotel