Wedding 9-12 months - Searching for the perfect Chinois Wedding venue

I have always wanted more "unique" wedding venue and theme, outside of restaurants and hotels, typical of most Singaporean couples.

Thanks to the impossibly beautiful wedding photos on Style me Pretty, I really took on the idea of a garden theme wedding at one of our national parks. Did some research and fell in love the colonial house - Burkill hall. I think they have renamed it to Botany centre. However the logistics of squeezing 200 odd guests into a colonial house was too adventurous for me to attempt.

A dear friend's sister inspired us with her wedding held in one of the restaurant at Labrador park. And she engaged the legendary Wan Sheng for her photographer so the photos are without say, amazing. Alas, after much contemplation, we realised that this venue may not go down with my guests as with hers since half of them came from Canada (her hubby is a Canadian).

We then thought of having a seaside wedding complete with outdoor BBQ styled buffet wedding and Beautfort , Sentosa Resort and Spa, The Sentosa hotel came to our mind. But their Royal Romance package which is the only one which has the BBQ buffet option comes at a forbidding price. My mum also help in the elimination of this option by whining about having to travel out of Singapore to the wedding venue. Oh yes, I told her the last I remember, Sentosa is Singapore.

After all these elimination, we came to conclude a few things we wanted about the wedding. We wanted an intimate setting with no more than 200 guests which would be our closest relatives and friends. We like being able to go to each table of guests comfortably to mingle and chat. We know grand regal kind of wedding theme was not us. The idea of doing march in through those tall majestic entrance into the high ceiling ballroom completed with 1000 guests all standing and clapping for us makes us weak in the knees. In the bad way.

While unique wedding venue is something I always wanted, practicality rules at the end of the day to cater to our unpredictable weather and somewhat more predictable (aka traditional) appetite of my guests.

And after consulting my tatler inspired shopping directory aka Lester my colleague, we decided to narrow down the choices to Chinese restaurants since they are reputed  for better food quality as compared to hotel banquets.

We took about a month to decide on the venue, decided rather swiftly after only site surveying a couple of restaurants. We tried some of the food before so I had added their reviews below. Hope these serve as a rough guide for those who want a chinois themed wedding liked me:

Club Chinois - their ala carte buffet Dim Sum breakfast was good; still remember their wasabi prawn till now; the venue is passable. I did not managed to see the wedding setting so can't take my word for it. Somehow it did not leave deep impression for us to seriously consider it.

Peony Jade - can't remember the dishes i had but I remembered being really satisfied at the end of the meal; venue is quite unique given it is all the way at Keppel; perfect romantic sunset setting for ROM facing the sea; logistic wise is potentially problematic since the advantage of the privacy also comes with the problem of inconvenience. Very traditional chinese decor with prompt and experienced server. We would have considered this one if not for our love at first sight with Grand Shanghai.
 
Humble House - Rightfully only I tasted the food there before, courtesy of a really generous friend for one of my birthday celebration. I love the chi-chi ambiance, the unusual choice of dark and modern theme for Chinese restaurant, high back chairs, the impossibly small portions and the fusion of western-Chinese cuisine. I gave serious thought about this venue but after much contemplation I come to realise that it is not mainstream enough to please my varied guests. Sigh.. next!

Peach Graden restaurant - It turned out way too restauranty for us. There was a grand ah pek celebrating his 80th/90th/100th birthday but since they had to share the restaurant with other patrons, the ambiance was jovial, rowdy, abit chaotic and very public. While I am sure food must have been good to deserve the enthusiastic crowd but it is quite the opposite of the intimate wedding we wanted.

We did not get around surveying Li Bai restaurant properly since Grand Shanghai came before that and stole our heart away. But if it comes highly recommended by Lester, it is definitely good stuff, I assure you.


Grand Shanghai - Not sure if it was the plush red seats, the dainty retro stage with the songstress sweetly belting out old Teresa Teng songs or the nostalgic looking bar counter that took our breathe away. And bravo when we learned that the band comes with the wedding package! We were going to hire a live band anyhow so it was great to know that we do not need to fret about that. The package was pretty standard but the one thing that stood out was the one night stay at Grand Copthorne which was in the same building. The other restaurants also partner with nearby hotels for the complimentary night stay but Grand Shanghai and Grand Copthorne vicinity beat them hands down.

We wanted to sit on it for a while taking our time to explore other options. But we found ourselves coming back to Grand Shanghai time and again, daydreaming about the march in we will do, researching on the food reviews and marveling on how it matches many of what we wanted for the wedding. And so, we went down to sign the contract. And congratulated ourselves on the good choice by trying out their dinner set that very day. How is the food? Let us just say, the self congratulations carried on through the night. ;)

And so that is how we arrived at our perfect Chinois Wedding venue.