Wedding AD - Dinner events

ROM was at 6.30pm. Right before dinner started. And man, it was a stressful start to the night!

There was mis-communication with Mr Phang on the timing of ROM (our fault completely!!) and amidst my rush from the hotel room to Grand Shanghai, Yong called to inform that he left the angbao in the hotel room. Got my cousin to go up to the room while I wait for her at the lobby, only to find out that the card key did not work!! Had to frantically wait for the new card key to be made and after a mad rush to the ROM, we completed the short ceremony with our hearts thumping wildly throughout the session.

Not the romantic touching ROM as I would like to have. But after all those hiccups we were just glad it was over and done with!

Thanks to super sporting brothers and sisters, we fully made use of the Grand Shanghai theme so the whole gang of us, donning our cheong sams and page boy caps, we boogied in to the tune of 我要你的爱 for march in #2.

A special thanks to Cathy, who declined gently to be my jie mei, but was as good as one throughout my entire wedding preparation. She accompanied me to Dang and Grand shanghai, at times, helped to negotiate the contracts term, prompted me through the months on the things to do, flexed her wedding planner muscles to ensure I was well prepared for the wedding. And as if those kind gestures were not enough, she helped to choreograph the march in, from the dance step to the music. :___) all i can say is THank you THank you Thank you...

Some random photos of guests.. and not forgetting the adorable babies photos.. Thomas is really really good...

Next up: Random Candid shots...

Wedding AD - Grand Shanghai

When going through the photos with Thomas, I laughingly asked if he was doing ad prints for Grand Shanghai. He did such beautiful shots of our restaurant! Definitely ad worthy.

Yesterday I dropped by my auntie's office for a chat. And the first thing she said was how much she liked the food in Grand Shanghai. So much so, she is making plans to go back one of the days. It is SO heartening to hear the great feedback from relatives and friends, given that our lack of appetite that night lead us to believe the food was not good at all!

Guests found the food tasty and not the typical Chinese wedding cuisine. We did shark friendly switch of the soup to Abalone soup and crossed our fingers that the more traditional guests would not curse and swear. We pat our shoulders when many of the feedback was on how good and hearty the abalone soup was. The dessert 高力豆沙 was a hit as well. No good photo of it, unfortunately. Our initial thought was that it may be too oily as the final dish. But when we mentioned our concern to Shirley, our restaurant manager, she promptly got her kitchen to deliver samples to us and oh my, we confirmed the dessert right away after tasting it. Grand Shanghai version is laced with banana and that makes SUCH a difference. It is considerably lighter and more refreshing. Yumzzzz...

Which brings me to the next part of the review on Grand Shanghai - restaurant manager and service. The restaurant managers Shirley and Sally are definitely not the sweet talking kind. Rather, more of the straight talking type. You may not get the most devoted attention from them and some of the bridezella-to-bes would probably take offense at that. But I realized it is simply because they are so damn experienced, they really do not see the big deal in handling wedding banquets.

It was so comforting to have her say "i will prompt you through the night so don't worry about the timing, everything will flow through by sequence". And it was exactly so on the actual night. The restaurant staff are mostly old timers so their service was also excellent. I remembered the kind waitress who quickly taught me how to hold the bouquet and Yong's arm at the same time (it was NOT easy!) and Yong to hold my dress up when marching in.

All in all, the service was prompt, efficient and ...... experienced. Yeah, that is THE word to describe the staffs and service at Grand Shanghai. They are definitely assuring to work with and we truly enjoyed our experience with them.

Anyhow.. enough writing from me.. will let the photos do the rest of the talking...

Some ad worthy shots by Thomas...

The wonderful 3 piece band.. first singer is quite chio.. :)

The foodie...

Thought I will slot in some photos on the guests book and the door gift. No pix on the Angbao box but for those curious, it is a transparent cookie jar with the 喜 word on it...

Some restaurant pix for those shopping for wedding dinner venue...

The new chandeliers .... they recently renovated the place..

古色古香 的 bar counter.. too bad it is tucked at the side.. so not something the guests will notice..

Thomas took a wonderful photo of the band on stage and at the same time captured the 热闹 atmosphere just before the dinner started..

Next up.. events during the dinner...

Wedding AD - Gatecrash & Tea Ceremony

Will let the pictures do the talking...