📍 Let's talk wedding venues

Welcome back to another post of my wedding series!

Today, I'm gonna cover a key first step in the wedding planning process: How do I begin sourcing for my dream wedding venue?

Here's our unconventional experience in venue-hunting, and how the things we wanted changed (drastically) along the way (😆):

🕣 Timeline

Typically, people start hunting for a venue about 12 months before their AD. However, for us, we started looking up to 18 months before our planned AD - It was a process of firming up the date + going for viewings at the same time since our work schedules were quite flexible! We just knew we wanted a date some time in Q4 2025 and went with it first. Coordinators were happy to let us go ahead with viewings :)

My suggestion will be to start looking early because popular venues will be booked out fast. While we didn't have to fuss with the whole feng shui bit, some couples and parents may have a strongly preferred date so start viewing early, and take advantage of early bird discounts!

Tbh, the venue won't change much despite the lead time LOL so just quickly chope 🙂‍↕️ However one important thing would be to check with the coordinator for any upcoming renovation plans before signing!

💭 Changing preferences

NGL the wedding vision changed drastically for us. At first, we were considering restaurants like MONTI or 1-atico as I wanted a high ceiling venue with ample natural light ☀️ I also imagined the guestlist will be small, about 120-140 pax as we have rather small families.

However, this changed quickly cos of a few factors. Upon learning that hotels have more benefits and convenience (e.g. Extra one night complimentary stay, bridal changing area, proper venues for tea ceremony/solemnisation), we decided that hotels are a better fit. Plus, one thing we did early was to get an initial guestlist from our parents to estimate the # of tables and added in our friends too. After collating in Excel, we had realised our list expanded to over 200 pax .... 😅 And decided restaurants will be way too squeezy and not the best experience for our guests.

Personally I also started thinking about how wedding is once in a lifetime etc so must zhng until damn grand BAHAHA.... so I wanted something beautiful, grand and impactful that I could remember forever!

🙂‍↕️ Venues we visited (so far)

With these considerations in mind, we went to a few hotels:

🌻 Andaz Hotel - Grand Ballroom (The GlassHouse)

🌻 Marriott Tang Plaza Hotel - Grand Ballroom

🌻 St Regis - Caroline's Mansion

🌻 Sofitel City Centre - Grand Ballroom (Wallich Ballroom)

🌻 Conrad Orchard Singapore

Other venues we visited coincidentally/passed by:

✨ Parkroyal Pickering - Grand Ballroom (Pickering ballroom) and Smaller Rooms (Alexander I & II)

✨ 1-Atico

Stay tuned to the next post for which venue we chose eventually, and what were the main things influencing our decision!