The beginning of Part III - Customary Wedding

We have started on hotel hunting since 7 June after heeding Alicia's advice that we should start early.

I called up a few of the hotels - Marriott, Fullerton, Swissotel The Stamford, Hotel InterContinental, Mandarin Oriental, Grand Copthorne, Grand Hyatt, Meritus Mandarin, Conrad Centennial and Shangri-La.

In fact, we only shortlisted a handful of them but it was when I realised that many hotels were booked on the particular date that we want that I began to get panicky and started to call more.

Top on the list was of course, my dream hotel to get married in - The Fullerton. The manager from Catering Sales was not service oriented at all. Perhaps it was due to the high wedding dinner requests that we were negligent to them. Anyway, we went down to take a look at the ballroom ourselves and I was disappointed at it. It was a oblong ballroom with very low ceiling. Out it goes!

Next on our list was Hotel InterContinental. Again, the person was quite stuck up and the price was beyond our budget. Moreover, we heard from Alicia and bf that they can be quite rigid about negotiating for more things in the wedding package.

I called to ask for a copy of their wedding dinner packages and managed to strike a few off the list. Conrad, Shangri-La and Meritus Mandarin were all fully booked in May.

We are looking at either 21 May or 28 May, both a Saturday to better accomodate our guests so that it can be more of a convenience. Well, according to the catering sales people that we spoke to, these 2 dates were pretty popular with couples and I think were deemed rather auspicious.

After re-shuffling the list, these are now our top 3:
1. Grand Hyatt
2. Swissotel The Stamford
3. Grand Copthorne

There's a tie between No. 1 & 2. Both were competitive in terms of cost per table. Grand Hyatt requires a minimum of only 30 tables for weekend whilst Swissotel The Stamford requires 35. The final decision will be made by end June, when we have taken a look at the ballroom at Grand Hyatt on 21 Jun and Grand Copthorne on 19 Jun.

Swissotel was the first we went to for a site inspection. The Catering Sales manager, Agnes was professional and service oriented. They offer a few items which were not in other hotels' wedding packages, which had won us over quite a bit. The MOST attractive of it all, which made both of us salivate, was their suite! I forgot the name of its suite but it was only a level lower than their Presidential suite and it comes with a...... open concept bathtub!! We already had the intention of paying extra just to stay in that suite for 1 more night..

Will post up photos of Swissotel The Stamford soon!