Went for my food tasting yesterday and I'm still dreaming about the food now!
It was SO SO good?!? We're breaking wedding conventions by choosing NOT to hold our wedding dinner at a hotel / restaurant and I'm glad our parents have been supportive of our choice.
The parents initially had reservations about the standard of the food when we decided to use a wedding caterer (instead of hotel / restaurant) and to be honest, we were a little worried too.
Thank goodness our worries were unfounded!
This was the wedding set-up that greeted us the moment we stepped into the room. While it isn't the final product for our wedding theme, I absolutely adored the carriages that they set out (in line with our Cinderella theme). #dayrebrides
I've a soft spot for Cinderella because I always thought my life resembled hers in so many ways while growing up, and she was my inspiration to become stronger and kinder no matter what!
The table was very nicely laid out for the 6 of us, and it felt like we were dining in a private room of a restaurant!
Their attention to detail didn't go unnoticed 👍🏻
THIS was the best dish of the night! We opted to add on a live carving station because of how unique it was, and also because we have a few friends attending from overseas so we wanted to make it a truly Singaporean wedding.
This sliced beef was AMAZING. It melts in your mouth, and the taste isn't too overpowering for those who aren't fans of beef. The sauce (black pepper?) accompanying it was fantastic. We loved it so much that we're even considering catering it for Christmas dinner haha.
Fried rice and pasta aglio olio are our mains for the wedding dinner so that the guests can choose. This was really good too! I took 3 servings because it was so delish, oops.
A sample of our dessert table items! They'll be customising the macaroons to my wedding colour palette so I'm really excited to see how that turns out! The adults didn't like it much but my fiancé and I loved it haha it must be a young person thing 🙆🏻 Everyone loved the cheesecake though! The fruit tart had a very buttery aftertaste which I liked.
I'm just really sad that I probably won't get to eat most of these yummy foods during the wedding itself!
I haven't attended any wedding yet where the food isn't by a hotel or restaurant, so we were really taking a gamble on this when we decided to go with a wedding caterer.
The main reason was because we frankly aren't a fan of sit-down wedding banquets. They're expensive not just for the couple, but also for the guests.
I've attended 8 weddings this year and spent close to $2000 on the ang paos alone. It has gotten to the point where I'm only going for the weddings of really close friends.
Which is…quite sad?
I wanna be able to celebrate my friends' big day with them without having to worry about the money. I don't understand why couples need to be so picky about who they invite based on how much they think the guest will give, due to costs easily being $88 to $160++ per head.
I've quite a few friends who aren't earning a lot / still studying and I'd want them to be there without having to worry whether they can cover the cost of their seat.
But that's…a Singaporean thing.
Would you #dayrebrides hold such a wedding too? No banquet, hotel or restaurant?
Couples who HAVE to host a banquet can't really run away from this, can they? Which is why I'm thanking our lucky stars that our parents are being understanding on this front.
The next question then comes in:
Will the quality of the food be affected if it isn't in a hotel / restaurant?
Those are legit concerns – in fact, I was really worried that the food wouldn't be good. After all, there must be a reason why normal wedding food costs so much right?
Apparently the biggest costs are labour – read any F&B company's annual report and you'll see the same thing. Check out staff expenses and wages under Operating Expenses. It goes up year after year.
A lot of these costs come down to the plating and serving of individual guests.
So we decided to take away these 2 elements.
Most importantly, there must be good food for the guests and they gotta have a good time!
Until we went for the food tasting yesterday, I was mentally preparing myself to have lowered expectations of the food.
It is, after all, from a caterer. And catered food at events aren't usually fantastic.
Boy, was I glad to be proven wrong!
The vendor we've engaged is Manna Pot Catering. I intend to blog about all the different caterers we approached later on once I've time to organise my old emails.
Some of the ones we looked at included:
– Ohs Farm
– Orange Clove
– Purple Sage
– Rasel
– Four Seasons
When we searched for "Wedding catering Singapore", Manna Pot was one of the top few results.
What impressed us most were photos of their previous events, as well as the wide flexibility of their menu.
I didn't find a lot of reviews about how their food tasted so this food-tasting session was vital, and I'm glad they didn't disappoint. The food was beyond my expectations!
The parents left the place feeling really happy about the food and we are all excited to see how the wedding will turn out. There'll also be a live gelato station for the guests, and over 15 dishes for them to choose from.
No one's gonna go hungry!
And it won't be a sit-down affair…the guests are gonna get to interact a lot with the couple, play games, have fun and mingle around.
I can't wait! It is a little nerve-wrecking as I don't know how our elderly relatives are gonna react, but I hope they like it. We know we're breaking the norm so I really hope it'll turn out well!
Dayre Finance Gathering Updates – 30 Dec
On a side note, this is how my eyes (and hands) feel like now.
The venue sponsor emailed us this morning saying that they would need to issue security passes in advance to all those attending, so I had to email all the 40+ people who already filled up the form for their e-ticket to ask for their names.
It has to be real names, cos photo ID is needed at the venue by the sponsor to ensure there's no terrorist in hiding.
I can understand, since the Malaysian Stock Exchange had a bomb scare recently, but I felt so bad about having to ask people to fill up the forms AGAIN?!?!
So I emailed everyone individually – trying to guess the names of some from their email wherever I could – and am editing the attendance form manually which we've to submit to the venue sponsor.
My eyes and hands are reallllllllly tired now 😔😔😔 but no choice!
There's about 40 more people who RSVPed initially but haven't filled up the latest form which contains their event ticket and venue details.
If you're one of those reading this, please fill it up asap! Names not in the list submitted by 28 Dec won't get to attend at all (even if you've RSVPed the first round) as there won't be security passes for you.
I'm sorry for the inconvenience but the venue sponsor has strict security (they're very high profile!) so…
🙏🏻 hope everyone can understand!
The details for 6 Jan will be sent out much later – sorry we gotta handle things slowly because I'm not a professional event organiser ah paiseh.
It's a lot of work but I hope you guys will enjoy, and most importantly benefit from the event! So please forgive me if the organising process isn't as smooth as it ought to be.
