a review on joyden hall

Reblogged from Feeling Feeling Kawin:

"After spilling my venue woes, one of the suggestions that came from you BTBs (thank you!) was The Joyden Hall, located at Bugis+. And while we were on the topic, in a rather timely manner, Shazana (who turned out to be my fellow marriage prep course attendee — small world!), swooped in and very kindly provided a detailed review of her Joyden Hall wedding, that took place on the 11th of May 2013.

While I think the venue might be a tad too big for my own wedding, I’ve extracted her comment so that anyone looking to hold their wedding there can locate her review more easily. It does sound like the perfect venue for a combined wedding!

Shazana’s review of The Joyden Hall:

I just had my wedding reception at Joyden Hall (on Saturday 11 May 2013). And the venue was so perfect and suited us exactly. The main hall was spacious, the stage big enough, excellent overhead projection screen, the air conditioning just right, the atrium wide enough to accommodate guests who want to mingle over cocktails, the outdoor rooftop garden was so pretty, great lighting and sound system, 2 private rooms for prayers and for the older guests to rest, attached kitchen which our Malay wedding caterer could use for washing up and heating food and the best part for me: THE CHANGING ROOM.

Because the hall is designed for theatre events, the changing room was first rate: good air conditioning, full wall to wall mirror, perfect lighting, comfortable seats, 3 cubicles (for toilets within the changing room), wash sink right next to the make up table and a row of cupboards to hang clothes. The design was so thoughtful, my make up artist was so happy! My husband and 3 friends who helped him dress could fit in comfortably along with my make up artist and my bridesmaid and I. I could change dresses in any one of the 3 the cubicles with ample privacy!

Yes the management is unfortunately pretty slow to reply to emails but that’s because they get a lot of inquiries. But they are extremely professional and the technician and ground manager who assisted us throughout the event went above and beyond their duties to make our wedding a success. In fact, everyone at Joyden Hall was on the ball for our event. They made it a huge success.

Joyden Hall is love. We were so so happy.

All our 1,600 guests were comfortable and no one had trouble finding the place since it’s close to the train station. Plus there was ample parking. And haha no one had a problem wearing baju kurung to a shopping mall. It’s our traditional dress and we look good in it. In fact, my guests attracted a lot of admiring glances from the other mall goers. If they are embarrassed though, they can take the lift directly from the basement carpark or Level 1 up to Level 7 where the hall is. They won’t be bumping into the masses that way.

Price wise, the rate is $6,900 for a half day event plus $500 weekend surcharge. $2,000 for security deposit excluding tables ($25 per table) and chairs ($3.50 per chair) and a levy fee of $5 per head for external caterer and refundable security deposit of $1,500."

(Source: Feeling Feeling Kawin)

For those of you who might be looking for a spaaacious air-conditioned venue in the Central area for Malay weddings! And congratulations once again on your very lovely wedding, Shaz! Super love your outfits (Syomir Izwa!!!) and your corsage bouquet (by the faaabulous Woodleigh Park woohoo!) and your outdoor photoshoot at the Eiffel Tower is mad mad mad amazing!!! Mad love.

I actually had a fleeting thought of switching to Joyden Hall if our issue with our existing venue doesn't turn out so well - I pass by the promotional wall on Joyden Hall everytime I'm on my way to work because I work near Bugis+, previously known as Iluma...

... but with this review, it planted that thought well and deep into my head. Unfortunately, a non-refundable deposit of S$2500 is at stake here and it will be very very very painful to deal with the heartache of losing $2500 because of someone else's incompetence and unsatisfactory service. A few hundred dollars maybe we can still stomach but $2500?!!!!! Boleh bayar catering untuk 178 pax more seh gitu :/

I have to admit I've been sitting on our venue issue and delaying action since my last post, partly because I hate the fact that I'm forced to deal with an issue caused by someone(s) incompetence + partly because I want to calm myself down first before dealing with it head-on. Tak manis you know buat kerja macam lembu jantan yang tengah marah haha. Plus! My mat and I wanted to gather and "arm" ourselves with as much information as possible, thus the previous post. Nak pergi perang must have enough ammunition wei! Haha. 

Thank you to everyone who emailed their experiences and well wishes, by the way! I am truly, truly touched by the help and concern received and want to reassure those who have booked Singapore Silat Federation - as long as you're handled by one of their female staff named Asiah (and another male staff named Kamal, I think), it is fine and there is no cause for worry. It is just our bad luck to have our booking managed by someone else who has been giving us less than satisfactory answers, despite our best efforts to screen through our options (My mamat and I ran ACRA searches before we booked Singapore Silat Federation ok.)

Ok, time to write in to the CEO and President of Singapore Silat Federation fellas!

venue oh venue, kenapa kau menyusahkan aku?

 It's been disheartening to find out many other BTBs having issues with their venues.

From Minute Blogette's sudden need to find an alternative space to Feeling Feeling Kawin and Nurin Marie's troubles with their venue to Seven Twelve Thirteen's anxiety over the uncertainty of her venue to other BTBs' pengeluhan over venue issues that I've seen on Facebook and Twitter.

 Now, five months before our wedding, the ragam has started for ours.

On Wednesday night, I posted this on my personal Instagram account:

 

Ok, initially I wanted to go all out and rage about what we're currently dealing with but I've decided to keep calm and do some investigations first before we can explore our options and decide on our next course of action. Soooo what I'm going to do today is not blog about our venue issues but instead, I'm going to put out a public plea to those who might have booked Singapore Silat Federation hall (Persis) to drop me an email at farnamals[at]gmail[dot]com so we can ascertain facts and get our story straight.

The things that we need to establish are:

(1) Who is the person you are liaising with?

(2) What was the rental and setup time (day before the event) given to you?

(3) Have you experienced any funny business while dealing with them?

 

Will really truly greatly appreciate all the feedback that I can get! Once we've gotten our facts, completed our investigations, and explored our options, I'll publish the draft post on what telah happen. 

Truth be told, I am very malas (haha my famous urat malas y'all) and want to close one eye over the whole hullabaloo but after much thought, I think Saliheen and I deserve some kind of clarity and explanation as to why the quote and rental details that were given to us are different from what some of my fellow BTBs have received. 

Plus, it is only fair to our decorators who might have to bend a little and make some sacrifices (You have no idea how even more grateful we are now for taking Kasai Sayang. Wouldn't know how other decorators might've acted if put in the same position. So sorry you have to be involved in this, guys!) and also only fair to my readers who might have known the venue through this blog.

Oh well. Looks like it's true what people say - bila makin dekat, start ah the cubaan and dugaan! Saliheen even said that our preparations has been too smooth so it's about time we have some drama hahaha takde maksud and takde maknyanye eh! But betul lah, just when I as thinking "Eh, dah makin dekat ni, tapi takde pulak eh cubaan and dugaan macam what our friends told us to expect....." hahahahaha lagi boleh pikir gitu eh, hah kau, ambik kau, satu cubaan dah datang ni. Must've thought too soon, otak masin ah!

I'm really glad I'm going through this with Saliheen though, because even though we're pretty disappointed with the turn of events, he is dealing with this as calmly and wisely as he can. Plus we're both terribly positive people so we always try to see the positive side of things - in this case, it's been a slew of "at least we're dealing with this five months before the wedding instead of five weeks before", "at least we still have our back-up plan", "at least we still have a venue for our wedding" etc. 

Saliheen also pointed out something else when we were in the car after our discussion with our venue liasion person last Wednesday - our mutual close friend recently had to putus tunang because his tunang cheated on him (with a guy who is less capable than he is), lost the flat that they've applied for and has to pay a large sum of money to HDB because of that (his ex-tunang has no means to share the load and has refused to contribute) and to top all that off, he recently got into a road traffic accident that left his bike wrecked. But despite all the setbacks that he has received in the past few months, he still tells us that he has faith in takdir and God and we can see dengan kepala mata kita sendiri that he has changed into someone even better than he was previously, and has the tenacity and strength to go through life as happily as he can.

As for us, we still have each other, we still have our future to look forward to, we still have our venue albeit having issues with it so why shouldn't we have faith in God too?

It was a simple point but it made sense and I don't think I can agree enough. 

You know, I have my long list of reasons for being certain that Saliheen is my jodoh and the one I want to spend the rest of my life with, but this incident has made me even more convinced as to why I am marrying Saliheen and why he is the one I want as my life partner. Thank you for being a terribly wonderful husband-to-be, B.

Now let's go get 'em, B.