Our vegetarian wedding

2013 will be a busy year for us, with the new home and wedding happening within a span of months.

We are more excited about our home than the wedding.

Planning for the wedding (I cringe to say *my* wedding) makes me feel self-indulgent. I don’t think I would regret it if we did away with a wedding, and jumped straight to married life in our new home 😛 But Derek wants it. I think.

To minimise the carbon footprint of this event, we’ve decided to hold a vegetarian wedding party.

Derek does not fancy Chinese vegetarian food, so we are going for western.

Our number 1 preference is Flutes at the Fort, which is able to do vegetarian weddings. Its website rightly calls it a hidden treasure: I love that the restaurant is housed in an old colonial house that used to be firemen’s quarters, tucked away in lush foliage behind the Civil Defense Museum. It is a ten-minute walk away from City Hall MRT, which is incredibly convenient as far as colonial-housed restaurants go (Think Dempsey Hill, Rochester, Bukit Timah). We also went there for dinner on my birthday, and loved the food, ambience, and service. Unfortunately, they are making plans to renovate and can only accept bookings from July onwards, which is just too late and too bad for us. One thing though – they only provide plated service, which does not go down well with our parents. They have the perception that western plated meals are small in serving, unable to satisfy guests, and hence, not “presentable”. I think we need to treat them to a meal there before they can change their minds.

Second choice: The Halia

This restaurant is very interesting. When I first enquired a few months ago, their event coordinator said they do not do vegetarian weddings, as “Halia is a modern European fine dining restaurant (sic)“. It was a most peculiar reason, as I never knew vegetarianism and European fine dining were mutually exclusive. She also asked “Vegetarian meaning no meat, no seafood?” to which I rolled my eyes and said: “Seafood is meat what!” I am surprised that the staff from a reputable restaurant like Halia did not know what vegetarian food meant… From our conversation, I get the feeling that she might have equated the word “vegetarian” with 斋米粉. After spotting a vegetarian menu on their website, I felt compelled to get to the bottom of this. So I messaged them on Facebook, hoping to get a second opinion from the FB admin who should be their marcomms person. A few days later, the same event coordinator called me, and apologised for the “miscommunication”. It turned out that they can host vegetarian weddings; what a surprise. I am now awaiting their vegetarian buffet menu. They have two locations: Botanic Gardens and Raffles Hotel. I am inclined to go with Raffles Hotel because of its convenient location. I have heard of people getting lost inside Botanic Gardens.

Third choice: Artichoke Cafe

Which is an accidental google find. So convenient, at Middle Road! I pass by Sculpture Square all the time, but I’ve never noticed its existence. From the online pics, it looks casual, relaxed and unpretentious*eyes hover upwards*. I like that. But I am still waiting for them to reply my email.

Fourth choice: Riders Cafe

Colonial housed restaurant in inaccessible Bukit Timah. Email bounced as their mailbox is full.