Wedding Banquet Venue Recommendations

I will be getting married at the end of March, and am hoping to get some recommendations for reception venues in or around Taipei. We are not crazy about the thought of going to one of the wedding “factories”, but would prefer a restaraunt or hotel setting. Easy access for the guests is important, and a reasonable price would be a bonus. We are hoping to keep the reception at around 100 people. Any ideas or insight would be greatly appretiated.

The hotels are wedding factories, no? Anyway, the big hotels are likely to be priciest.

For budgetary concerns, you could to the banquet-sized restaurants in the basement of City Hall, and ask to see the menus and pricing for the weiya (year-end parties), which run $6 or $7k to $12k or so per table. Then tell them you want that lower pricing for a wedding (for which they normally charge at least $10k/table, partly due to providing some decoration, and partly IMO to gouge you). Politely insist that you’d like the lower pricing. After they agree to that, negotiate some of the decoration back into it.

I’ve seen someone do this at City Hall; it might even work elsewhere. The economy is bad, so if you’re booking in advance, and especially if you’re not picking a peak auspicious day, you may have some leverage.

I think this was covered in a previous thread.

But the place that I got married was ideal and not at all factory like. But March may be a bit cold for an open air do.

Can’t remember the address, but if you go past the National Palace Museum, and turn left at the abandoned theme park, towards Yamingshan. Go up the hill for about 1km and it’s on the left next to Japanese style hotel. Reasonable price and good food.

What Dragonbones said.

Also, at NT10,000 a table seating 10 your banquet will cost your (very) roughly about NT100,000. Just make sure you don’t invite too many stingy people and the red envelopes you’ll receive will not only pay for the banquet but also the honeymoon.

I’d recommend using one of the ‘big’ hotels. They are more expensive, but IMHO, more professional than some of the other smaller places.

From earlier threads on wedding hongbaos and my own experience, it seems most folks in Taiwan are prone to giving pretty much the same hongbao regardless of venue, or likely cost. That means that in Taiwan you’ll pull roughgly the same whether the venue is in a Zhong He wedding seafood slop shop, or a five star. This will have consequences on your honeymoon destination.

I know I’ll be cut down for this, but most foreigners rail at the sharksfin soup at weddings, but seeing as this is the only time I eat the stuff, I always quietly appreciate its presence.

HG

There are relevant threads here:
viewtopic.php?p=3846#p3846
viewtopic.php?p=796833#p796833

Thanks for the replies so far. Although I did a search of “banquet” and “wedding” in this section, I didn’t find those links Dragonbones, much appreciated. I was thinking that somewhere near Beitou or Danshui would be more accessible by MRT. Any thoughts?

Crosslinks to related discussions on forumosa.com

[color=#BF0000]Good Wedding[/color]
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=12479&start=0

[color=#BF0000]Looking for a nice wedding location in Taipei[/color]
viewtopic.php?f=64&t=66249&p=796833#p796833

[quote=“Huang Guang Chen”]From earlier threads on wedding hongbaos and my own experience, it seems most folks in Taiwan are prone to giving pretty much the same hongbao regardless of venue, or likely cost. That means that in Taiwan you’ll pull roughgly the same whether the venue is in a Zhonghe wedding seafood slop shop, or a five star. This will have consequences on your honeymoon destination.

I know I’ll be cut down for this, but most foreigners rail at the sharksfin soup at weddings, but seeing as this is the only time I eat the stuff, I always quietly appreciate its presence.

HG[/quote]

It’s interesting you mention this and I’m not having a dig at you but it’s also pretty much the only time Taiwanese or Chinese etc. eat the stuff. The problem was that in olden times it was a very special dish, reserved for the rich, royalty or coastal communities. The amount of sharks consumed just from weddings alone is growing exponentially due to the trend of pretty much every wedding serving it in Taiwan, HK etc. and now disturbingly China. It must be millions X greater than that consumed even a 100 or 200 years ago. I don’t touch it at weddings and I did notice at the last wedding I went a Taiwanese professor and her staff did not eat atlhough I didn’t ask why. I don’t make a big deal of it either at weddings though as it is not ‘my’ wedding.

We held an engagement party (in exactly the same format as a wedding) at the Hotel Fullon which is located next to the elevated highway that runs along the side of Daan Park (on the west side of the highway, a few blocks north of the park.)

We had 200 people.

They did a beautiful job and the chef is a first-rate award winner. Try their lunch buffet to see what he can produce.