'I went down at 7:10pm & saw nobody': S’pore couple’s wedding disrupted by Standard Chartered Marathon

Unfortunate.

Tanya Ong | December 04, 2019, 09:23 PM

The Standard Chartered Marathon 2019 took place in the evening this year.

And it caused quite a bit of a jam.

Unfortunately for one couple in Singapore who held their wedding in town, this congestion resulted in major disruptions to their wedding programme.

Guests, vendors late

In a Facebook post by Lee Jianming on Dec. 4, he shared how his wedding had been delayed on Saturday (Nov. 30).

Lee shared with Mothership that their wedding took place at Marina Mandarin, and they were expecting around 350 guests to arrive.

Their wedding was supposed to start at 7:00pm.

However, by that time, 80 to 90 per cent of guests had not arrived -- including the groom's parents, who were apparently stuck in traffic for three hours.

Guests had not turned up on time. Photo via Lee Jian Ming.

"I went down at 7:10pm and saw nobody at the cocktail area," Lee said.

Most unfortunately, some of their relatives also had to miss the wedding entirely as they were stuck in traffic and it "wasn't moving at all".

Wife broke down

In his post, he also shared that the stress from everything made his wife break down in tears "due to the disappointment that she wasn't able to pull off everything she planned".

Lee explained that his wife had taken an entire year to shortlist, contact and engage various vendors for the event, including videographers, photographers, as well as wedding stylists.

And in the end, most of the vendors were all terribly late, he said.

"She was inconsolable," Lee told Mothership, and shared that they felt a "sense of helplessness" towards the disruptions.

But for Lee, who works in the events industry, he said that, sometimes, "there is nothing you can do about the whole situation".

Kind vendors waived extra hours

Lee told us that dinner started only around 9:00pm, after most of their guests finally arrived.

And typically, he said that they have to start clearing out the banquet hall from 10:30pm onwards. However, due to the delays, their event ended only at about 11:45pm.

Their venue stylist, videographers and photographers were paid by the hour.

Thankfully, Lee told us that these vendors waived the extra hours they had to work so the couple did not have to pay extra for their services.

He also expressed relief that the event was over.

This is his original Facebook post:

Top photo courtesy of Lee Jian Ming