Chinese Wedding Banquet Menus & Costs?

I heard that chinese restaurants jack up the price for weddings. What’s normally $600/table will cost about $800 for a wedding. Did you have that experience?

I personally haven’t experienced it but I did hear from a few friends that they found some restaurants (sometimes the more high profile ones) do jack up the price on wedding banquets. I think the restaurants increase the prices so that when you negotiate with them, they can bring it down without cutting too much into the profit. So it is always a good idea to sit down with them to go over the menu and pricing after checking out several other restaurants. This way you can do a price comparison as well as use the information for bartering.

I’m having a hard time finding a restaurant that is available on the dates my venue and photographer are. Do you have an recommendations for other Chinese restaurants that are of the same quality as Kirin? I’ve heard not so good things about Shiang Garden and Sun Sui Wah seems a bit old already. I would appreciate any help! Thanks!

Hi firefly, thanks for dropping by. Do you know how many people you are expecting and when is your wedding date? I like Gingeri at Landsdown Mall. They can have up to 17 tables (~170 people) in their main dinning room. There is also a VIP room that can hold an extra 50 people but it’s a separate room so it’s not very useful for weddings (guests will be isolated pretty much).

I have a friend that is having his wedding at Shun Feng Seafood Restaurant at Parker Place (http://www.shunfengrestaurant.com/). He said the food was very good when he went for the menu tasting. It can hold up to 300 people.

As for myself, I’ll be having mine at the Victoria Chinese Restaurant in downtown (under the Hyatt Hotel). They had just recently renovated and all the chairs have chair covers which look pretty fancy. I was told they can have up to 300 people also. I’ve been there for dinner parties on several occasions and found that their food and service were excellent.

I hope this helps. I know all the restaurants I listed above are in a mall complex. The good thing is that aside from the quality of the food, there are plenty of parking spots. The down side is that there are almost no windows which means no natural lighting.

Hi Jan,

I found your website very helpful, thank you for sharing!

I just got engaged and I’ve been trying to call up some restaurants, but a lot of them are already fully booked. Finally, i found a place where they can accommodate us; however, there will be 2 other weddings going on concurrently also.

Do you have any experience with a few weddings happening on the same day at the same location? Eventhough there will be compartitions in between, I am still afraid that it will be very noisy and my guests will feel like attending other people’s wedding.

Cheers,
Domi

Oh my Oh my…. Originally I’ve planned my wedding to be held at the UBC Boathouse… ceremony at 4pm then dinner and dance to follow… it’s a beautiful setting with huge ceiling to floor windows overlooking the Fraser River… BUT… sudden change in plan. Future in-laws decided they really really want a chinese style dinner… plated style.. which is impossible at the boathouse since the kitchen is so small, and there’s no available “good” chinese restaurants that cater. So… we have to push the cermony to the morning (since we already paid the deposit few months ago and it’s non-refundable)… and have another dinner thing at a Chinese place.

Really need some help!!! We still want nice romantic decorations and dance floor… but we need Chinese style plated service… the only place that I can think of is the Radisson Hotel in Richmond since they work closely with Red Star Restaurant next door. However, it’s minimum 250 people… and we’re only anticipating about 150…

HELP HELP… any suggestions?

Hi Domi,

I’ve never been to a restaurant when they have two weddings happening at the same time but I can imagine it’d be pretty noisy. I did went to dinner at a restaurant when someone was hosting their banquet and even with partitions, it was still very loud.

Hi Brenda,

By Chinese style plated service, do you mean that they’ll just plate the food for you but still have the 12 course meal? Most banquet I went to the servers usually ask the table if they would like their food split up for them (ie. instead of putting the big plate on the table, they’ll divide the food up in to individual portions and serve them to the guests). If this is what you meant then I believe most restaurants can do it, which will give you a wider range of restaurant choices.

Plated style… my future in-laws want people to serve them… like waiters… so they don’t like buffet style. Any suggestions for a venue that doesn’t look too old-school… can have a dance floor.. and can be decorated or modified into a more romantic atmosphere?

headache.. headache…

Can step-parents sit at the head table at a chinese wedding reception? I’ve searched & searched and can’t find anything to say that they can or can’t — thanks for your answer!!

Hi Mom (ok that sounded a bit strange),

I’ve tried looking it up online and asked my parents about this but no one seems to have the “right” answer. Some had suggested to that to avoid this situation, have all the parents sit in a different table instead of sitting at the head table.

In my opinion it’s really up to the bride and groom to discuss this with their parents. If no one objects, I don’t see why step-parents can’t sit at the head table.

Hi Jan,

Your site is very helpful~ I am planning to have my wedding around Oct 2009, and I am having a hard time to find a good chinese restaurant for around 8 tables..any suggestions? (have my own little private section?)

Thanks

Hi Netsu,

Most restaurants have partitions that can let you have a private section. I didn’t do an extensive research on Chinese restaurants since I already had a few in mind when I was planning the banquet. Maybe you can pick a location first then look at the restaurants in the area?