sihui.k: Church

I've always wanted to get married in a beautiful church with wooden pews with beautiful stained glass windows. I tried researching online but can't seem to find much information. It's like finding a needle in a haystack. Most churches do not allow non-members to use their sanctuaries. While some churches requirement is that one couple has to be their member.

From my previous post, you can see that I've chosen my venue to be at my own church. Actually, during that time which is a few months ago, I haven't really decided if I would like to use my own church building for my holy matrimony. That's why I went to research on other options. But now that we've decided to use the church building. I did not want all these super useful information that I have to be gone to waste. So I decided to do a blog post on it for the many bride-to-be(s) out there!

Anyway first and foremost, when I mean non-members, it means christians couples who have been baptised and are members of other christian churches. Now that I've got this cleared up, let's start.

Oh! And normally these churches only allow the wedding ceremony to be held on Saturdays and not Sundays because they normally have church services on Sundays.

I found 6 churches that I personally would approve because of the wooden pews. I love churches with wooden pews.

1) Kim Tian Christian Church

811 Upper Serangoon Rd, Singapore 534675

Capacity: Max. 370 pax

Cost: $2200 (for 4 hours) + $300 (compulsory audio technician)

Including basement hall for reception

Photos from Kim Tian Christian Church person-in-charge

2) Charis Methodist Church

91 Koon Seng Road, Singapore 427032

Capacity: Max. 400 pax

Sanctuary Cost: $600 for first three hours ($100 for additional hour)

Social Hall Price (for reception, max 120pax): $400 for first three hours ($30 for additional hour)

Open Plaza Price (for reception): $240 for the tent

Photo credit: Source

Photo credit: Source

Photo credit: Source

3) Queenstown Lutheran Church

709 Commonwealth Drive, Singapore 149601

Capacity: Max. 350 pax

Cost: $2950 (for 4 hours, including canopy for reception)

Tables and chairs for reception at canopy at own expense

Photo credit: Source

Photo credit: Source

4) Thomson Road Baptism Church

45 Thomson Road, Singapore 307584

Capacity: Max. 450 pax

Cost: $3000 (for 2.5 hours, including reception hall)

Photo credit: Source

Photo credit: Source

5) Holy Grace Presbyterian Church

408B Upper East Coast Rd, Singapore 466484

Capacity: Max. 350 pax

Cost: $2400 for weddings in year 2016 (Including reception hall)

Photo credit: Source

Photo credit: Source

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There's one more church that that allows non-members booking but I didn't email them because the location is at Tampines which is very inconvenient. But those who prefer the far East can take a look!

6) Living Hope Methodist Church

20 Tampines Street 33, Singapore 529259

Cost: $1980 (not sure what it includes, how long is the rental, or the seating capacity)

Do email them if you'll like to know more.

Photo credit: Source

Photo credit: Source

Actually there are more churches in the list that I've found but it seems like over the years, many churches are starting to not accept non-members bookings. I am not sure why. But one of the church's person-in-charge told me that it is because of the heavy usage of the church's ministries. Plus they also have to prioritise the use of the church building for their own member's wedding.

Hope this post was useful for those christian BTBs out there! :)

Sorry for the lack of updates. Today I finally have the time to sit down and do something else other than preparing for lessons. My holiday will end on 25th June and hopefully I can update more during the free time I have now.

During Mother's Day last month, my parents and grandma attended Daniel's parents' church for service. I was really happy that they came down. Every time my parents agree to my invitation to church I always imagine that my parents would respond to the altar call or would at least come to church more often.

When I was in primary school, my family and I used to attend church together. But as time passes, my siblings and I grow older, we don't attend church at all. We just did not see the need to. We believed in God but somehow, we just stopped going to church. It wasn't that we were not believers any more, it's just that we did not have time for God. In short, we did not make time for Him.

My dad was born into a Buddhist family and when he married my mom, he attended church because my mom, aunts and grandma attended. Same thing for my mom, she attended church because her sisters were all attending. And we would hang out and have lunch together as a family after service. I always knew that a part of us believed in God.

Many years passed and I graduated from poly and proceeded to teach in my current workplace. When I started this job, my friend invited me to CHC. So I attended CHC's anniversary celebration in 2011 but did not attend any more after that. But what made me come back to CHC was because of my student. I just got into teaching and I was struggling. I was thrown into a class because the class teachers were either on course or had resigned. I had no clue what I was doing and what I am supposed to do. In the end, I had to observe what other teachers were doing and imitate their teaching methods. The boys I had had behaviours and was difficult to manage. But I still managed to get through it day by day. During one unsuspecting day, when I was teaching my boys. One of them came up to me and started singing "Jesus loves me. This I know. For the Bible tells me so." I was shocked because it was so unexpected and I suddenly felt God's love surrounding me. A feeling that I have not felt in a long long time. So when my friend invited me back to CHC again, I did not decline and has been there since.

Not sure how my story of my salvation came out on this post but... oh well.

Anyway, since I came into CHC I've been praying for my parents' to come back to church. Any church. So, like I said I was really happy that my parents came for this Mother's Day service. I was exceptionally happy for my Dad. I don't know when this started but he has been reading the bible faithfully every day at 9.30pm. It just started one day and it has been like that for quite some time. This really touched me and I feel really bad because there are times when I am too tired to read or I just did not feel like reading. My parents took the first step to go to church again. Even if it was because Daniel's parents were the ones who invited them and they came out of politeness. I was still excited that they came. I will continue to pray for my parents and if you don't mind you can add this into your prayer list too. Thanks in advance.

So here are 2 photos that I took that day.

Uncle Desmond and Aunty Pat.

Dad, Mom and Grandma.

We also took a photo with both families in it but I haven't received it yet.

On that day, my grandma also extended an invite to Daniel's family to come over her house for a kebaya fitting as my grandma kept many beautiful kebayas left behind by my great-grandmother who used to have a shop selling kebayas.

So it happened two Sundays ago on 1st June.