Water Nymph Resort

Water Nymph Resort is an event venue just a stone's throw away from the Marikina Convention Center, and accessible through the main roads of Marikina.

It is a 2,000 sq m venue with open space of 650 sq m that can accomodate up to 600 guests. Water Nymph is beautifully architectured and landscaped with water falls, greeneries and swimming pools to provide a feeling of tranquility for its guests.

Its fully airconditioned ballroom can easily accommodate 200 to 250 guests, while its open air-pavilion can accommodate another 350 to 300 guests. It has a surround sound system with subwoofers and amplifiers, par 64 spotlight with dimmers. The ballroom can be rented for P30,000 for four hours, with small incremental per hour charge for excess hours.

Accredited caterers can provide packages from P280 to P460 head, inclusive of basic amenities.

Accredited photo/video providers offer packages from P15,000 to P25,000.
See the Water Nymph Web site

Ballroom Pictures

Ballroom

Stage











Pavilion Pictures

Covered portion of pavilion

Open Pavilion

Catering Options

Planning for the Marist School Graduation ball involves a lot of thinking over options and details.

For non-hotel venues such as Glass Garden, Water Nymph, or Marikina Convention Center, we have the option to contract caterers to provide food. While providing food piecemeal might seem to be cheaper, contracting caterers usually guarantee a more pleasant dining experience to the ball attendees.

Reputable caterers normally take care of a lot of things, such as venue decorations, skirted tables and covered chairs. They provide clean and uniformed waiters and food servers, trained to provide excellent service.

They provide all the dining related incidentals such as utensils, drinking glasses, serving paraphernalia, ice for the drinks and purified water.

A less organized/improvised effort (e.g. pot luck ) to provide food will mean a lot of volunteer work and lots of expenses in venue preparation (chairs, tables, utensils, decorations etc). Getting professional caterers will normally be more cost-effective ( and less nerve wracking ) to the organizers.

Most caterers offer a wide variety of banquet and buffet possibilities, ranging from P250 per hear to P1,000 per head. For the graduation ball, we do not really want anything very heavy since we expect the attendees to go enjoy the full length of the event, from 6pm to midnight.

What we'd probably want are

• some heavy carbs ( pasta? rice? pancit ) plus some meat/fish/vegetables for the main course


• lots of finger food available all night (french fries? spring rolls? small sandwiches ) as mini snacks


• unlimited drinks ( iced tea, softdrinks, juices ) all night


• dessert ( ice cream, light cakes, puto )

We could probably get good deals from among the best (not necessarily expensive) caterers in town. Some good options are:

• Josiah's Catering - The Philippine's most innovative and trendsetting caterer


• Manila Catering Services
  - multi-awarded as the Most Outstanding Catering Services Company by the Consumer's League of the Philippines.


• Avengoza Catering Services - adept in Oriental and Continental cuisine and is well known to its clients as a symbol of elegant and fine dining

There are also venue-specific accredited list of caterers, so we will know other choices once we have selected the venue. If we decided to choose a caterer not accredited with the venue, the venue owner will normally require a "corkage" ranging from P6,000 to P30,000.

Depending on how many will attend, and how much funds will be available, we think we can get very good menu selections in the range of P300 to P600 per head.

The Glass Garden



The Glass Garden Special Events Venue is one of the candidate venues for the Marist 2011 Graduation Ball if projected attendance will exceed 300 people. It has two adjacent garden venues, each able to accomodate up to 400 guests, hence the combined area can probably fit 800.

It is a beautiful venue for medium to large events such as wedding receptions, debuts, birthdays and graduation balls. The garden venues are fully air-conditioned and covered in green and frosted white glass.

The Glass Garden is only a short drive from SM City Marikina and Santolan LRT 2 Station.

It was the venue for Kim Chiu's debut a few years ago.
Features

• FULLY AIR-CONDITIONED


• Capacity 100 – 800 ( two gardens )


• All-weather "Rain or Shine," landscaped and soundproof venues


• Use of suite room (during the event proper only) w/balcony and bridge for entrance


• Elegant bridge for grand entrance


• Over 160 parking slots with public address system


• High quality basic sound system


• Complimentary use of basic drapes/ swags


• Handicap-friendly facilities


• Standby generator 312 KVA


• Air-conditioned restrooms


• Danceable flooring


• FREE use for pre-nuptial/ pre-event pictorial


• FREE use of stage: 6 panels


• FREE standard ceiling drapes

Its Multiply web site has lots of pictures.

Accredited Caterers

• Auffrance (Tel) 438.7486, 497.5185, 497.5190 Contact Persons: Jess, Perla
• Bizu (Tel)812.6451, 812.6027 loc 102 Contact Persons: Audrey, Ara
• Jennyrei’s (Tel)381.4214, 433.4504, 09228323323 Contact Person: Jenny
• Josiah’s Catering (Tel)997.0991, 934.9252, 934.5134 Contact Person: Mherlyn
• Juan Carlo Catering (Tel)929.3674, 453.0071 Contact Person: Al
• K by Cunanan Catering (Tel)711.0940, 711.0952 Contact Persons: Meg, Rochelle
• Le Souffle (Tel)750.5810, 894.7461 Contact Person: Eunice, Cristina
• Lina Vitan Catering (Tel)922.9975, 415.3110, 928.7025 Contact Person: Ryan
• Manila Catering (Tel)376.6209, 376.6357, 415.8777 Contact Person: Jess
• Mandarin Oriental Manila (Tel)857.4768, 750.8888 Contact Person:Cyndy

Sample Themes



Masquarade Ball Theme


Hollywood Theme



Emerald Garden


Diamond Garden

Award Nights at the Emerald Garden

Candidate Venues

We scouted several venues in Marikina, Quezon City, Pasig and Makati. Our candidate venues include

Non-Hotel Venues

• Water Nymph Resort near Marikina Convention Center
• Marikina Convention Center
• UP Bahay ng Alumni inside UP Diliman Campus
• Marist School Gym inside Marist School Campus
• Glass Garden near Santolan MRT Station

Hotel Venues

• Eastwood Richmonde Hotel in Eastwood City
• The Manila Peninsula Hotel along Ayala Avenue
• Crowne Plaza at Robinsons Galleria

The best options seem to be the Eastwood Richmonde Hotel and the Glass Garden.
Non-Hotel Venues
Non-hotel venues provide us better flexibility since they allow us to choose from among their accredited caterers. See catering options

When considering non-hotel venues, we look at venue facilities and ask

• is it air-conditioned?
• is it big enough?
• are the toilets clean?
• is it accessible?
• does it include sound/lighting systems?
• does it have a standby generator?
• does it have sufficient parking?
• is there a dance floor?
• etc, etc

Hotel Venues
Hotel venues are normally more expensive, and offer less food choices. Hotels will require minimum revenues depending on the size, location of the venue within the hotel.

Hotels will normally not allow outside caterers to provide the food and drinks. Most food packages will have only one free drink, which is insufficient for a long affair such as our planned graduation ball from 6pm to midnight.

Additional drinks are normally P150 to P250 per, a bit prohibitive to most students.

Hotel published rates are normally VAT exclusive, hence most hotel proposals have fine print stating rates are exclusive of VAT and subject to 10 to 20% service charge. Hence we should expect to pay 22 to 32% more than quoted.

Marist School High School Ball 2011

New!

• The Venue
• Buffet Choices
  
• Cake Raffle
  
• Reserve your tickets now!
• Survey Results
• Eastwood Richmonde
• Crowne Plaza
• Glass Garden

One of the traditions for high school graduating classes is to have a graduation ball. It is their last party in a special venue, to celebrate the joys and victories of studying in Marist School for ten years, to bid acquaintances good bye, to wish each other good luck as they welcome new beginnings in college life and to commit to stay in touch with friends. Graduation ball is their one night to remember Marist School and friends.

The Year 10 MSPTA representatives propose to help organize the Marist School Graduation Ball 2011, specifically the venue, physical arrangements and food for the event. To make the event memorable we would like to ensure that the environment be conducive to enjoyment, that the venue be comfortable, presentable and accessible with good sounds and lights and with sufficient food and drinks for a party atmosphere.

The program itself will be handled by the graduating class and their teachers.

For the event, we propose that the basic costs related to the event such as venue fees, sounds, lights, photo and food be paid by the attendees as ticket costs. We further propose minor fund raising events such as cake/cookie raffles during the school year to defray “luxury” expenses such as decoration, photo booths, additional food/appetizer stalls, event souvenirs.

The event will be from 6pm to midnight on the Friday/Saturday before or after Graduation Day. Many graduates are expected to attend, with optional partner/”date”. Highlights of the event will be dinner, program, dancing and lots of pictures.

This project will require funding of initial costs, such as deposits and reservation fees. All venues require 30 to 50% fee to reserve the venue for the desired date, and full payment months before the event. Most caterers similarly require 20% to 50% deposit for a reservation. For hotel venues, the food will be provided by the hotel and additional drinks will cost P150+ each. For non-hotel venues, we have the flexibility to choose food caterers with unlimited drinks.

This blog is our announcement board for news and chronicles of events and activities related to the proposed project.

We now start our search for candidate venues, caterers and service providers. We similarly start to do the math for the expenses, and selling the idea to the various stakeholders: the graduating class, the parents, the teachers, Marist School and other MSPTA members.