S'pore Marathon Caused So Much Traffic That Guests Couldn't Attend This Couple's Wedding
"I went down at 7:10pm and saw nobody at the cocktail area."
By May Vin Ang — 05 Dec 2019, 05:43 PM
On Saturday, 30 November, an unfortunate couple had their wedding disrupted by severe traffic congestion caused by the Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon (SCSM) held in the city
The groom, Lee Jian Ming, took to Facebook on yesterday, 4 December, to share the "mental trauma" the couple experienced over the weekend when guests failed to arrive at the wedding venue due to the major roadblocks caused by the marathon.
The couple were expecting about 350 guests to arrive at the Marina Mandarin Hotel for their wedding at 7pm.
However, when the time arrived, 80% to 90% of their guests had not.
"I went down at 7:10pm and saw nobody at the cocktail area," Lee told Mothership.
He lamented that his parents were stuck in traffic for three hours, and some of his relatives had to completely miss the wedding as the traffic "wasn't moving at all".
Lee was also exasperated that traffic marshals "had no idea what was going on".
According to him, they did not update the hotel with alternative routes and thus left wedding guests clueless when they called up the hotel for directions to circumvent the road closures.
His vendors and photographers also could not arrive in time to set-up before the wedding, reaching two hours later than the pre-arranged time.
In his post, Lee shared that his wife broke down in tears in disappointment over the what was supposed to be the biggest moment of their lives
"...she wasn't able to pull off everything she had planned for over 12 months," he wrote.
Lee explained to Mothership that his wife had taken an entire year to shortlist, contact, and engage various people for the event.
"She was inconsolable," Lee said.
"The sense of helplessness, in an event that took months to plan and readying for, only to be undone by something totally out of your control."
Lee blamed the organisers for their poor execution
He noted that the event had already received much flak for how badly it was planned.
However, he also wanted to highlight how the country's Land Transport Authority could approve the road closures on a night that was also holding a U2 concert, C3 Anime Festival Asia, and the Gardens by the Bay's Christmas Wonderland.
The organiser of the marathon, Ironman Asia, has since acknowledged that it "could have done better" with certain aspects in handling of the event
"This is our first year of holding it in the evening, and there were issues, but overall the feedback has been positive," the managing director Geoff Meyer told The Straits Times in an interview on Tuesday, 3 December.
Previous editions of the SCSM had started before dawn, but this year's event saw runners being flagged of at 6pm.
