A woman planning to have a wedding banquet next year was shocked after all the advice she got from couples who just got married was centred around money.
On r/askSingapore, Tuesday (Dec 20), Reddit user neonpatronus asked, “When did Chinese weddings become such a s**t show? Shouldn’t weddings be about love and fun and good food (like Malay weddings?) Why has it become a P & L (profit and loss statement)?”
The advice many gave her revolved around covering the costs of the wedding, as opposed to wedding planning itself. Here are some examples:
“1. Make your wedding as big an affair as possible and invite everyone you know including acquaintances etc. so you can make back the money you spent on the wedding.
2. Invite your business associates (clients/bosses etc.) cos their ang bao confirm bao big big one then can cover your wedding.”
She added that she was shocked to hear about some friends who were proud of making money from their weddings.
“Girl this is not a business?… many people use lingos such as ‘just nice break even’, ‘wa i lost $xxx from my wedding’. like you all do balance sheet/p&l for your wedding ah?”
She wrote that she and her husband have agreed to have a small wedding of fewer than 100 people and that they’ll stick to their budget, “having the mindset that even if NO ONE give us an angbao, we are okay to part with this amount of money.”
Even the custom of gatecrashing surprised her because when she said she was skipping it, a girlfriend told her, “oh is it cos then you don’t want to give angbaos to them?” i was like ?!!!? what …. no… i just dont want to trouble people to wake up at crack ass of dawn but my good intentions were met with such scrutiny.”
She added that she is now “quite paranoid when I am inviting people to my wedding, I am afraid people think that I just want their angbaos…”
A netizen commenting on the post wrote, “Just do it the way you want to. Nobody else will remember your wedding except the two of you.”
“You do your own wedding. It’s your wedding after all,” agreed another.
“When we got married, my husband insisted on saying on our invitation to not feel obligated to give a red packet, like a ‘paying it forward’ kinda thing,” wrote another.
One Reddit user wrote, “it should not be the norm to expect guests to ‘cover’ the cost.”
Another discussed the real intent of ang baos.
“Rising costs have led people to capitalise on angbaos as a profit-or-loss affair. The original meaning of angbao has become lost to many,” observed one Reddit user.
Another commented on Malay weddings.
/TISG
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