Dismantle the Singapore Chinese wedding industrial complex
The culture of being expected to give a cash gift that is equal to or more than how much your seat at the table for the wedding banquet would cost is awful.
Singapore doesn’t culture of a wedding gift registry – it’s basically cash gifts only.
The helpful charts indicating how much is expected based on the venue make it worse, and make it seem like something that shouldn’t be questioned. Oftentimes, an elaborate wedding dinner with hundreds of guests is something that the couple themselves may not want, but that their parents want, as a means to flex.
The amount you pay is not a “gift” – it’s expected. It makes every wedding seem very calculative and in my opinion, sucks all of the joy out of it. A gift should be a gift, not an unspoken expectation.
If people want to call me cheap, they’re welcome to.
There are much better uses of anyone’s money than propping up the grift that is the Singapore Chinese wedding industrial complex.
Here are what netizens think:
- It’s a stupid practice (not even tradition), so I am happy to not be invited to these kinds of weddings where I’m told or expected to pay an embarrassing “entry fee” to sit at a table and eat food I may not even like.
Weddings have been over-commercialised to the point where a large part of the stress is to recoup the losses. The essence of a wedding, which is a communal event where loved ones and friends gather to celebrate the union of two people and where guests enjoy the favors of the hosts is lost because of monetary expectations.
I would decline such weddings, especially if they aren’t by close friends, and more of us should, too.
If the bride and groom’s families want to host an extravagant wedding, then they should expect to fully bear the costs and not impose on or expect guests to foot the bill.
Your friends and families partaking in merriment and cheer for your union, as well as being on good terms with them, should be the priority. Not recouping “losses” because these shouldn’t be seen as a loss, but as an investment into strengthening familial and friendly ties with your communities instead.
- There’s always a choice. Don’t go for the wedding with whatever reason you can cook, but advisable to prepare another gift for the one who invited you, depending how close is the relationship and future meetings/opportunities. Be strategic if it’s colleague’s wedding. You can choose to be practical if you don’t mind the finger-pointing and badmouthing. Nothing’s wrong, just a choice of social behaviour.
- It’s true people shouldn’t expect guests to match up to the cost per seat but it speaks volumes of certain people who act blur don’t give at all or give like less than the minimal average. The fact that you will want to attend shows you appreciate this friend but if you think you don’t want to do the basic goodwill of a social/cultural norm for Chinese (like giving angbao for CNY), it’s better to show your true colours by telling the friend you can’t attend.