When has Chinese weddings become a “for profit” event?
This is going to be a long one so bear with me.
So me and my husband recently ROM-ed and we are planning to have a wedding banquet next year. As we have no experience in this (lmao), we began seeking advice from married couples on how to go about it.
I was quite surprised that many advice we received are not so much about wedding planning but more about how to cover the cost of the wedding. Examples include – 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
Some of my friends are even quite proud saying that they made money from the wedding last time etc. When i heard it i was quite shock? “Made money”?? girl this is not a business? yeah and not just from one person. 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?
I mean i understand that wedding is an expensive affair.. so i dont know?? do it within your means? for me and my husband we have agreed to keep it a small one >100pax and only spend what we can afford, having the mindset that even if NO ONE give us an angbao, we are okay to part with this amount of money.
the expectations of the guests that i am inviting to my wedding was quite an eye-opener as well. so chinese customs we have like bridesmaid/groomsmen to do the gatecrash thing in the morning so i was telling my girlfriend that i was going to skip that (gatecrash/bridesmaid/groomsmen) cos i just want to do a simple one and her response was “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. Oh well.
The second one was I was asking my friend to be the MC and I was just wondering out loud like why is it always 2 MCs and cannot be just 1 and his response was is it because I want to save money on angbao??? Girl –
The third one was when I was inviting my group of friends and one of them asked “oh how much is one table so we can give the ang bao accordingly”. I mean is that the first thing that comes to people’s minds when it comes to weddings?
I was quite sickened by all these responses I get… it all seemed very money-centric. So now I am quite paranoid when I am inviting people to my wedding, I am afraid people think that I just want their angbaos…
So my question is – when did Chinese weddings become such a shit show? Shouldn’t weddings be about love and fun and good food (like Malay weddings?) Why has it become a P & L?