Cost of a Wedding

[hoclara]

Hi people,

Like to find out, in today's trend, how much should a chinese couple save for their wedding?
This is assuming that there is around 30 tables fopr dinners?

What else is required for the wedding?

[milooi]

Depends where you are holding the wedding dinner and also the dishes you want. If its a normal restaurant, it might be around $500-600 per table. If its at a Hotel, depends on which hotel, normally from $750 onwards per table. You may need to get brothers, sisters and helpers for the wedding day. Ang baos may be around 1K or even more, this depends how much you gonna allocate per ang bao. Photographer and videographer for the dinner will cost a few hundred.

Oh, honeymoon, depends on where you are going

[ashmakton]

My girlfriend and I been thinking about how to go about saving.

These are our problems

1)Girlfriend going to further her studies part time so she can't chip into saving for 2 yrs.
2)My house is 3 Room flat. Currently there are 5 people living under 1 root. I can't imagine where to find the space for my girlfriend if we were to live with my family. What I intend to do is to find a 4 Room flat after ROM so my entire family can stay together
3)I am a fresh graduate so I will be finding job soon. I was thinking I will get 2.5k for salary. Take home would be around 2k. Once, I step into the working world, I would become the sole breadwinner of the family. Saving up for wedding would become a problem even though we intend to hold our wedding dinner in 4 years time.
4)Even with my girlfriend's pay, our gross pay is probably only around 4k and she is like also the sole breadwinner in her family.
5)We got tons of relatives and friends. To make trouble worse, my mother's family is all in malaysia. I don't know what to do with this group of people.
6)I tried to discuss with my parents to see what can be done. To them, it is such a easy thing. They do not realised that things are different from their times and cost of living increase ten-folds.

What I can do to save enough. Anyone got any recommendations?

[fwong93]

Personally think that nowadays marriage is not only the guys pay for the wedding unless the guy is so rich that he can pay for everything without debt.

When you know you want to hold a wedding in 2years time, then you will need to start saving up HARD throughout and not thinking just a few hundreds/ going on a trip will not make much difference to the savings. If possible, both save and dont use the savings unless it's for emergency. coz if both don't earn a lot of money, maybe both add up to 5-6K gross and in debt of 20K, its a lot to pay. Possible is to save around 20-30% of your take home pay.

The wedding will go according to budget. Communication is very important when planning all these. You will have to strike a balance between maintaining the budget and have a not bad wedding for your wife. So maybe the guy can tell the wife that some of the things are really not necessary, will have to be out.

If don't have enough money for reno, if possible to stay at parents' place after marriage, can try to stay for like 2yrs or so, within these 2 years can start saving up again for the reno. If can't stay at parents' place, then have to find ways to pay for the reno, maybe can get a reno loan. Staying with in-laws for the ladies is not that easy too that's why there are so many stories. But have the positive mindset, things will be better

Stayed with my in-law for almost 3 years before moving to own flat. Still no problem with in-law. Need to be more 'automatic' in the house. Like helping out washing the dishes, cleaning the hse. Do things the way she does in the house as it is her house, have to show respect. By doing these little things, nothing bad should happen

[routristan]

u are a grad and u expect ur pay to be 2.5k. that is very good. others who come out working wont even dare to dream about earning so much now.

i am a poor chap. And i now saving 200 more every month. I am beginning to worry more and more. I hv heard alot of stories; man borrow from bank, swipe CC, just to get married. after marriage, all the problems surface. then everybody not happy, blaming one another.

That impt thing is to live within your means, but i know my gf and myself will need a place of our own. Living with the in-laws is not difficult, but somehow, i feel that there is a lack of freedom there

[vincehu564]

For ppl who want to save for their wedding, I can suggest what I have done for mine.

List down all the items that is 100% needed to pay per month. For myself:
- dad
- mum
- in-law (a small amount as I was living there after the wedding so water, electricity, food all these are money)
- insurance policies
- HP bill
- transport
- 400bucks for the month's food, shopping and whatever I want to buy for myself.

Take home minus all the above will be the amount i save per month.

[myong406]

For typical Hotel, Beer is complimentary and comes in 20L or 30L depending on what package you sign. Some give free flow beer though. Some give you complimentary 1 or 1/2 carton of house pour red wine.
Red wine wise must be duty free. You can simply color the sticker with a black marker and they will close one eye. There will be a ****age charge for duty free liquor or wine.
Champagne for Yum Seng, ****tail, decoration design, red carpet and stage is part of the package. Video Projection depends. Prices have to include service charge and gst.

If the bride's parents get 10 table from you, they are entitled to the ang baos of the ten tables. This is provided that they did not get alot of "Ping Zing" from you. Try to invite friends, neighbours and colleagues rather than relatives. The former are more generous as face matters.