The Ang Pau Giving Guide

I wish someone shared this with me before I got hitched so I can ‘educate’ some uninitiated guests on the ang pau giving protocol. While it’s a bit too late for me and rif, it’s still not too late for those who are getting married to take note of this.

To the Chinese, ang pau symbolizes prosperity they are given during weddings as a good blessing to the couple. Of course, the content of the red packet matters – it helps the newly-weds offset their wedding dinner cost. I’m not saying you have to fork out and arm and a leg for the ang pau, but at least be reasonable when giving them.

Please don’t attend a wedding dinner at a 5-star hotel with a family of 10 and give a RM500 ang pau or worse, come empty handed. That’s just ridiculous. For those of you who don’t know how much wedding dinners cost these days, here’s a rough guide*:

Based on my experience in calling at least 20 hotels and 5 Chinese restaurants for my wedding dinner last year (November 2011), here’s my rough estimate of how much a wedding dinner cost per pax (factor-in an increase of 5-10% for year 2012).

Other factors that can affect the above:

• If the wedding is on Mon-Thurs: Give 90 – 95% of the weekend rate.
• If your sibling or best friend is getting married: Add 50%.
• If your ex or frenemy is getting married: Deduct 50%. *If it were my ex, I wouldn’t give an ang pau.
• If the wedding couple gave you a lousy sum when you got married: It’s payback time!
• If you obviously got a last-minute, fill-seat invite: Deduct 30%.
• If you RSVP-ed but can’t make it at the last minute: You still need to give an ang pau; at least 50% of the amount. It’s not nice to have empty seats on the couple’s big day.
• If you are a thrifty guest but want ‘face’: Call the hotel beforehand and ask for the rates.

*Note that this also depends on your budget. Give what you can afford and I'm sure the bride and groom are more than happy that you're there for their big day.

So now that you know how much weddings cost these days, do give accordingly when you attend future weddings. For those who are getting married, send a gentle reminder to your guests don't expect the ang pau to cover the cost of your dinner. That way, you can spare yourself the teeth-gritting later on.

Hope this helps!

First Chinese New Year as newly-weds

This is my first Chinese New Year as a newly-wed. As per Chinese customs, Wei Jien and I are supposed to give double the ang pow during the first year of marriage. That put a strain on our wallets, as we have yet to earn back the money spent on our wedding. That aside, it’s been a good two months since we got hitched.

Things have been pretty good, so far. Took us some time to adjust living together and working out our “me time”. We’re putting our honeymoon on hold, because Wei Jien wants to go for a long vacation some place far. That’s going to require quite a bit of money, so unless I start washing cars in my bee-kee-nee, we have to save from scratch.

Anyway, our reunion dinner was simple but I enjoyed it. Mum in law cooked all the dishes – we had yee sang, double boiled soup with abalone, pacific clams and mushroom, chicken pongteh, sambal udang, pork with buah keluak, ju hu char and steamed fish. Most of them were Nyonya dishes; a big change from the usual Foochow dishes I was accustomed to. But all very tasty.

Gong Xi Fa Cai everyone! 

Hope the year of the dragon is treating you all good so far.:)

Wei Jien + Sue Lynn's Wedding Highlights

Our wedding videographer Nigel has a gift for choosing all the right songs for wedding videos. He selected all the three songs for our video and they were perfect for rif and I. It goes to show that he understands the subject matter, or in our case, the people he was filming very well. I love the outcome of our wedding highlights. Important details were captured and special moments were documented candid-style.

Kudos to Ren, who was filming on rif’s side when he was getting ready to pick me up. Love the shot of rif putting on his shirt and the close-up shot of his ring when he was wearing his shoes. By the way, my wedding shoes were 5 inches high and while I love them to bits, they were a torture to wear. My dinner heels were 6 inches high, because

I'm short
rif is so tall! Nigel’s storyboard on the wedding highlight is slightly different from what I expected, but I like it that way. He never fails to surprise me with his creativity. Thank you Nigel Sia and team, for being so wonderful to work with. rif and I can’t wait for full edit of the actual day.

Wei Jien + Sue Lynn // Wedding Highlights (2011) from Nigel Sia on Vimeo.

For all you future brides, email (hello@nigelsia.com) or call (016-384 4617) Nigel quickly if you want him to film your big day. This guy is a busy busy bee!

Check out Nigel's other videos here.

FEATURE: Our Wedding in KL Lifestyle

A bit of self pimping:
Go check out our wedding feature in KL Lifestyle, January 2012 issue! :)