Wedding dinners in Singapore can sometimes be a mercenary affair. Even if you never spend more than $5 on meals and always make a beeline for the cai png (mixed rice) stall, if you’re a wedding guest, you’ll be giving money at weddings that can come up to a three-figure sum.
Don’t be fooled into thinking that ang baos are purely a gift from the heart. In Singapore, your ang bao symbolises your well-wishes as well as covers the cost of your seat at the banquet table.
Though the couple might not admit it, usually they will be praying that you do not make them “lose money” by giving less than it cost them to invite you.
The first thing you need to do is to calculate the cost of your seat. This varies depending on how swanky the wedding venue is — there’s usually a published rate per table for wedding banquets.
If you’re not close to the couple, it is considered socially acceptable for your ang bao to just cover the cost of your seat. But if you’re close to the couple, you are generally expected to cover the cost of your seat, and then some.
The ang bao rates largely depend on 1) the hotel or restaurant, 2) lunch or dinner and 3) Saturday or Sunday.
In general, Saturday night dinners are the most expensive. Lunch is usually cheaper than dinner, except for Chinese restaurants.
Before safe distancing measures kicked in at every F&B establishment to keep Covid-19 in check, each table at a hotel wedding event could seat 10 guests, and it would be common to divide the price by 10 to figure out how much the happy couple is paying for your presence. But with only five guests allowed per table these days, do you then divide by five instead?
The answer is really up to you. Every guest will still get the same serving of food and probably have a wait staff attending to your table exclusively, so the wedding cost for banquets is about the same before the pandemic. Perhaps you might just want to consider putting a bit more in the ang bao than the usual rate?
While an appropriate contribution will vary according to the cost of the venue and how “atas” your friends are, traditional Malay weddings tend to be a bit more relaxed. The meal is usually served in the form of a buffet with free seating, so you do not need to worry about having to cover the cost of your “seat”. Although, this might be changing for some modern families as well.
Generally, a contribution of $30 to $50 is the minimum. On the other end of the scale, the sky is the limit if you are close to the couple.
The answer is, it depends on the venue and where the reception is being held. The standard format is for the actual wedding to take place at a temple, and a reception to be held later on, typically at a hotel, function hall or restaurant.
You should generally budget for a contribution of at least $50 to $80 for receptions at temples and function halls.
If they’re held at high end hotels, you’ll have to give similar amounts to the rates quoted for wedding banquets above.
You should also add a $1 coin to your contribution, as offering a sum that ends in 1 is seen as auspicious.
Regardless of race, if the wedding is held at a church, there may or may not a follow-up lunch or dinner banquet at a hotel or restaurant. If there is no banquet, there will usually be some kind of reception on the church premises.
If the entire wedding takes place at the church, you can get away with contributing about $40 to $50.
Text: Joanne Poh/MoneySmart