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?
