the original
“LOVE don’t cost a thing,” Jennifer Lopez once famously sang.
What she neglected to mention, however, is that weddings certainly do.
Over the last few years, I’ve watched friends my age get married and marvelled at how they pulled out all the stops, from custom-made animated videos to sunset yacht parties.
Now that it’s my turn next year, I’m marvelling instead at how they managed to pull all that off on a combined income that still qualified them to buy a new HDB flat.
My own wedding will be as fuss-free as it gets: just the traditional hotel dinner and a simple solemnisation on the same day. Still, it will probably cost as much as my entire salary last year.
It’s not difficult to see why youths these days are taking longer to walk down the aisle. Many unmarried friends say they just don’t have enough saved up.
Part of the reason is that with today’s inflation, even a small wedding can be a costly event. Every time a bride-to-be hears wedding bells, the bridal industry hears the ka-ching of their cash registers.
According to my unscientific but extensive research, the average cost of a weekend hotel banquet has gone up 5 to 10 per cent between this year and next, crossing the $1,000 per table mark just in time for my wedding dinner.
This usually doesn’t include wine, now a wedding staple, which will set you back another $1,000 or so. Expect to fork out at least $3,000 for photographers and videographers to document the special day.
Then there’s the dress. Bridal gown packages from the one-stop shops in the heartlands now cost upwards of $2,500; I haven’t even dared to ask about the designer creations I drool over in the bridal magazines.
Wedding rings – wedding rings! those little bands on your fingers! – don’t come under $1,200 a pair. My fiance and I have taken to walking into jewellery shops and demanding to see their cheapest choices. Needless to say, we don’t get very good service.
But the main reason why people pay so much for their weddings is simply because they want it all.
Yes, parents are often blamed for the “mandatory” wedding banquets, but today’s young couples are the ones who order the personalised videos, devise unique themes, and plan three dramatic entrances with three different outfits.
Problem is, most of their friends are also new entrants into the workforce, which means their well-meant dinner hongbaos probably cover only the cost of the appetisers.
Despite the exorbitant mark-ups on wedding purchases, most couples shrug off the cost, saying the once-in-a-lifetime event is worth every cent to celebrate their love.
One friend even toyed with the idea of having her bridal photos shot overseas for a extra-special touch. The cost: $15,000.
But my question is: if you have true love, do you really need the big wedding?
After all, you could get married for as little as $26 – the fee that the Registry of Marriages charges for a marriage license.
Ironically, young starry-eyed couples just starting their careers are those who want the splashiest weddings. I know of a couple in their late 30s who did away with the pomp and had a simple church service and dinner, happy enough to have found love when they least expected it.
Ms Lopez’s own wedding, to singer Marc Anthony in 2004, was a low-key affair that cost US$50,000 – probably an amount the famous couple, both well-acquainted with failed marriages, considered modest.
As for myself, I’m lucky enough to have a partner who constantly reminds me that it’s the marriage, not the wedding, that really matters. And I’m happy to say that the cost of love – while not exactly nothing – is much less than I would have thought possible.
* * * * * *It's 3pm on Monday. At last count this column has earned me seven positive emails, and my property story on Saturday has garnered two negative ones (one reader thinks I'm too bullish, another thinks I'm too bearish). Maybe I should switch beats. Hey! Maybe I have.
posted by zyn ::
3:06 PM ::
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