Wedding Goldmine

Having been away from my hometown for four years, I have no idea how much money I should give for a good friend of mine who is getting married there.

In the most expensive Chinese city, Shanghai, if a colleague invites you to their wedding, the hongbao, or red envelope full of gift money, should be RMB 300-500 (USD 40-70). If it’s a good friend who is getting married, it should be at least RMB 600 Yuan (USD 85). When it comes to a very close friend, then it’s up to the individual’s discretion.

While I was trying to figure out the appropriate hongbao amount for my hometown based on such factors as my friends’ salaries and the cost of living back home, my mother said, “Just pay according to the Shanghai market! If you give her a fat hongbao, she will pay you back at least the same amount when you get married…unless you don’t get married!”

My mother’s words sound too practical for an occasion that is supposed to be full of joy and love. However, I have to say that Chinese weddings, increasingly held in restaurants or hotel banquet halls with at least 100 people sitting around 10 tables waiting impatiently for the dishes they have “paid” for, are not that romantic any more. It is a business, and it’s a good way of making money. Suppose a banquet table seating 10 guests costs RMB 2,500 (USD 360), and each guest at the table gives a hongbao of RMB 300 (USD 40). The wedding couple can make at least RMB 500 (USD 70) from each table. If they book a cheaper banquet, or get a cheaper wedding service company, their profit will be even more. Some couples even send invitations to everyone they know in order to get more hongbao: several friends of mine who work for large companies with a staff of several hundred people complain that they receive wedding invitations from co-workers they barely know – people they only occasionally come across in the corridor, and whose names they hardly remember.

While couples make money the traditional hongbao, banquet halls and wedding companies are making money through newer means: due to the high demand for wedding banquets in 2008, it’s difficult to book any table even if the couple started as early as last year. This, of course, is driving up prices. And if a couple wants to book their banquet on the weekend, on a holiday, or on a lucky date such as “May 18, 2008,” they must pay even more.

This whole business of getting married seems quite lucrative: it’s reported that a wedding banquet scalper from Shenyang made over RMB 10,000 (USD 1,430) from just three wedding banquets he arranged in March, and another in Hangzhou is making RMB 200/table for a banquet he arranged in August at the Hyatt hotel. Meanwhile, the CPI keeps rising, and the cost of banquet weddings has increased by RMB 300-600 per table nationwide.

So for those who plan to get married in 2009 – better act fast!

Claire Li