Wedding Maths

Went to Kaikok's wedding yesterday... a simple but beri sweet wedding... can see the effort put into the event... he even made a flash telling the story of how the couple met & fell in love... it's not those type simple flash but with motion, facial expressions, music, everything de... beri pro... I heard he spent ONE WHOLE YEAR finishing it... plus they have video tribute to the parents as well... and another video made by their frenz showing their courting process (it's REAL-LIFE acting de, as in the frenz actually role-play KK & his wife)... wat a nice wedding gift...

Then can see they spent quite a big sum of money on the wedding photos & album... can tell from the num of photos & the quality... the food was quite good... lots of seafood (lobster, prawns, scallops, garoupa)... their door gift for the guests is a small saucer dish with the picture of a cartoon couple in traditonal chinese wedding costumes (beri cute)...

Seeing people get married... the topic for the nite between the guys of course revolved around marriage... some of them have upcoming wedding plans le... we were oso discussing the amount of money needed for marriage... unavoidable issue... buy flat, renovation, wedding package, honeymoon, everything adds up to a big lump sum...

Let's do some rough calculations here...

Starting off with a flat... beri impt... & one of the biggest expenses in a marriage... unless u stay with parents... take a four or five room flat for example, 10% downpayment (5% for civil servants)... after minus your cpf, u still nid to fork out around 5-10k cash (on average)... renovations w/o furniture around 20-50k (depends on your standard)... furniture we dun count 1st (up to individual)...

Wedding rings & wedding bands... have difference de ah... depends wat u buy (how big your diamond is, hahaha)... I give rough figure around 5-8k...

Wedding package... market rate around 3-4k for BASIC package... the wedding album will add up to much more after photo selection...

I wun add the wedding dinner & ROM fees here... coz USUALLY will get back from the angbaos de... unless u invite all the stingy "yao guis"... or unfortunate incident like angbaos lost (happened before, it's in the papers)...

Many other charges & expenses... the list goes on & on... u nid to actually start planning the wedding, then more costs keep popping up...

In conclusion, even for a simple wedding (i dun mean void deck or coffeeshop weddings), a couple may need about 40-50k in cash (minimum)... and I haven't even added the honeymoon yet...

No wonder nowadays Singaporeans are getting married later & later (or dun marry at all)... excluding those who dun wana get married due to other factors (high expectations, no confidence in marriage etc), some wana get married but dun have enuff money or juz frightened off by the costs...

So people... moral of the story is... start saving up now... or find a rich partner... hahaha...