Whole Wedding Expenses

A lot of my friends are getting marry real soon & they asked me what is the estimated cost of my whole wedding, today I gonna disclosure the figure and breakdown here. But the amount is definitely more than what you going to see below, a lot of misc. cost involve which I could hardly keep track.

Once you had your wedding date fixed, the next thing that you will look for will be the wedding venue. I held my wedding reception at Hotel Fort Canning, considering as a 5 stars heritage hotels, my package was sign during a bridal fare held in April 2013, of course you will get extra perk during the show, the package consist of:

8 course Chinese wedding dinner package
1 food tasting session for 10pax
In room pre-dinner on actual day
Free flow of soft drink / tea
3 x 30Litre of draught beer
1 bottle red / white wine per confirm table
1 bottle champagne for toasting
2 night stay in Premium King room
Complimentary usage of a day room
Waiver for duty paid liquors and wines
Wedding Favour / guestbook / Angpao box / invitation card

Other than we stated above I guess the rest like cocktail session, decoration, free parking for guests, VIP lot for bridal car etc is very normal, so I not going to mention those. My per table cost is at $1038++, as I have a table of Muslim guests, for Halal food there of 1 time $60 additional cost.

1038.00 x 29 = 30,102.00 (29 Normal tables)
1038 + 60 = 1,098 (1 Mixed table)
      
Total Before Taxes: $31,200.00

Net Price: 31,200.00
10% Service Charge: 3,120.00
Sub-Total: 34,320.00
7% GST (on Sub-Total): 2,402.40
Total Price with GST: 36,722.40

I totally agree that it a BIG sum of money to spend for a 1 day event, totally meaningless, walking down the aisle waving to people that you don’t really know, or haven’t even seen before in your whole life. Sadly, that the culture, out of my 300 guests less than one third is the people I know, the rest is all our parents’ friend, looooong distance relatives that you don’t even know their existence. You will be lucky if your guests are generous enough with their angbaos, you might be able to break even the cost you spend on the dinner, if not you will have to throw out the whole sum from your pocket.

I seriously don’t agree to the thinking of some people hoping to breakeven or even get some earning out of the banquet. WAKE UP GUYS, your guests is not obligated to “pay” so much for their own dinner when you are the one inviting them, to put it in a right way to say, they are there in response to your invitation, rightfully, they can even go empty handed. Of course most of the people, I will say 99% will be there will their generous angbao as a blessing to the newly wed, but don’t expected too much, always prepared yourself for the worst situation, so in case of any unforeseen issue happened, you won’t be in the panic stage. Managed within budget that you are comfortable, plan for something which you can afford to pay in full amount just in case your angbao box was stolen (TOUCH_WOOD), I think no situation can be worse than that on the actual weeding day

Next we will go into all the “un-recoverable” cost that you gonna to spend, first we will go into bridal package. My bridal package consist of the following, my whole package cost $5,288 nett consist of the following stated below, a lot of bargaining is required for a good deal:

Pre-wedding:
5 gowns
1 trial make-up
4 make-up & hairdo
3 suits
36 photos
1 album
1 desktop photoframe
1 mini album
1 3-in-1 wall portrait
1 wedding MTV
All edited copies return in CD

Actual Day:
1 Photo / Videographer (10Hours each)
1 day gown
1 tea dress
1 evening gown
Day & night make-up & hairdo
2 suits
2 fathers’ suit
Corsage of groom & both parents
1 hand bouquet
Bridal car décor
6 brothers car décor
6 sisters wrist flower
Wedding Veil
Accessories
Morning highlight
All photos return in CD
Whole day video in CD – 2sets

For bridal package there a lot of hidden cost involve, the ampoules, fake lashes etc, not forget the most costly items, additional photos.

5,288.00 (Bridal Package)
1,200.00 (16pcs of additional photos)
60.00 (Ampoules, 2 for pre-wedding / 1 for AD use – $20each )
60.00 ( Fake lashes, 1 for pre-wedding / 2 for AD use - $20each)
50.00 (Extra charges for MUA to come before 7am)
30.00 (Veil, I don’t know who burn a hole in my veil during AD)

Total Price     : 6,688.00


Now let us go into the misc cost, some of the cost I really cannot remember the exact cost, so I just estimated the amount to the closest whole which I can recall:

2,800 (Wedding bands)
25.00 (ROM charges)
60.00 (Printing of invitation card’s inserts)
100.00 (Reservation for pre-wedding shoot venue – Blisshouse)
128.00 (JOP’s angbao)
100.00 (Bridesmaid dress, I’m damn cheapo, get cheap deal online)
700.00 (Car rental, Porsche Boxer)
1,500.00 (Videographer’s car “kissed” my Porsche & he got no money to pay, we are just being “nice” not to push him for payment)
89.00 (Bridal Heels)
60.00 (Groom’s white shirt)
60.00 (Groom’s shoes)
160.00 (Bridal nails for AD)
40.00 (Car boy’s angbao)
328.00 (Gate crashing angbao)
500.00 (Make-up charges for 2 mothers, 3 sisters)
200.00 (material for angbao box / nylon flower – pens and décor)

Total Price    : 6,850.00

I’m rather sure that we spend more than the amount stated from the list, but is just that it really hard to keep track. In total, my whole wedding celebration cost us around 50K, special thanks to all my guests’ generosity,  I received around 31K worth of blessing. So in total, we came out with estimated 20K from our pocket for a 1 day event, I’ll leave it to each individual to judge if this amount is worth spending or not.