Money Money Money

We’re not talking about money for the wedding; we’ve covered that already. You need loads of it… FULL STOP.

I’m talking about the money that floats around on your wedding day! There is so much loose cash moving everywhere that you need to have someone you trust to keep an eye for you.

At the tea ceremony, money is given out and taken in and jewelleries are flying out of their boxes. You need someone to safe-keep and keep tabs for you at all times. Amidst hugging, kissing and smiling, the last thing on your mind would be the safe-keeping of your stack of angpaus.

For the tea ceremony, we each had someone to pass us our angpaus and also to keep our angpaus. Our head chi mui and head heng dai was on duty and they did a good job keeping track of everything.

The only thing we forgot was to give an angpau to the chi mui and heng dais (ha-ha); they couldn’t be keeping the angpaus and giving it out themselves! But that was exactly the case during my party – we totally forgot to give them the “thank you angpau” so my head chi mui had to go round passing it to everyone.

For the dinner, we had aunts on both sides keeping count and taking note.

On the same note, please pick someone whom you not only trust for the guest registration but someone who will be there on time and on schedule to look after the table (at least 45 mins prior to the scheduled guest arrival time). Not someone who would be too busy dressing up or chatting with other guests or is more interested in the bar. You will definitely need someone who is willing to spare their time for that important task.

Money situations at the registration counter can become major family debacles so please ensure that negotiations have already taken place prior to avoid any misunderstandings on that day. Who gets to keep the money? Who is to take home the angpaus? Have everything sorted out before the big day, so that there no daggers flying around during your reception!

You will find that some guests rather give you or the parents the angpaus personally but please still have the angpaus passed to your assigned person. You don’t want to be losing your angpaus on the dance floor!

Photos by Bonnie Yap Photography