Firstly, congratulations on getting married! Or thinking of getting
married. We say this on behalf of the Singapore Government
and DollarsAndSense. But before your first step
into marriage life, you first have to have get past your wedding
day unscathed. And we don’t just mean physically and emotionally,
but financially as well.
One of the worst things you can do for your long-term marriage is
to bring unnecessary debt incurred over a single wedding day. Let’s
take a look at some of the big tickets items that you will be
facing.
1. The Engagement Ring And The Wedding Bands
For Singaporean men who don’t already know, society expects you to
buy two different types of rings. First, you need an engagement
ring (usually a diamond ring) to propose to your better half.
Assuming she accepts it, you would then need to purchase a set of
wedding bands, which is what you would be exchanging on the wedding
day and wearing for the rest of your life (ideally).
Both these rings (particularly the engagement ring) can add up to a
whole lot. A simple engagement ring, even from a less fancy
jewellery brand in Singapore, can easily add up to at least $3,000
(about 0.4 – 0.5 carat). A larger carat (i.e. 1 carat or above)
could easily set you back $10,000 or more, depending on other
factors such as the cut, clarity and colour of the rock. And don’t
ask us how much these things cost at places like Tiffany and Co or
Cartier, because the answer would be “insanely more”.
For wedding bands, the price can also vary quite a fair bit. You
can expect to pay about $2,000 to $3,000 for a regular pair.
Total Damage: $5,000 – $10,000 or more…
2. The Bridal Package
Shopping for bridal packages can be an absolute nightmare. Pushy
salespeople, hidden cost, mark-ups, rigid packages and worst of
all, extra fees for handing over the soft copies of photos that you
have already taken.
We are not going to mince our words here. In our opinion (and you
have every right to agree or disagree), the wedding industry in
Singapore is a horror to navigate. It lacks price transperancy, are
filled with salespeople who know nothing about photography, make-up
or wedding planning, and are far more likely to produce results
that would ruin your wedding rather than add value to it. Getting a
wedding package at a roadshow is just about as bad an idea as you
could think of. Just go to any wedding forum in Singapore and check
out how many brides-to-be are trying to sell the wedding package
that they have already paid a deposit on.
Sales tactics for pre-wedding bridal package are usually quite
straightforward. It consists of a basic price of about $2,888 for a
standard pre-wedding photoshoot and album of about 24 photos. This
usually includes other items such as wedding gowns, a gentleman
suit, make-up and hairdo, enlarged photo with frame plus other
fringe items such as bridal bouquet, usage of car and car
decoration.
To be fair, basic prices for wedding package are quite reasonable.
But that’s only if it is all you are paying. Bridal studios will
try to make additional profits by upselling you items such as a
top-up for more photos or to get a “premium gown”.
From what we know, most people usually end up spending much more
than what they originally expected to when they work with a bridal
studio.
Total Damage: $3,000 – $10,000 or more…
3. Wedding Banquet
Holding a wedding banquet is a big tradition in Singapore. To no
surprise, hotels in Singapore are quick to bank in on this by
offering hotel wedding packages that could easily cost upwards of
$1000 per table for a weekend dinner.
Aside from this bill, you still have to deal with the challenge of
guaranteeing a minimum number of tables to the hotel before being
able to secure the date you want.
This creates a dilemma. On one hand, you need to invite your
families and friends first before knowing how many people would
actually be turning up. However, you can’t invite them without
first securing the date and the venue.
As such, most couples end up having to estimate the number of
tables they think they may need and hope that
the actual turnout on the date is able to hit the minimum table
which they have guarenteed. Otherwise, they would end up overpaying
for tables they did not use.
Particularly for Chinese meals, where seating arrangement per table
are done in batches of 10 seats, there can be quite a lot of
wastage when tables are not completely filled.
Total Damage (based 20 tables from $1,000 to $1,600 per table):
$20,000 – $32,000 or more…
4. Actual Wedding Day Costs
Having already spent a bomb on your rings, the pre-wedding bridal
package and wedding banquet, you might be forgiven for thinking
that your credit card(s) can finally take a break. Wrong.
The actual cost you incur for the wedding day can be pretty
significant, depending on the items you want. For starters, you
might be looking at a cost of about $1,500 to $2,000 to engage a
photographer for the entire day and another $1,500 to $2,000 to
engage a videographer.
And notice those pre-wedding activities like an instant print
photobooths and candy corners? They look nice and pretty. And yes,
they cost money as well.
Don’t forget to budget in for the wine and corkage charges that you
may incur. Some hotels may waive this off and also provide free
bottles of house wines. However, you may still need to standby your
own bottles of wine, which would then incur corkage charges in
addition to the actual cost of the wine.
Total Damage: $4000 – $6000 or more…
5. Honeymoon
Assuming you have not already maxed out your credit card(s), you
still need to set some money aside for your honeymoon. Depending on
the location and how long you intend to travel, this could easily
range from $3,000 (Bali), $6,000 (Japan or Korea) and $8,000 (New
Zealand) to upwards of $15,000 (Europe or US). To top things off,
it doesn’t help that the Singapore Dollar has been performing
poorly this year.
Some people may balk at the costs we have highlighted above. Yes,
there is no question that you can travel at a lower budget if you
like to. But really, it’s a honeymoon and we really don’t think you
will be intending to scrimp and save during this vacation.
Also, it will be better to budget higher and spend less, than to
have some grand scheme of somehow spending less than $7,000 on a
2-week vacation for two to Europe because you read some tips from
travel blogs, only to end up failing miserably and hating your
honeymoon. Which might mean…another honeymoon after another 12
months of saving.
Total Damage: $3,000 – $15,000 or more…
Budget Wisely
The point of listing out the 5 key cost items above
is to scare you
off from getting married remind you to budget earlier
and to plan wisely for your wedding. The truth is that it is not
going to come cheap for most of us. So you need to appreciate the
full picture before planning on where you can potentially save and
cut corners. If you can go below what we have indicated, by all
means, go ahead! We will love to hear your successful wedding
budgeting stories as well so feel free to share it with us on Facebookor
to email us
Total Cost: $35,000 (For the budget consicous) to $73,000
or more (for more lavish weddings)
Do note that our cost items exclude other common expenditure such
as dowry, ang-pow for wedding helpers, décor items, wedding
solemniser, church wedding or ROM event. What we have laid out is
already the bare minimum you can expect to spend.
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True Cost Of A Wedding In Singapore appeared first
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