You will be able to estimate ang bao income cautiously and plan cash flow around it.
Ask any couple who has had a banquet wedding in Singapore and you'll hear a version of the same advice: "Don't worry, the ang bao will cover it." Sometimes it does. Sometimes the couple counts the packets the morning after and finds they are tens of thousands of dollars short of the hotel bill, with savings already spent on deposits.
Ang bao is real income and it belongs in the budget. The trouble is that most couples estimate it too generously and count on it too early. This lesson fixes both.
Many guests at a banquet give an amount that at least covers the cost of their seat, and some give more. There are informal guides that circulate each year, often by venue type. They are rough at best. What a guest actually gives depends heavily on how close they are to you or your parents, their age and income, whether they come as a couple or a family, and the venue.
So there is no single figure you can rely on. An aunt who has known you since birth and a colleague you invited out of politeness will not give the same, and a student cousin may give much less than the cost of the seat. Treat any average you hear as a description of other people's weddings, not a forecast of yours.
The better method is to split the guest list into groups and give each group its own cautious estimate. Cautious here means a figure you would be unsurprised to see beaten, not the figure you hope for.
Here is Mei and Daniel's estimate, with every figure made up for the example. From lesson 3.1, their seat costs S$179.85 after service charge and GST, one tenth of a S$1,798.50 table.
Close family, 60 guests, estimated at S$200 each: S$12,000 Other relatives, 80 guests, at S$130 each: S$10,400 Friends and colleagues, 120 guests, at S$140 each: S$16,800 Parents' friends, 40 guests, at S$150 each: S$6,000
That makes 300 guests and a cautious total of S$45,200. Only one group is estimated above the seat cost. For couples who give one packet, they estimated the packet and split it across the two seats. Children were counted inside their parents' estimate.
Compare that with a single average. If they had assumed every guest would cover the seat, at about S$180 each, they would have expected S$54,000. That is S$8,800 more than the group estimate, and a gap that size would only show up the morning after the wedding, when nothing can be done about it.
Their full budget from lesson 3.1 was S$75,155. Subtract the cautious ang bao estimate of S$45,200 and the net cost of the wedding, the part they pay from their own money, is S$29,955. This is the figure behind the S$30,000 net target Mei and Daniel set in lesson 1.1.
Plan the savings around this net cost, and treat any ang bao above your estimate as a bonus. If the bonus arrives, it can go straight to the next goal on the sheet, usually the home.
Who keeps the ang bao is a separate question, and families settle it in different ways. In some, ang bao from the parents' guests goes to the parents, who in turn pay for those tables. In others, everything goes to the couple. Agree on this early, because it changes both sides of the budget. Lesson 3.3 comes back to it.
Even a perfect estimate has a timing problem. Deposits are paid months before the wedding. Ang bao arrives on the night. Between the two, you have to find the cash yourself.
For Mei and Daniel, the banquet deposit is due a year and a half before the day. The photographer, the bridal package, the rings and the solemnisation are all paid before the wedding. Adding these up, they will pay S$31,200 before a single ang bao arrives, which is more than the S$29,955 net cost. The hotel in their example accepts the S$43,955 balance within a week after the dinner, and the ang bao more than covers it, leaving S$1,245 over.
If their hotel had wanted the full balance before the day, they would have needed to hold about S$75,000 in cash first, which their savings could not do. Ask every venue when the final payment is due and how it can be paid, before you sign. The answer can change your plan more than the price does.
So the ang bao estimate does two jobs. It tells you the net cost to save for, and it tells you how much of the final bill can wait for the night itself. Both depend on the estimate being cautious.
Your own guest list comes next. If it isn't settled yet, rough groups with made-up figures will still show you where the net cost lands.
Estimate ang bao for your guest list by group, using made-up or cautious figures, and calculate the net cost.
Junxiong-WFG Organisation is an authorised representative of AIA Financial Advisers Private Limited (Reg. No. 201715016G).