Chinese weddings - 10 grand not enough?

One of my colleagues who is having a wedding dinner soon showed us his wedding photos yesterday (it is a norm here that you see your bride in the wedding gown, take pictures so much earlier so that you will have that wedding album ready before your wedding dinner to show everyone - it all started when photo studios wanted to make lots of money out of weddings). He was told that it costs $2000 to have professional photos taken of him and his bride-to-be. As usual, instead of taking only enough shots of the couple, the photographers take about 200 pictures. You are then conned into 'buying' more of the pictures to fit into your album because it is soooooo difficult to choose only 20 pictures out of 200 nice ones (I bet it is also a test for the couple as some may end up in big disagreements over which photos to choose). In the end instead of spending that enourmous sum of $2000, you end up paying double.

And that is just for wedding pictures. There's still the expensive wedding dinner. Each table that sits ten costs approximately $600 these days. This is what happens during Chinese wedding dinners - you make reservations, the restaurant prepares the food, table, settings, etc. The guests arrive and give out 'angpows' (red packets containing money). You have someone collect them and note down who has given what (so that you'd remember because later in the evening you're gonna give all these to the restaurant). After the dinner, someone counts all the money and you pay the restaurant. These days, what you receive will never be sufficient to cover the amount you've spent for the dinner. The giving of wedding presents and angpows have also lost its true meaning because everyone has an understanding that if you're invited to a dinner, you try to help the couple by giving them money to pay off their debts to the restaurant.

I recently had this conversation with another guy friend who has been with his girlfriend for umpteenth years. He has this reason for not getting married yet although he really wants to - he needs to save up enough money to 'pay' his girlfriend's mother to marry her daughter. In Chinese culture, it is said that the parents of the bride has spent money bringing her up and the bridegroom is supposed to pay the debts to the bride's parents as he is taking her over to be his family instead and away from her family. It is sort of like 'selling' your daughter off when she gets married. Some modernized mothers may not ask for much but for those who follow the tradition, the sum may come up to 10 grand or $8888, the Chinese's favorite lucky numbers.
(I will definitely warn my mother not to ask for anything and not to 'sell' me away if she wants me married off!)

So there. That's about how much a Chinese wedding can cost. Of course there are a lot more expenses like your honeymoon (if you have any money left that is), the lunch for the visitors coming to your house for the ceremonies, the many more angpows that you have to give to your cousins, nieces and nephews, the amount of ceremonial gifts and items that you have to buy..the list just goes on. It's no wonder why banks are starting to offer loans for marriage as one marriage can sometimes make a person go bankrupt.

I am so going to elope and have a nice honeymoon somewhere far away where people cannot find me, with all the money I can afford, if I do get to this stage.