Wedding: Spend Less But Love As Much

Spend Less But Love As Much
By Quynh Thu
Friday, October 16,2009,17:41 (GMT+7)


Saigon is entering its wedding season as marrying couples are preparing for their lifetime moment

Jacqueline Felton, 30, and Michael Aldred, 29, the two romantic police officers in Devon, England, became world-famous in September after Reuters featured their wedding story on September 9. The couple had intended to enter the wedlock one year earlier on August 8, 2008. However, they decided to switch their wedding reception party to the famous 999 emergency number because the triple 9 date was only once every 100 years and they had the once-in-a-lifetime chance. Reuters reported that about 20,000 couples worldwide chose the “999” date for their marriages.

Several marrying couples in HCM City were part of the figure. Yet most others have waited patiently for a later date as the wedding season in this city has come. Although Saigonese brides and grooms marry each other throughout the year, the “wedding season,” which attracts the largest number of couples in Saigon, starts from October of one year and extends to January of the following year just before Tet, the Lunar New Year.

In Canada, for example, many couples get married in summer because the weather is fine. Then, why is this time around toward the end of the year the “official mating season” in Saigon?

Saigon Stories has found at least two reasons for the date. First, although Saigonese are living in a modern society, they still in one way or another stick to tradition. The wedding date is believed by many to be important and thus should be on “lucky days.” More often than not, couples have a fortuneteller pick a date for their marriages. As a tradition, “lucky days” for wedding are often in the last months of the lunar year (from October to January of the year that follows).

The second reason is even more convincing in Saigon Stories’ opinion. As wedding ceremonies are a significant event marrying couples and their families in Vietnam could afford only with meticulous—or to be more precise, exhausting in most of the cases—preparations, it takes them a long time until the end of the year to get everything ready.

What is special about the 2009 wedding season versus the previous years?


Well, the current economic hardship is forcing brides and grooms to think twice when it comes to their wedding budget. Therefore, restaurants across the city are offering promotions to couples.

What is special about wedding parties in HCM City is that there are many establishments specializing in this kind of business. They have big restaurants which are specifically designed to host wedding receptions, and they have been running lucrative business.

Reuters reported that about 100 people attended the Aldreds’ wedding ceremony. This turnout is expected of some wedding reception parties in HCM City. However, the average number of guests to a wedding party here is often higher. Consequently, the costs of the reception party normally account for the largest proportion couples spend for their wedding.

This year, the economic sector which may have incurred the biggest losses is possibly the jewelry business. Data show that last year, sales of diamond jewels tumbled by a third on the year before because couples had to tighten the purse strings. This year, the market remains flat at best, if not worse. On the gold market, record gold price hikes have definitely dented jewel sales compared with the previous years although jewel manufacturers hope that this wedding season could help reverse to a certain extent plunging sales during the first months of the year.

If you’re still a newcomer to HCM City, you may wonder what people normally do during a wedding reception at a restaurant. This is also the first difference between a wedding ceremony in HCM City and one in a Western country where wedding parties are sometimes held in the garden or backyard of a house.

Coming to a wedding ceremony here in HCM City, invited guests will first meet the bride and groom who are often standing at the entrance to welcome them. After being greeted by the couple, guests will meet receptionists sitting behind a table on which a box is placed so that guests can put in complimentary money for the couple. Guests can give gifts, too. But nowadays, cash is preferred at wedding receptions. Some notes should be given to the receptionists: They are either close relatives or the closest friends of the bride or the groom because they have to keep the money and the gifts.

Guests then get seated at the tables in the hall, waiting for the official ceremony. At due time, the bride and groom will appear hand in hand to proceed to the stage. The difference from a Western wedding ceremony is that the bride’s father does not accompany her. Instead, after the couple has already been on the stage, their parents will be invited to join them. One of the parents, often the groom’s father, will make a speech expressing thanks to all guests.

Next, the new wife and husband are toasted in champagne and together they cut the wedding cake which is often very big and multistage. Then everybody can enjoy meals served by waiters and waitresses at the restaurant. In the meantime, the bride and the groom, often accompanied by their parents, will come to every table to thank guests in person.

Saigon Stories can also pick some differences between the above wedding procedures and those in a Western wedding ceremony. Although Vietnamese marrying couples love each other as much as their Western counterparts do, Vietnamese brides and grooms do not exchange kisses during their parties (but they surely do later).

As expected, music forms part of the joy of a wedding ceremony both here and abroad. While dancing often finishes off a Western wedding party, a music band and several singers are invited to perform at a party in HCM City. Another note: With the dancing, a Western wedding reception may extend until, say, two o’clock in the morning; one in HCM City would often end 10 p.m. at most.

Economic crises may force people to spend less but they cannot force them to have less love. We hope so for marrying couples.


http://english.thesaigontimes.vn/Home/lifestyle/sgstory/6995/