The role of hong bao in a wedding

Since my previous post, I have gone from being fairly committed to a Chinese wedding, to possibly converting my fiance to Christianity to facilitate a proper, western, Christian, church wedding. We both want to have a small, intimate gathering, but this seemed taboo in Chinese tradition as we kept running into the issue of hong bao.

A long time ago, my boyfriend had mentioned not wanting any hong bao at our wedding. This was something I didn't totally understand- I kind of liked the idea of helping friends out to pay for their wedding- take the edge off of having to put up such a huge sum of money at once. But he seemed to think it started this cycle of debt to everyone you know- where when people got wedding invites they only thought about how expensive it was going to be. Then, many co-workers have explained that the majority of their hong bao went to their parents and did not directly cover the costs of their weddings. Apparently, because mom and dad have been paying people hong bao forever, their opportunity to make money back is from their kid's weddings. Therefore the wedding needs to be as big as possible so they can rake in the most money from it. Sorry, the idea of my wedding being a fundraiser for my inlaws is not appealing at all to say the least. I would rather have a relationship built on - I don't know- love? than financial obligation.

Different families appear to have different traditions in how this is handled and I'm curious to see what experiences other people here have had. We're definitely going to have a compromise here. Right now, I'm thinking western ceremony and small intimate reception afterwards with good friends and family. A few days later, we might have a big ol' Chinese dinner to make the inlaws happy.

We kept all of our hong bao and they actually did cover the cost of the wedding entirely, with some left over. My husband was in his 30s by the time we married though, his mother had passed away 2 years before, and his father was in his 80s and was not interested in our hong bao in the slightest. My husbands brothers and their wives helped us out quite a bit with the wedding and what we did was give them all of the leftover rice, liquor, cooking oil and other (uncooked) food. While this might sound kind of cheap, it actually was quite a lot of food that, for my husband's rural family, was quite useful (and they totally squabbled over who was getting what and it turned into a huge drama even though no actual money was changing hands!). All of the wedding expenses were paid for by us though so we certainly weren't going to hand over our hong bao to anyone else. I would say that whoever pays for the majority of the wedding is entitled to the hong bao money, unless they state otherwise.

There is the cycle of hong baos with our relatives/friends and us but it more goes like this, did we go to their wedding? Did we give them hong bao? Then we invite them so they have a chance to repay us. Likewise, if we invited unmarried people to our wedding that meant that when those people eventually got married we had to attend in order to reciprocate with the hong bao.

Like you said though, every family is different and the traditions are going to vary from region to region, village to village, family to family. There are some families out there who still expect a bride-price to be paid so obviously stuff like that would effect the hong bao situation a lot. What is your boyfriend's current view on the hongbao? Going without in order to make a statement is a nice idea but they can add up to a lot of money, and especially when you're just starting out as a couple that can be a nice little bonus.

Personally I've never heard of giving  parents your hong bao. We paid paid for our own wedding so the hong bao is ours.
If you really want to get into the traditional side fo it as a girl his parents are supposed to pay your family a dowry and buy a house for you two to live in before the wedding. I'm sure if you explain that you are willing to give up these formalities (saving them a huge pile of cash) they may be more inclined to not rip you off blind expect too much from you.

My in-laws paid for the wedding (food, drink, entertainment, etc.).  We only had to pay for our flights to their hometown.

It was 3 days though of eating and drinking.  All the neighbors and relatives showed up for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for 3 days.  My in-laws covered all the food and drink cost. There was a group of ladies cooking however.

On the wedding day, the only difference was more people and I had to wear a suit.  But here is the interesting bit ...

The announcer (with a microphone) called all the neighbors and relatives up one by one to stand before us (my wife and I).  They each handed us a hong bao.  We opened it there and then, counted the amount, and the announcer told everyone how much.

Some people added $ if there was silence or snickering.

And another guy wrote down all the amounts with names.  I'm told that this is for when their kids get married, we do not give them any more than what we received.

But, since it is the in-laws that will be going to all the weddings, it is they who they who have to pay the future hong baos.  So we gave most of what we received to our in-laws.

I pretty much paid for everything.  A few gifts and a bunch of hong bao were handed to us as guests arrived.  After that, the guests plus all gifts/hongbao were redirected to the registration table, where their names were entered into the guest book.  We didn't open the hong bao until later.  My darling wife did make a list of who gave how much, so that if we get any invites from any of them we can reciprocate at an appropriate level.

The lunch and KTV were covered with a little money left over.

The other expenses still ended up coming out of my pocket.

Hint for those trying to get ahead via hong bao - Invite a lot of married people who already have children - then you don't get invited back to your friend's weddings or owe new baby gifts.

Apparently, her first husband paid a dowry to her parents and got the equivalent back in stuff for their home.  Somehow, I got lucky and skipped that part.

The announcer (with a microphone) called all the neighbors and relatives up one by one to stand before us (my wife and I).  They each handed us a hong bao.  We opened it there and then, counted the amount, and the announcer told everyone how much.

Some people added $ if there was silence or snickering.

That's Brilliant!!!!

Why didn't someone suggest this BEFORE I got married?

I'm worrying a fair amount for our wedding- how much did people spend for every table at theirs? I've been told ours would be over 200, and I've just been told a huge bombshell that my family have to a pay what is essentially a dowry to my fiancee's side!

the fiancee and her parents have basically said we'd be dreaming to think we might make money from this! 

Tell them no and get married anyway.

What is your boyfriend's current view on the hongbao?

Honestly, our co-workers are making us pretty hong bao jaded. He feels like we have no choice in the matter anymore as we are apparently dealing with his parent's money, not our own. The bottom line is we need to have a really open, honest discussion with his parent's about what their expectations are. I feel like his parent's are fairly laid back, but definitely aware of the cultural norm and don't want to lose face.

If you really want to get into the traditional side fo it as a girl his parents are supposed to pay your family a dowry and buy a house for you two to live in before the wedding.

You raise an interesting point. We are visiting his parent's this weekend and I hope we can talk about this. There are a lot of language barrier issues, but I feel bad vilifiying them without really talking to them about their expectations. They had a fairly non-traditional marriage- parents disagreeing- conflicts with them coming from very different regions of China. I'd like to think that they'll be understanding.

The g/f had to go to her hometown to attend a family member's wedding this morning. I asked her how it went. She told me it wasn't a wedding, "it's a taking money meeting" (sic)