True feelings lurk just beneath the pleasantries.
Weddings.
Those once in a lifetime (hopefully) events where two people publicly declare their love for each other. They are also a time when people vie for attention and friendships are sorely tested.
So when guests at local influencer Melissa Celestine Koh’s extravagant wedding found out that it had been heavily sponsored, they were all ready to compete with the couple on who could embody the spirit of sponsored weddings better.
That spirit, apparently, is ‘insincerity’, as guests claimed the couple had ‘duped’ them into contributing funds for an already sponsored wedding. Several guests declared that if they had known about the sponsorships earlier, they might have been less generous with their cash gifts.
We feel you…
Ethics and taxes aside, we can sympathise with these dearly beloved of the bride and groom who were cheated of their ang pow monies.
It is ingrained in our Singaporean and Asian cultures that the lucky red packets we present at weddings are to help relieve the huge expense of weddings these days. (Such expense is really the fault of over-commercialisation, but that is a topic for another time.)
Therefore, the more luxurious the wedding, the more money guests are inclined to give.
Following that logic, it is no wonder these guests feel they had been dealt a bad hand. The married couple basically made off with a hefty profit, without paying for most of their own wedding!
Seriously though…
But dear friends, if they wish to remain so, should remember that those lucky red packets represent just that — a heartfelt wish of good luck for the couple’s start of life together — and not a ten-course dinner fee.
Tit for tat. While guests may have doubted the couple’s sincerity, they could have chosen to show some sincerity of their own in the giving of well wishes.
Then again, it was a known influencer’s big bash. Of course it was gonna be sponsored. Maybe they should have printed it on the invites — MELISSA and JAMES invite you to celebrate their union at a SPONSORED WEDDING.
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