Invitation

I received four wedding invitation cards for this weekend and next weekend, two receptions at a leading hotel in the city and the other two at their respective residence. One reception to be held out of my district and coincide with my nephew’s wedding so will miss this reception.

Two of the reception in the hotel, luckily one week apart so will surely attend it both. All reception cannot be missed due to my close relation with the celebrant, a relatives wedding and a colleague’s wedding.

I am lucky that I only received few invitations compared to other families, example my married family siblings and friends because at one time they will receive many invitations. I think we should set aside a column for miscellaneous in our budget organizer for each month for every reception we attended as we present ‘Ang Pow’ to the host of the reception. In my opinion the minimum ‘ang pow’ should be in the region of RM100 for hotel reception, RM50 for residence reception but again it depended entirely on us. Usually, family members should be given more as a contribution and to lighten their burden as having a reception has high cost depending where the reception is held.

I remembered I argued with my mother regarding the ‘ang pow’. She had insisted that when someone presented you with a bowl of rice, you should return the same amount when that person invited you for a reception. The notion expressed by some that you should give back what has been given to you is not right. What happens when some rich person presented you with 100 bowls of rice but when that rich person invited you for a reception, does that means you have to return 100 bowls of rice? As for me, I only return two bowls of rice as that was what I can affords to give back. When I presented 'Ang pow ', I don't expect to received the same amount that I had given.

What happens when we revert to give rice instead of cash during any reception as what was the practice before?