Smaller banquets, bigger rings: wedding survey

Most newlyweds are spending less on wedding banquets amid the pandemic but splurge on expensive rings.

E-commerce website ESDlife between August and last month surveyed 1,003 couples who are getting married this year to 2023, and found that average wedding expenses were HK$351,000, down two percent from last year's HK$360,000. 

This showed that couples still maintained their wedding expenses for a perfect wedding, the website said.

Some 87 percent said they will still have banquets as the government has relaxed the number of banquet participants to 240 people. But the average expenses on banquets have dropped 19 percent this year to HK$144,000, from HKK$179,000 in 2020 and from HK$185,000 in 2019.  

They are willing to spend 20 percent more on rings and jewelry by HK$93,000, compared to HK$77,300 in 2020 and HK$72,300 in 2019. 

“Many couples would not want to have more than 20 tables in their banquets,” ESD Services marketing manager Casey Chow Cheuk-ying said.

Another reason for the decline in expenditure in banquets was because more couples decided to have wedding luncheons, as “they found them more relaxed and trendy,” Chow said. 

Although people cannot travel abroad because of the pandemic, the survey found more than half of the couples still reserved some money for their honeymoon, as the average budget increased 37 percent to HK$41,200 from HK$30,000 in 2020. 

According to the Statistics and Census Department, a total of 27,863 couples married in 2020. 

The website estimated that the total number of registered marriages this year will increase seven percent to 29,749, as the city recorded an 11 percent year-on-year growth in the number of marriages in the third quarter this year.