Chinese Wedding Banquet – Miscellaneous Facts

Posted by Jan

May 29, 2008

*continue from Chinese Wedding Banquet Menus & Costs?*

Miscellaneous Costs (Small Fees/Tips)

I was told that it is a good idea to pay the restaurant a visit 2-3 weeks before the wedding is held and find out who the manager/supervisor will be in charge of overseeing your banquet if you don’t already know. Some people do this because they want to give the supervisor a red pocket to “thank” him/her for assisting their wedding *hint hint*. It is also a sign of good luck, much like when elderly people have their birthday dinners at restaurants, they will give red pockets to the servers. This is usually done by the parents. Amount for the red pocket varies.

Another cost is if you would like to reserve the whole restaurant for your banquet but your number of guests are not close to the maximum capacity allowed, then the restaurant might want you to use a higher priced set menu. There is usually a minimum cost or number of tables to allow you to keep the whole restaurant to yourself.

Finally, any changes to the menu, including having extra vegetarian/diet dishes could induce additional cost for the banquet.

Here’s a question which I found interesting: Why are wedding banquet menu prices higher than normal banquet’s when they have almost exactly the same food? I mean the ingredients are pretty similar.

Well I guess a logical reason is that the restaurant have to hire more staff to prepare and serve the food. In addition, usually wedding banquet has 12 courses where as normal “dinner” banquets have less, so it’s longer than most other dinners. Each dish have to come out one after the other (not at random times like a normal Chinese dinner where at the end you have all the dishes on the turn table). This allows for games playing, speeches and toasting in between the courses as well as buying time for the bride to change into a different gown should she wish.

My take on it is that it’s a special occasion so people are usually willing to pay more. Kinda like why roses cost more on that one day of the year. If there’s one advice I can give you is to always negotiate (after you have chosen your restaurant). They might not be willing to lower the price but I’m sure they can take away something minor such as cake cutting, soft drink cost, using different table linen (I was told they charge $2 per table if you want to use another colour)…etc.

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