Things Everyone Secretly Does At Singapore Wedding Dinners

Full-fledged banquets aren't the only things that have returned after a long, pandemic-induced hiatus. Here's what else we've gone back to doing amidst all the wedding invites: 

1. Lie that you are away on holiday

Not all weddings deserve your RSVP. After all, why would you want to spend your precious Saturday night alone with a table of strangers when it’s your ex-primary-school-classmate’s-niece’s wedding? When you receive the SMS invite, you’ll politely say that you’ll try to make it and one week later, you’ll reply that you have a family vacation planned and won’t be able to turn up anymore.

2. Ask around for the market rate

So, your colleagues are all invited to the marketing manager’s wedding. Best to ask around and compare how much everyone is giving for the ang pow. Because you don’t want to look silly and give $100 less. But you also don’t want to be silly and give $100 more, especially to someone whom you’ve only said hello to, like four times in a year.

3. Pretend you had something on and arrive late

Oh, you had emails to type, kids to send to the in-laws, dog poop to clear, burst pipes to fix… and, ahem, one more episode of your Netflix series to finish up. Anyway, nobody arrives on time or even early for wedding dinners in Singapore, right? If the invite says dinner starts at 7.30pm, it will probably commence at 8.30pm since everyone else had emails to type, kids to send to the in-laws, dog poop to clear… you get the point.

4. Change seats

Because you came early and don’t want your back facing the stage later. Because you saw the name cards on the table and don’t want to sit with Fourth Aunty.

5. Change tables

Even better, all your kakis are at another table (what was the bride thinking when she seated you with her hot yoga mates – this isn’t speed dating, you know!) and there’s an empty seat.

6. Change wedding tokens

At dinners where they have an alternating choice of wedding mementoes from one seat to the next, you know you want that gourmet organic tea more than you want that pair of pewter bells.

7. Act like you aren’t hungry

If it’s one of those dinners where food is served communally on a lazy Susan and you are seated with strangers or your bosses, you’ll probably peck politely at whatever is right in front of you. Yes, you are famished and you really want that last piece of abalone but decorum, decorum. And nobody ever dares to pick up the coveted chicken drumstick because it’s just rude.

8. Lip-sync to yum seng

It’s like how you used to mumble your way through your school song at assembly time. There’s always someone else out there who will have a robust voice and attitude, and who will get the job done for everyone else.

9. Slip away halfway

Intermission time generally takes place after the second course aka when the soup is served. That’s when you start feeling restless unless you’re lucky enough to be seated with people you really want to catch up with. Somewhere, from the second to fifth courses, tables typically empty out gradually and guests are in the bathrooms, at the foyer… or even on their way home.

10. Pretend you forgot to take home the wedding token

Actually, that’s the ugliest and most useless potpourri sachet you’ve ever seen in your life.

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