Giving gold is a beautiful traditional feature in weddings but also a pressure for poor families when gold prices are high - Photo: DIEU QUI
The recent surge in gold prices, leading to an increase in wedding gold, is a challenge for those about to get married.
Borrow money to buy wedding gold
The recent continuous increase in gold prices has significantly affected the plan to buy gold jewelry for the wedding ceremony. Families who are not very well off, or even in difficult circumstances, will have to consider a lot, how to buy something that is "appealing" to the other family, and also within the family's financial capacity because in addition to gold, money must be spent on many other things when organizing a wedding.
Nguyen Thi Bao Tran (28 years old, Binh Thanh District, Ho Chi Minh City) said that her mother's family gave her 10 million VND as a dowry for her upcoming wedding. "The family had planned this amount of money in advance to buy a 9999 gold ring worth about 6 million VND for my husband, and the rest to buy a small necklace for me. If it was too much, buying gold jewelry would be cheaper," she said.
And in less than a week, when Ms. Tran's mother went to the gold shop to buy, the price had skyrocketed. She had to try to pay a few million more to buy the amount of gold as originally planned, hoping that her children would be happy on their big day.
Meanwhile, having just held a wedding ceremony over a week ago, Tran Ngoc Long (29 years old, in Xuan Truong, Nam Dinh ) said: "The increase in gold prices has also affected our wedding to some extent. According to custom, in addition to parents and siblings, aunts and uncles also give gold to the bride and groom. However, with the current sky-high gold price, some relatives said they might give cash as wedding gifts or at best give one or two taels of 18K gold." Mr. Long said that he and his wife will keep the wedding gold given by their parents as savings.
Sharing the same joy of happy days but sleepless nights worrying about wedding gold, Ms. Nguyen Thi Mai, 25 years old, in Quang Ninh, also recently held her wedding right at the time when gold prices were at their highest.
Mai said that due to financial constraints, her mother, in addition to using all her savings, had to borrow money from relatives to buy some 24K gold jewelry for her daughter to have some capital to protect herself, also so as not to be "outdone" in front of her in-laws. Mai's friends initially planned to give her gold, but later changed to giving her wedding gifts in cash.
I wanted to buy 5 taels, but only got 3 taels.
Ms. Le Thi Tinh (in Thieu Hoa, Thanh Hoa ) said that recently her neighbor's daughter was preparing for her wedding. She came to her house and complained that she had to borrow more than 20 million VND to buy gold for her daughter to get married. "Her daughter just graduated from high school, got pregnant unexpectedly so she had to get married quickly, her parents didn't have time to prepare a dowry," Ms. Tinh said.
Sharing more, Ms. Tinh acknowledged that the gold exchange ceremony on the wedding day in her maternal hometown does not place as much importance on procedures as in her paternal hometown, even though it is only in a different district. "In my paternal hometown, where I am a daughter-in-law, people who hold weddings for their children believe that there must be gold to exchange, regardless of whether they are rich or poor." Many people in the area are interested in how the wedding gold is exchanged. Ms. Tinh said that some people eagerly come to the wedding just to see what gold the groom's and bride's families exchange, how much, and then discuss it enthusiastically.
In Thanh Xuan, Hanoi, Mr. Pham Thanh Tung, 48 years old, just held a wedding ceremony for his first daughter. A few months before, he and his wife discussed buying wedding gold as a dowry for their daughter.
"My family's income is not very abundant, at first I planned to buy 5 taels for my child but the price of gold was too high so I could only buy 3 taels," he said giving gold on the wedding day is a traditional procedure in weddings, however giving more or less depends on the family's ability.
Recalling the story of giving gold on the wedding day when he was a groom, Mr. Tung remembered the unwritten rule in the 1980s - 1990s, which was that the bride would wear a necklace, a bracelet and a necklace on the wedding day. Rich families had all three of these items, while ordinary families could have two.
Families with more difficulties buy gold instead of giving it up. Gold is given at every wedding. "Nowadays, families with daughters, sometimes when they are in high school, their parents have already saved money to buy gold," Mr. Tung said with a laugh.
Adding to this story, Ms. Nguyen Thi Lan, in An Khanh, Hoai Duc district (Hanoi), has two daughters studying at university. Seeing the high price of gold, Ms. Lan felt sorry but still waited for the gold price to drop a bit and then bought it gradually because she and her husband were not rich enough to buy everything at once for their two children.
She confided that in the apartment complex where she lives, rich families will buy a lot of gold for their children. They wear gold rings all over their hands, sometimes they drop them at the wedding without realizing it. Poorer families borrow money to buy them, or their children earn money to buy them for their parents to give to them. Newlywed couples who receive gold from relatives or friends keep it so that they can give it back when invited to a wedding later.
Choosing the right wedding gold for your family's conditions in the context of constantly fluctuating gold prices - Photo: PHUONG QUYEN
Try to look good first, then sell later.
According to Mr. Minh Khoa (36 years old, Phu Nhuan district), who is about to become a groom, his wedding falls in a period when gold prices tend to increase continuously. Although his finances are stable and he has prepared in advance, from the groom's perspective, he still cannot avoid the pressure.
In the Vietnamese concept of weddings, both families want to maintain traditional culture to save face for the family, often requiring gold on the wedding day. Worried about the ever-increasing price of gold, Khoa's parents had previously bought it to give as a gift for their son's big day. Among the jewelry that his parents gave their daughter-in-law were earrings and a 5-chi necklace as a keepsake.
In addition, the couple was also given half a tael of 24K gold as property. "That amount of gold is a long-term investment, it cannot be touched," Khoa said. He believes that at the wedding, the two families will look back and forth, if the bride's family gives the bride and groom a tael of gold, the groom's family must also do something to match it.
"The bride's family and I agreed that the groom would buy gold as a dowry, meeting the formalities of the wedding in advance. Then we would sell it to pay for other expenses because we had already spent a lot of money on gold, while the wedding really needed money to handle other things like moving, booking a restaurant, taking photos, renting wedding clothes. Not to mention, after the wedding, we don't know if we'll make a profit or a loss if we sell the gold to cover expenses," Khoa confided.
Gold prices are fluctuating every day. Mr. Khoa said he has been monitoring the gold price every day for the past few days, waiting for it to drop a bit more and then buying to get as much support as possible.
Preparing about 100 million VND for wedding gold, Mr. Khoa said that he has not yet bought all the gold. In the next few days, he will go buy an engagement ring, a pair of PNJ gold wedding rings, a pair of earrings, a 5-chi bracelet, and a 5-chi 24K gold necklace.
Gold prices have been going up and down continuously recently. While the market is buzzing about buying and selling, families who are having a happy event are worried about how to buy a dowry to make both families happy...
Many people, especially in the countryside, like to wear ximen and wear dozens of bright gold bracelets all over their arms. In addition to jewelry, many people also have the view that... each person has their own style.
Rent gold for wedding ceremony
Due to the high price of gold, some people said they plan to rent gold as a form of decoration for their wedding ceremony. Currently, many gold shops offer wedding jewelry rental services made of silver or 24K gold-plated metal. Customers complete the procedures at the gold shop and pay a deposit. The rental price is calculated by the day, ranging from 800,000 - 2,500,000 VND depending on the type of jewelry, payable before 12 noon the next day.
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Next: Golden wrists with ximen bracelets
Source: https://tuoitre.vn/nguoi-viet-va-giac-mo-vang-ky-6-ap-luc-vang-cuoi-thoi-tang-gia-20240518224916076.htm
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