Vietnamese and the dream of gold - Part 6: Pressure on wedding gold prices during the time of rising prices

Giving gold is a beautiful traditional feature in weddings but also puts pressure on poor families when gold prices are high - Photo: DIEU QUI

The recent surge in gold prices, leading to an increase in wedding gold prices, 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 to "look good" 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 brother initially gave her mother 10 million VND to buy gold for her sister and her husband. "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 high, 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 tradition, 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 during the day but sleepless nights worrying about wedding gold, Ms. Nguyen Thi Mai, 25 years old, in Quang Ninh also just held her wedding right 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 "outclassed" in front of her in-laws. Mai's friends initially planned to give her gold, but later changed to giving her cash as a wedding gift.

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." The issue of how the gold is exchanged in the wedding is also of interest to many people in the area. 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 gold there is, and then go home to 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 had 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, that the bride would wear a necklace, a bracelet and a necklace on the wedding day. Rich families had all three of those items, ordinary families could have two.

Families with more difficult circumstances 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 up 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 price to drop a bit and then gradually bought it 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. Gold rings are worn all over their hands, sometimes they drop them at the wedding without them knowing. 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.

Choosing the right type of 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), the groom-to-be, 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 wedding concept, 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 collateral. "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 transportation, 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," Mr. Khoa confided.

Gold prices are fluctuating every day. Mr. Khoa said he has been monitoring the gold price every day these past few days, waiting for it to drop a bit more and then buying to get as much relief 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 shopping for 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 bustling with talk about buying and selling, families with happy events are worried about how to buy a dowry that will bring joy to both families...

Many people, especially in the countryside, like to wear ximen and wear dozens of bright gold bracelets all over their arms. Besides jewelry, many people also have the opinion... where there is a person, there is a person.

Rent gold for wedding ceremony

Due to the high price of gold, some people said they plan to rent gold as a 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