[pacman]

My girlfriend and will visit HK for 4 weeks this august and plan to get married there

Seeing that I haven't had much response with my "all-in-one-question" about getting married in HK, which I posted in the "Visiting HK" section of this forum, here are just the shopping related questions:

1) Wedding rings:
How is the price for gold or platinum in HK compared to other places?
And where should we go if we want to get a good deal but not get tricked? Or a more important question: which shops/places should we stay clear of?

We would also like to have our rings engraved (some Chinese characters would be a really cool and different memory from our wedding) -where do we get this done, and does it usually take a long time (many days)?

2) "Cheongsam"/"Qi pao" dress.
My wife-to-be would like something different than the traditional white wedding dress, and a Chinese Cheongsam or Qi-pao dress would be nice. Actually several different styles/colors if the price isn't too bad.
How much should one expect to pay for these and where is a good place to buy?

3) For myself I would need a suit. I hear that tailor-made suits is what people go for when in HK. Are these expensive? How much would I have to expect to pay for a good looking suit which I could use for my wedding, and also other occasions?
Does it take a long time to get done, and where should I go?

Again, I don't want to get ripped off

Thanks.

[lynx_virux]

There is a wedding expo at Hong Kong Convention & Exhibition Centre Hall 7 on 14-16 Jul 2006. In fact there was one ended yesterday. You can visit it if you are here then.

1) Wedding rings:
The price varies. YOu can go to Nathan Road (in Mongkok or Tsim Sha Tsui district) and there are many chain jewellery shops. YOu ring could be engraved there. I don't think chinese characters could be engraved as ti's too complicated. Sometimes those shops may offer you a discount. If you want to have luxuary wedding rings, you can visit Penenisula Hotel or Central where Tiffany and Cartier situate.

2) "Cheongsam"/"Qi pao" dress.
You can rent the attire here. Many shops have packages of renting 4-5 attires for 3 days and 2 nights in about HK$4000. Ofcourse, you can alter the package. Many of those shops can tailor made attires or just sell a new attire. Traditional chinese wedding dress is called "Kwan Kua" here. A second hand kwan kua is about HK$2000-3000 and a pair of new shoes cost about HK$200.

There are 3-4 shops renting kwan kua only in Shanghai Street (near Temple Street). Some shops in Kimberly Road rent western and chinese attires. Golden Shopping Acrade in Nathan Road (Prince Edward district) is a shopping mall only for wedding stuff but many people comment that shops there are not reliable. Some shops in Central rent wedding attire in good quality and they are pricey.

Some samples of "kwan kua" for your reference.
http://www.koonnamwah.com.hk/qungua.html (Dress A-J are for brides. Dress A is the most expensive, more than HK$20000 for a new one.)
http://www.wing-wah.com.hk

3) For myself I would need a suit.
I'm not sure about the tailor made men's suit. YOu can go to the shops I mentioned above to have a look.

Email me if you need more help as I am not always visiting here. norpambm@hotmail.com

[EUChinese]

Originally Posted by lynx_virux

There is a wedding expo at Hong Kong Convention & Exhibition Centre Hall 7 on 14-16 Jul 2006. In fact there was one ended yesterday. You can visit it if you are here then.

1) Wedding rings:
The price varies. YOu can go to Nathan Road (in Mongkok or Tsim Sha Tsui district) and there are many chain jewellery shops. YOu ring could be engraved there. I don't think chinese characters could be engraved as ti's too complicated. Sometimes those shops may offer you a discount. If you want to have luxuary wedding rings, you can visit Penenisula Hotel or Central where Tiffany and Cartier situate.

2) "Cheongsam"/"Qi pao" dress.
You can rent the attire here. Many shops have packages of renting 4-5 attires for 3 days and 2 nights in about HK$4000. Ofcourse, you can alter the package. Many of those shops can tailor made attires or just sell a new attire. Traditional chinese wedding dress is called "Kwan Kua" here. A second hand kwan kua is about HK$2000-3000 and a pair of new shoes cost about HK$200.

There are 3-4 shops renting kwan kua only in Shanghai Street (near Temple Street). Some shops in Kimberly Road rent western and chinese attires. Golden Shopping Acrade in Nathan Road (Prince Edward district) is a shopping mall only for wedding stuff but many people comment that shops there are not reliable. Some shops in Central rent wedding attire in good quality and they are pricey.

Some samples of "kwan kua" for your reference.
http://www.koonnamwah.com.hk/qungua.html (Dress A-J are for brides. Dress A is the most expensive, more than HK$20000 for a new one.)
http://www.wing-wah.com.hk

3) For myself I would need a suit.
I'm not sure about the tailor made men's suit. YOu can go to the shops I mentioned above to have a look.

Email me if you need more help as I am not always visiting here. norpambm@hotmail.com

Am I right? different colour of Kwan Kua represent diff thing. If it is your first marriage you should wear the china red, pink colour for second or > marriage ? -

[antenna]

Below is my suggestion:

1) wedding rings:
u can go to some large chinese gold shop , eg. chow sang sang, chow tai fook etc. In Kowloon side, they mainly locate in Nathan Road ,TST. In Hong Kong side, they mainly locate in Henessary Road, Wan chai and Causeway Bay.
For the price from HK$1000 up for a pair, but subject to gold market price, as you know the price of gold is rising.

2) "Cheongsam"/"Qi pao" dress and Men's Suit:

I always come to this shop to order my tailor suits , their workmenship is very good. And I had ordered a tuxedo suit at here for my wedding early April, it's around HK$3,500 including a tuexdo suit, dress shirt and a set of Bow and cummerbund. You can try it, they can finish it within one week.
I know they have serveral package about it.

Qi Pao, I just know this tailor shop also do it, but I don't know about the price and detals.

Anyway you can email to them: mortailor@biznetvigator.com

I saw their company details at this site's listing: MOR TAILOR

[lynx_virux]

Originally Posted by EUChinese

Am I right? different colour of Kwan Kua represent diff thing. If it is your first marriage you should wear the china red, pink colour for second or > marriage ? -

You are partly right. As far as I know, but it's not for Kwan Kua. Kwan Kua is mainly red color. A bride would wear pink evening gown in a banquet if it's the second or > marriage.

This page shows the dresses for brides
http://www.koonnamwah.com.hk/main03.php

This page shows the dresses for mothers, or any older family members of both families.
http://www.koonnamwah.com.hk/main04.php

[lynx_virux]

For the wedding rings, i've just heard from a wedding newsgroup that chinese characters could be engraved inside them.

[pacman]

Originally Posted by lynx_virux

There is a wedding expo at Hong Kong Convention & Exhibition Centre Hall 7 on 14-16 Jul 2006. In fact there was one ended yesterday. You can visit it if you are here then.

Too bad. We're leaving for HK on the 22nd of July, so it's too late
Less than a couple of weeks left. So much to plan, so little time....

1) Wedding rings:
The price varies. YOu can go to Nathan Road (in Mongkok or Tsim Sha Tsui district) and there are many chain jewellery shops.

Thanks for those suggestions. I'm a little wary of the TST area (yes, I used to live in HK, but that's ages ago, and I was only a kid back then, so I have to relearn a lot of things now). I remember it as a typical tourist and rip-off area. I'd rather shop where the locals go and (hopefully) not get ripped off. Mongkong sounds better. But perhaps the problem with being ripped off is mostly those neon-lit electronic/camera shops?

We were thinking that instead of the traditional gold rings we would have something different and modern (in style and material), like titanium, tungsten or platinum. I assume platinum is even more expensive than gold, but have no idea what tungsten or titanium rings costs -do you (or anyone else reading this) know? Just so we have a rough idea in comparison to here.

I see that in another posting you found out that the rings can indeed have Chinese characters engraved. That's very cool!
Since it's a Chinese forum you heard it from, would you mind asking where you can get this done, if you have to buy the ring at the same place (and if so, do they have good deals?) and how much it costs?
That would really make our wedding a special memory for the rest of our lives, because we'll always remember HK when we look at our rings :-)
Any suggestions for appropriate characters that could be engraved? I'm open for suggestions.

2) "Cheongsam"/"Qi pao" dress.
You can rent the attire here. Many shops have packages of renting 4-5 attires for 3 days and 2 nights in about HK$4000.

Phew!!! I had no idea it would be that expensive!!! And that's only for renting!
I think it's over our budget unfortunately.

Traditional chinese wedding dress is called "Kwan Kua" here. A second hand kwan kua is about HK$2000-3000 and a pair of new shoes cost about HK$200

I see from those links you've given me that this is very different from what we thought were traditional wedding attire in HK. Is it that Cheongsam is a modern style, and not used for the actual wedding ceremony, but the bride changes to a Cheongsam after the actual ceremony, and during the evening? I've heard that a bride may change to 3 or 4 different Cheongsams during the evening, all in different colours and styles.
So we thought that Cheongsams wouldn't be that expensive.

I think a Cheongsam will look better on my wife-to-be, and also something she can use for other occasions, which is the idea. In situations where she'd use a dress she could wear a Cheongsam, like parties, celebrations, formal occasions etc. It would be a special memory from HK and a little different from what everybody else wears.

I was told about a place called Chinese tailor which according to their website seems to only do mail-order for customers in the United States. I have however mailed them now to ask if they have a shop in HK. We were hoping that a Cheongsam could cost something like less than HK$ 1000, and according to that site, even mail-ordering from the US will be cheaper than that (I'm guessing and hoping that prices in HK are cheaper than this company which probably operates with "western prices" when selling abroad).
Here are some example pictures of the typical Chinese Cheongsam dresses which we are thinking about.

Where do we go to buy these kind of dresses without paying too much and also getting quality? I remember seeing a lot of these kind of things around TST, but I suspect "tourist prices" and bad quality. Where do locals buy Cheongsam, and how much do they pay?

Email me if you need more help as I am not always visiting here. norpambm@hotmail.com

Thanks. I've posted here (so others can join in and comment) as well as mailed you directly.

[pacman]

Seeing that I get such good replies here, I dare get a little off-topic from the original question about Cheongsam and wedding rings...

Since we're getting married in HK we would like to make the occasion a little different and memorable, so we were thinking why not have things a little in the way HK locals have their weddings. It's only the two of us travelling alone, so there won't be any organizing or big, expensive wedding dinner/party.

But we want a nice meal of course on that special day. Problem is that I'm out of touch with where to go etc. as it's ages since I lived in HK, and we really don't know where to go to eat. But we were thinking that it would be special for us to have a traditional HK wedding dinner. Is it possible to have that just for two people? Or are wedding dinners only made if there are 100 people etc?

Suggestions? Comments?
If a traditional Chinese wedding dinner can't be done for two people (or it's way too expensive for us), what else could we do?
Coming all the way to HK we surely don't want to end up in a western style restaurant and have something we can have any day at home

[Hoi_Ka]

You really want a Chinese style of wedding dinner? Wedding dinner for locals has nothing different from an ordinary Chinese dinner. They all have the same set of menu, roast pig, chicken, shark fin, fish, seafood etc, the portion are huge, normally it's for table of 12. The prices depends on the quality and use of different ingredient. Top quality of shark fin will cost you more etc. Rate starting from $5000HKD per table up to $15k, drink inclusive.

Anyway, not sure if restaurant can make the wedding dinner for two, I guess it's no problem if you can gather a table of 10+ and order the same food as a wedding diner. You have any friends in Hong Kong? Why not share the joy with all the GeoExpat friends?

Congratulation to you and your wife-to-be for a happy and merry life.

[connecta]

- wedding rings:
gold rings are quite cheap in hkg, as in most cases they trade just a little bit above their pure gold value in comparison to european countries, where you have got a charge for the design and maybe even VAT.

simple platinum rings are available at around HKD 4,000 and above. but i haven't seen any titanium nor tungsten rings here in hkg. but if you don't want to have standard gold, then a relatively cheap alternative would be white gold. it's a bit yellowish in comparison to platinum, but most are applying some kind of rhodium (or whatever) coating to make them appearing whiter.

chinese engravings are possible and usually this can be done with the same shop by the next day or even within an hour.

- wedding banquet:
i agree with hoi_ka that a typical chinese wedding banquet is usally for multiple tables of 10-12 persons. while it is in theory no problem to have 80% of the courses cut down for only two persons, it might be more difficult with the standard banquet dish 'roasted suckling pork'.

there are cheaper prices of around HKD 3,500 per table in the new territories, but it will be a challenge when negotiating the terms with a restaurant manager in the new territories who probably won't speak english that well. and bargaining might be necessary, as paying 12 persons food for only 2 is definetely too much and some might have a minimum table number for wedding banquets (but offer in return limousine service etc.).

another option would be to simply contact a not so expensive hotel in hkg offering wedding banquets (most hotels have such offers on their websites), whether they would offer just the banquet food for two persons. this would enable you to get a first feeling even before your arrival in hkg. it might even be that you could strike a special deal with the hotel you are staying during your HKG visit (e.g. including one night in their honeymoon suite, but the rest of the nights in a standard room).

---

ah and regarding the friends: usually it is a chinese custom to give the married couple small red envelopes with some money to bring them luck. this money is usually more or less the guest's share on the costs of the wedding table to not make it too much of a financial burden. so it's maybe really worth considering it and having the opportunity to get lots of photos without having to ask the waiter only occassionally to not freak him out.

congratulations from me as well and good luck with all the preparations!