Chinese Wedding Gold Jewellery - Recommendations

crzzf1 wrote: ↑ I am assuming you are buying dragon/phoenix bangles for someone whom will be getting married.

Unfortunately, legit gold jewellery are tied to gold commodity price in market. If this is a gift for someone, then you tend to want to buy with real gold if you still want to see them in the future. I and my wife checked luk fook back then for a pair of pure gold earrings to use for my wedding 2 years ago and the price is wayyy outside of my budget for using it once on wedding day. Luk fook pricing works something like price of gold + labour. Price of gold is align to the commodity market so that why you don't see a price on their website. I end up settling a pair of replica with my wife for wedding day for the show, .

gr8dlr wrote: ↑ +1 Replica may be the way to go.

I recognize that this is custom...but fact is no one wears this stuff. It get's put away into a safety deposit box and in some cases passed down to daughter or daughter in law where it goes into another safety deposit box.

kennhk wrote: ↑ Thanks guys! My fiancee is set on the bling, so happy wife happy life right? Will check lok fok out

SeeCCC wrote: ↑ Is your fiancée set on the bling because she truly wants them or is it just for photo ops? My guess is if you don't know where to buy the jewelry from your family isn't that traditional as gold jewelry is given as part of the tea ceremony by the elder generation. It's not something you should be worried about as both sides of the family will take care of it.

For my wedding I asked my mom and mother in law to let my family know I didn't want any gold jewelry and cash is preferred. For my mom and mother in law we spoke in advance and agreed on diamonds instead as I would get much more out of it on a daily basis. My mom got me diamond earrings and a pearl necklace and earring set and mother in law a tennis bracelet.

For photo ops I spoke with my mom and mother in law in advance to borrow their bangles so it looked "traditional" in the photos.

All my relatives from Toronto did cash but the ones from HK still felt obligated to buy gold jewelry. They've been sitting in the safety deposit box and haven't seen the light of day since the wedding.

crzzf1 wrote: ↑I am assuming you are buying dragon/phoenix bangles for someone whom will be getting married.

Unfortunately, legit gold jewellery are tied to gold commodity price in market. If this is a gift for someone, then you tend to want to buy with real gold if you still want to see them in the future. I and my wife checked luk fook back then for a pair of pure gold earrings to use for my wedding 2 years ago and the price is wayyy outside of my budget for using it once on wedding day. Luk fook pricing works something like price of gold + labour. Price of gold is align to the commodity market so that why you don't see a price on their website. I end up settling a pair of replica with my wife for wedding day for the show, .

crzzf1 wrote: ↑ To each on their own, I applaud you have very accommodating family and in-laws.

Chinese moms waited many years to buy these gold dragon/phoenix bangles and put on their daughter/daughter in-law for the big day moment. The risk of telling my mom not to buy gold at all is not worth it in my opinion because it could start family fight which soon-to-be-married couples want to deal with. As much as RFD discussion is meant to save money, but using money to save wedding day headache certainly need to put into consideration carefully.

Chinese moms will not cheap out with buying gold because they think do it once and do it right. I doubt any parent would want to put these bangles on her same daughter for a second time. In fact it's almost a competition between mom and MIL whom has the better bangle. You must have a lot of courage to persuade your mom and MIL to borrow.

gr8dlr wrote: ↑ +1 Replica may be the way to go.

I recognize that this is custom...but fact is no one wears this stuff. It get's put away into a safety deposit box and in some cases passed down to daughter or daughter in law where it goes into another safety deposit box.

thriftshopper wrote: ↑ Is this Cantonese or perhaps specifically H.K. custom?

StatsGuy wrote: ↑ nope...chinese...mainland included. definitely not a HK or canto only custom. i've seen so much bling at mainland chinese weddings ...probably not in villages etc as they are not likley to have the means historically to have much gold

miningminer wrote: ↑ yea you people are nuts. I'm 32 and I loved buying gold for my wife for her wedding gift. She got a bunch of 24k gold and jade from my family too. This is family heirloom stuff that was passed from grandmother to my mother now to her. If you're asking for cash you're clearly missing the point of the gift, its something sentimental and it's purpose is to sit in the safe deposit box and not be spent on the next iphone that you will never remember again in 10 years.

I mean it is pretty selfish and vain of you to call something passed on generationally to you to be useless or a waste of money because you can't wear it out in public or spend it right away.

And for the legit answer to where can you find the best deals, like the poster said above gold jewelery is always valued at weight of gold + jewelers fee. You will never save any money on the weight of gold, the price is determined by the spot market that day you can look up anywhere. The savings is on the jewelers fee which is a huge ripoff in Canada. For example if you buy a 18k gold necklace in a random store here, the gold weight may be worth $200 and the jewelers fee might be $300 and you pay $500. In asia you see the same necklace, gold weight $200 and jewelers fee $20 price is $220. That's how you gauge how good of a "deal" you're getting, as them how much does this weigh and what is the karat, google the price, and subtract that from the price tag.

This is also why the older generation are so comfortable buying gold in asia, you don't get ripped off. It's a currency you can wear and walk into any other gold shop and get 98% of the weight back on resale. Compare that with something like the stupid pandora bracelet my wife got with little charms, price tag $700. Resale value... probably $50?

sponge5307 wrote: ↑ Some of us don't really mind or care like my sister/ my wife or even my aunts. We are pretty much all grown up in BC. Beside is not money is that we rather my mom or garandma not to spend the money when all these things will just sit in a deposit box. They could better use the money on themselves like going on a nice vacation, having a nice meal and not so tight on money. Beside some of us don't even have a deposit box at a bank so liiterally I have 60k + of these gold jewley sitting at home.