Sponsored weddings are on the rise but should guests still pay the hongbao price?

“People can accept the inequality when a celebrity is sponsored. But it is unsettling when a girl-next- door gets this sort of treatment. People feel jealous,” says Dr Wee, who runs her own consultancy and is also an adjunct associate professor at Nanyang Technological University’s Nanyang Business School.

This trend attests to the power of technology, she says.

“Technology empowers anyone to be an entrepreneur. In the past, you will need to find an agency to represent you. But today, all you need is a mobile phone and you can create a community. Build the community up to become sizeable, monetise it, and then it can feed you.”

She feels that there is therefore “nothing wrong” with what Ms Koh did for her wedding, because she had put in the “hard work” to build up a community over time.

“In fact, I give her credit. It’s a smart business move. Instead of posing for a wedding, she goes through an actual wedding with her business partners and followers, which is very authentic.”

“If she overdid it, followers will vote with their eyeballs and drop out of following her. In this social media age, today you can be hot, but tomorrow you are not.”

Fitness blogger Cheryl Tay, 30, who attended Ms Koh’s wedding dinner, says she enjoyed herself at the wedding, and that whether anything in the wedding was sponsored would not have had an impact on her hongbao-giving.

“The objective of giving a hongbao is not to help the person getting married recoup their spending. It’s about celebrating with them and wishing them well,” she says.

One of the earliest individuals who was able to harness the power of her reach for her wedding was blogger Xiaxue, whose real name is Wendy Cheng. The sponsorships for her wedding in 2010 included venue, food, photography and outfits.

Other influencers, however, choose to do away with sponsorships at their weddings.

They believe it will lead to an insincere experience for their guests, and because it also requires more work for them.

Events host Sara-Ann Krishnamoorthy, 38, got married in July and decided against accepting sponsorships.

She says: “Weddings are stressful enough. Why would I want to also worry about making sure I thank all my sponsors, and having to put up social media posts for them?”

“A wedding is supposed to be intimate and special. Sponsored things are great, but can lead to a wedding feeling really ‘jia’ (Mandarin for fake).”

Entrepreneur Cheryl Wee, 30, wed in July and accepted sponsorships for her wedding.

Because she doesn’t want to be seen as “taking things for free”, she gave her various sponsors hongbao after the wedding and also engaged some of them for her own events later on.

“The relationship between sponsor and receiver must be kept honest, fair and comfortable,” she says.

When contacted, Ms Koh and her husband James Chen, 28, both of whom are full-time influencers, say that they sought sponsorships, although “most came to us”. They also did not consider the option of not getting any sponsors.