Here Comes the Bill

Elite weddings get more extravagant as time goes on, to the glee of wedding planners and hotel owners, and the detriment of bank accounts across the country. What are we spending all that money on?.....

Start with a venue: The Shubra Palace has been pretty popular in recent years, and will charge LE 40,000 for every 250 guests. You’ll need to bring in your own catering though, which will run anywhere from LE 10,000 all the way up to LE 50,000 and beyond. The more popular venues are running at breakneck pace during the popular wedding periods: Golf City, whose open-air venue was a hit in recent years, held 20 weddings in the 14 days after Eid, while the JW Marriott held a whopping 52 weddings in August alone.

The bride will need to look even more radiant than the opulent surroundings, and radiance doesn’t come cheap. The cost-cutting couple might be able to find a decent wedding dress for LE 20,000, but designer gowns are where it’s at these days. They begin at LE 60,000 and head ever upwards to a sky-high LE 500,000 for top-notch Milanese products.

All those guests need to be entertained, which comes at a cost that is anything but entertaining: You’ll be lucky to get away with paying LE 15,000 for a lesser-known singer. Tamer Hosni is a relative bargain at LE 40,000, compared to someone like Amr Diab, who won’t show up for less than LE 200,000. If you want to please the eyes as well as the ears, a dancer like Dina will charge anywhere from LE 12,000 upwards. And pity the poor folks whose weddings aren’t in the heart of downtown — high strung entertainers like Hakim will charge an extra LE 5,000 to make it out to venues like the JW Marriott, just 10 minutes from Heliopolis.

Link to full story