Sending out invitations to your wedding? Never do this

Here’s a tip for prospective couples: don’t mess with tradition.

Unless you want a storm of negative comments on social media, you’d better stick to the usual practice when handing out invitations to your wedding.

Rule No. 1 is that the invite must come with a cake voucher and a red packet.

When a woman sent an invite with discount coupons and cash vouchers and no red packet, she became an internet sensation for the wrong reasons after the recipient posted the offending gesture online.

More than 240,000 views and 1,000 comments later — most of them disparaging — the couple have yet to make amends, causing the whole saga to take on a life of its own.

The poster said the invite had been left on his desk with — horror — a post-it note attached, telling him not to be late for the wedding banquet and to bring his own lai see packet.

The invitation envelope contained a few discount coupons and some cash vouchers.

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Netizens criticized the couple for penny-pinching and being mean.

Others said the whole thing smelled gimmicky, probably a marketing stunt by a merchant who supplied the coupons.

Cheung Chung-yu, vice chairman of the Hong Kong Wedding Management Association, had two words for it — strange and insincere.

He said it was the first time he had heard of such a thing.

“It’s strange to hand out offers that recipients can only benefit from by making a purchase,” Cheung said.

However, he said it’s not uncommon for some brides to resort to cheaper cake vouchers, reduce the number of banquet tables or cram an extra person to a table to cut cost.

Wedding planner Sharon Au said discount vouchers go against Chinese tradition and their use could subject a couple to ridicule.

Au said cake vouchers in wedding invitations began as a way for Chinese parents to announce their daughter’s impending marriage.

And many people think not having cake vouchers in wedding invitations is a disgrace, she said.

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