At Korean Weddings, Someone Writes Down Your Cash Gift (축의금)

The desk is the part that throws people. At a Korean wedding hall, before you get anywhere near the couple, there’s a table split into the groom’s side and the bride’s side. Whoever’s behind it takes your envelope, you write your name on the guest list, and you get a ticket for the meal.

The whole setup exists so that a record gets made. I think that’s the most useful thing to know before you walk up to it, because it explains the name, the guest list and even the meal ticket.

The name matters more than the envelope

The money is chuguigeum (축의금, “congratulations money”), which the Standard Korean Language Dictionary defines as money given to express congratulations. It doesn’t mention anyone writing it down, and that’s the part that lasts.

Here’s where the record gets used. In a survey released in August 2026 by the matchmaking company Gayeon, 1,008 people aged 25 to 39 were asked what they weigh when deciding how much to give at a friend’s wedding. Among married respondents, closeness came first at 70.7%. Second, at 60.6%, was how much that friend had given at their own wedding.

You can only weigh that if somebody wrote it down years earlier.

The same survey put the right amount for a friend’s wedding at 130,000 won on average for unmarried respondents and 290,000 won for married ones. Gayeon’s own explanation was that married guests often go as a couple, which pushes the figure up.

What people actually send

Surveys ask what feels right. I trust NH NongHyup Bank’s numbers a bit more, because they’re what people actually sent. Its report, published in May 2026, went through 5.33 million wedding gift transfers from 1.15 million customers between January 2023 and December 2025.

The average transfer was 110,000 won in 2023, 114,000 in 2024 and 117,000 in 2025. Fifty thousand won was still the most common amount in 2025, at 42.3% of transfers, but it had slipped from 46.5% two years earlier. The share of 100,000-won transfers rose from 36.1% to 39.7% over the same stretch.

For coworkers, the HR tech company Inkruit asked 844 workers in May 2025 what’s appropriate if you attend and eat. 61.8% said 100,000 won and 32.8% said 50,000. In its 2023 version of the survey, the top answer for a teammate you’re not close to had been 50,000, and Inkruit put the jump down to rising prices.

The meal ticket is part of the math

That “attend and eat” condition is doing real work, and so is the sikgwon (식권, “meal ticket”) the desk hands you. When the Korea Consumer Agency surveyed 370 wedding halls in 14 regions in April 2025, the median meal price per guest was 58,000 won. Seoul’s Gangnam area came in at 85,000, and Gyeongsang Province at 44,000.

Put those next to each other and a 50,000-won envelope, handed over right before a 58,000-won plate, costs the couple money on paper. The arithmetic is a little grim to me. I also wouldn’t want my name in the record next to a number that didn’t cover the plate.

There’s one kind of gift the desk never sees, though. Every one of NH’s 5.33 million records was a bank transfer, a gift sent straight to an account, with the sender’s name coming from the bank instead of a pen.