Wedding organisers under fire in Qatar for demanding up to $44,000 for reception
Wedding hall owners in Qatar have come under intense fire for raising their rates in anticipation of the series of marriages to be celebrated after Eid Al Fitr.
A Central Municipal Council (CMC) member, Mohamed Khamis Al Ali, said halls were now demanding up to QR160,000 ($44,000) for a wedding reception.
“It is an exorbitant rate. A marriage is already an expensive proposition for a young Qatari and now the situation became more complex with wedding halls upping their rates,” he said. “Marriage is a vicious debt trap for a young Qatari. Right from dowry (meher) that the groom gives to his prospective bride, to expensive gifts to holding costly receptions — everything entails huge expenditure,” he said, quoted by Qatari daily The Peninsula.
More expenses ensue as the couple moves into a rented house after the wedding because, according to Qatari tradition, a newly-married couple must live separately, he said.
Al Ali said there was no reason for hall owners to raise their charges. “We do not know the reason…. They just want to exploit the situation.”
Some halls charge QR50 ($14) to QR75 ($21) for a chair, but with inflation galloping in recent years, many young Qatari men and women choose to remain unmarried, the council member said.
Some limited-income families said that they have been forced to postpone the marriages of their young sons and daughters until prices went down.
He suggested that the government build wedding halls and rent them to nationals for token fees, like in some other Gulf countries.
However, Hamad Al Buanain, wedding organiser, said status-conscious Qataris were to blame for the fees hike.
“If we reduce the charges, we have to use cheaper materials which Qataris would not appreciate due to the one-upmanship factor. If one family spends exorbitantly on a marriage, the other wants to spend even more to show off,” he said. “Every family wants the stage for the bride and the groom to be expensively decorated. We even buy materials from overseas. If one hall owner reduces the rate, his business would suffer. Therefore, the government should force all owners to reduce their rates,” said Al Buanain.
