A special day turned into a disaster for a Singaporean couple as a thief stole around $40,000 worth of red envelopes from their wedding reception.
The man, who was identified as Lee Yi Wei and was found to have gambled the money, was sentenced to a year in jail.
On Tuesday, June 24, he was ordered to compensate the couple.
His jail term would be extended by 100 days if he is unable to pay the money back.
The 36-year-old used to serve tables at the hotel in which the wedding was held and was familiar with its layout.
In Asian cultures, instead of gifts, wedding guests would rather give money, typically in red envelopes, to newlyweds as a sign of good luck.
These red envelopes are usually put into large boxes that are placed at a clearly demarcated table that guests pass by before entering the wedding ball.
Lee, who was not on the guest list for the early April wedding, stole two such boxes while they were unattended.
Upon realising the boxes were missing, the wedding organiser made a police report.
The court heard that Lee swiftly spent a few hundred dollars on clothing and gambled away Singaporean $12,000 in just four hours.
He then converted most of the stolen money into online gambling credits and placed 195 bets with those credits within three days.
Notably, by the time he was arrested, just two days after the crime, police found just S$3,000 from him.
