(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-02-19 15:48

"There's a high demand for these goods as more people recognize the waste of spending a lot on things we only use once," Chen says.

Wedding expenditure in China usually covers clothes, jewelry, a banquet, photographs and the honeymoon.

A survey by the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Statistics showed newlyweds in Beijing spent an average of 53,645 yuan (7,457 US dollars) on their weddings last year.

The city's per capita disposable income was 21,989 yuan, meaning an average Beijing resident had to work more than two years to pay for an average wedding.

This year, costs are predicted to rise by 20 percent thanks to strong inflation and an expected marriage boom.

China's CPI (consumer price index) was up 4.8 percent last year, and jumped 7.1 percent last month year-on-year, mainly driven by food price rises, which were the highest in more than a decade.

Many restaurants have raised prices accordingly. Beijing's Great Wall Sheraton Hotel has raised the minimum price per table from 2,888 yuan to3,288 yuan, a total rise of 4,000 yuan for a 100-person banquet.

What's more, because it's the year of the Beijing Olympic Games, and the number eight is considered auspicious for wealth and fortune, a marriage boom looms.

The demand for hotels, wedding planning agencies and related services is already increasing.

Li Pei, of Shanghai Tiandi Wedding Service Company, says her company is already booked up till November, and, like other wedding planners, her company is raising prices by 20 percent this year.

"It's natural to raise prices as the demand rises," she says.

The increasing costs have failed to deter those with deep pockets. One couple in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, famously spent 10,000 yuan riding two Akhal Teke horses, of only five in China, into their wedding ceremony because they wanted "to feel like a prince and princess".

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