Slowdown doesn't slow down wedding expenses

By Tan Yingzi (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-05-04 08:40

Feng Lina feels blessed to have celebrated her wedding on a warm and sunny Saturday afternoon in a year considered auspicious for tying the knot.

But the build-up to her special day wasn't easy.

"It was so difficult to book tables for the May Day holiday," the 28-year-old naval officer told China Daily Sunday.

"In the last two months, my husband - a 30-year-old marketing executive - tried all his contacts in the hospitality industry to get 12 tables at a five-star hotel but none offered any discounts."

So the couple coughed up 4,000 yuan ($570) per table at one of them, which hosted four wedding banquets at the same time.

The May Day holiday - traditionally popular on the wedding calendar - has kicked off the marriage season across the country as most couples opt for the late spring months.

Though the global financial crisis has hit many industries hard across the country, wedding planners are excited to see a big jump in the number of newlyweds in 2009 as most Chinese believe it is a good year for nuptials.

"Nine sounds similar to the Chinese character 'forever' which is considered a blessing," Yang Se, CEO of leading domestic wedding information portal www.idoido.com.cn, told China Daily. "We expect a 50 percent rise in the number of weddings this year."

It is estimated that about 10 million couples get married each year in the country, spending nearly 300 billion yuan on the celebrations, according to the latest wedding industry report.

In big cities such as Beijing and Shanghai, each couple spends between 50,000 and 100,000 yuan on wedding days, including the planning fee, the banquet, the photo shoots, rings and costumes, Yang said.

"We have spent at least 100,000 yuan," said Feng. "The global financial crisis didn't affect our wedding budget."

Experts believe that the wedding industry will play an important role in stimulating domestic spending during the economic slowdown.

But some wedding planners have found that people are tightening their belts.

"Couples are spending less," Cao Jingtao, a wedding planner in Beijing, told China Daily. "They are not as lavish as before and many are choosing a simple wedding."

Young photographer Zhu Pei, who is busy preparing his mid-May wedding in Wuhan, Hubei province, said he has decided to have a simple Chinese traditional wedding.

"It is a trend to be prudent during the economic slowdown, right?"