Economy
The best choice: Big day, big difference
By Du Juan (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-09-13 11:21
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BEIJING - Sitting at a piano on a beach abutting the Aegean Sea in Greece, a man sings and plays a beautiful melody for his pretty bride and the guests.
After the song, the couple exchange shining wedding rings and then make a vow in the soft sea breeze to demonstrate their love.
It is the sort of wedding scene Zhao Zhan, a 25-year-old civil servant in Beijing, plans to enjoy next year.
"I am planning to invite 20 close friends and relatives to go abroad with us to witness the best moment in our lives," Zhao said.
He will pay the cost of the trip for his 20 guests. The budget for the Aegean Sea wedding is about 400,000 yuan.
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A model shows a diamond wedding ring during the Beijing Wedding Expo. Wang Jing / China Daily |
Instead of the traditional Chinese wedding with a big feast for 200 to 300 guests, Chinese young couples have begun to opt for more personal and simple nuptials featuring their personal interests.
Their individual characters are shown at every step of the celebration. The important thing for most couples is to be different from others, say observers of the latest marriage trends.
"It will be such a regret when we recall our memories with friends some years later and find out that we all had the same type of weddings if we did it the traditional way like thousands of others now," Ma Xuejing, a 24-year-old designer, told China Daily after her visit to the Beijing Wedding Expo.
She talked with many wedding planning companies and then decided not to hire any of them because she wants a wedding in her own style instead of the usual format promoted by most companies.
Ma has already started a skin-care and diet program because the couple plan to have their wedding photos taken in October.
"Wedding photos have become so boring in recent years because every couple goes to a studio, adopts similar poses and has the same photos taken," said Ma. "We asked the photographers to reproduce our past, which means we are going to the places we first met and visited to take pictures there."
For the wedding day, Ma plans to go to Europe with two other couples and have fun together. Her budget for this trip is 40,000 yuan.
"I felt the wedding had became a show for others when I went to the expo and saw so many business promotions there," Ma said.
"I want to enjoy a natural wedding. Marriage should be a relaxing occasion instead of becoming a burden of organizing an over-sized complicated event."
She will have a small get-together with relatives and friends and then go directly to Europe for the honeymoon.
Fortunately, Ma and her fiance's parents all agree with the plan.
Zhao Zhan doesn't share the same fate. In addition to his romantic wedding plans in Greece, he will hold a traditional wedding feast in China to which all family members and friends will be invited.
"However, I still don't want to follow many of the usual routines such as having three dresses for the bride to change into on the wedding day," Zhao said. "Why do we do these meaningless things?"
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Zhao is no fan of some aspects of the current trend for "low-carbon" weddings.
"They drive to work every day and do not to use wedding cars on the single most important day of their lives, he said. "Is this a so-called 'low-carbon' wedding?"
Zhao believes having a buffet at the wedding is more environmentally friendly than not having wedding cars.
According to the Mocha Wedding Planner company, Chinese people spend 5,000 yuan on a 10-person meal. There is always a lot of waste.
"People can never finish all the food on the table at the wedding. Why don't they serve less to achieve their low-carbon aim?" Zhao said.