By Chong Zi (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-02-04 17:09

A report by the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Statistics and the National Bureau of Statistics found that in 2007, newly-weds in Beijing spent 53,645 yuan per person on their wedding.

The survey of 764 urban couples who got married between 2003 and 2007 showed that married people now fall into the 25 to 30 age group.

Their wedding expenditure usually covers clothes, jewelry, a banquet, photographs and the honeymoon.

For those with deep pockets, their weddings are more luxurious with a banquet at a five-star hotel.

In this country, a couple first goes to the civil affairs office to register their marriage. They are legally wed after the registration, but their marriage is seen as incomplete until they have a wedding reception, a thing most Chinese take as being much more important than registration. The couple invite relatives and friends to a banquet, where they exchange the vows of "I do" and receive blessings. The final matrimonial step is the honeymoon.

The importance people have been attaching to their weddings has produced a new breed of professionals - wedding planners. Wedding planning agencies take care of most weddings in the cities.

The baby boomers born in the 1980s are approaching the legal age of marriage. These young people are big spenders.

As a result, the wedding planning business is going to boom in the next few years.

The amount of money people spend on weddings does not necessarily help them to keep a long-term relationship.

Chinese demographers and sociologists differ on the divorce rate.

But one thing is for sure, China's divorce rate has been increasing in recent years.

A demographer from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences said that China's divorce rate had surpassed that of Japan and South Korea. In China, Beijing ranked first.

However, the divorce rate has had no effect on young couples spending lavishly on their weddings.

A wedding is taken as an excuse to show off rather than a declaration of a lifelong commitment.

As wedding costs soar, lawyers are also reaping a fortune handling divorce cases.

Many white-collar workers have their property notarized before walking down the isle. It helps smooth a messy divorce.

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