Shanghai Street View: Wedding Excess 沪经动向：婚礼过度

This week I thought I’d write about a topic that’s become quite popular these last few years, and also quite expensive and a bit excessive in my view: the big-ticket wedding. Before I start with the news item that was the basis for this column, the controversial opening of designer Vera Wang’s first China bridal shop here in Shanghai, I’d like to start by talking about the many things that I like about Chinese weddings. Like their counterparts in the west, Chinese weddings can come with a wide range of traditions for the bride and groom to choose from, which are both fun and add to the air of festivity with minimal extra cost.

Perhaps my favorite is the tradition of the bride getting “kidnapped” by her bride’s maids on her wedding day, forcing the groom to “negotiate” her release. The fast-moving, good-natured talks usually take place with one of the bride’s maids acting as chief negotiator, as the groom offers cash and various other incentives for the release of his bride. I also like the visits by the bride and groom to their parents’ houses, where respects are paid and the groom formally asks his bride’s parents for their daughter’s hand in marriage.

Lastly there are the actual wedding banquets, which are usually rowdy affairs attended by hundreds of people, ranging from close friends and relatives of the bride and groom to people they don’t even know. I particularly like the “variety show” format that many of these banquets take, with an emcee often presiding over events attended by a hodgepodge of guests dressed in everything from formal suits to jeans and T-shirts.

So now that I’ve mentioned all these things that I like about Chinese weddings, I want to move on to the one thing I find a bit excessive: the endless, all-day photo sessions that the bride and groom often engage in, usually a week or 2 before the actual wedding. Those sessions see the new couple have their photos taken wearing a wide range of suits and wedding dresses, as they travel around to parks, city streets, famous landmarks and just about anywhere else while their every move is chronicled by professional photographers. I should also add that these marathon photo sessions most definitely don’t occur in western weddings, and seem to be a particularly Chinese or Asian thing aimed at creating the perfect fairy tale wedding.

Against that backdrop, I’ll bring up the news item that seems linked to this particularly excessive element of Chinese weddings. The controversy began in the last couple of weeks shortly after Vera Wang opened her flagship China bridal shop for business. Her choice of Shanghai for the shop seems appropriate, due to the city’s wealth and also its western orientation. After all, these are dresses that cost hundreds of thousands of yuan each, a sum that most Chinese would never even consider and could hardly afford. Located in the trendy Xintiandi area, the store is spread over 2 levels and offers and has 3 bridal lounges and a VIP suite.

It seems the store hasn’t formally opened yet, but is already allowing women to come in for fittings. But what has raised the controversy — and ire — of many future brides is the fact that the shop is charging a non-refundable fee of 3,000 yuan, or nearly $500, for anyone who wants to try on a dress. What’s more, the store is the only Vera Wang shop in the world to charge such a fee. Outrage has been spilling out on the Internet over the fee, with many people calling it outrageous and discriminatory against Chinese. A few defenders do point out that perhaps the fee is aimed at stopping people from trying on and photographing themselves in Vera Wang dresses, and then taking the photos to cheaper shops to have knock-off versions made.

In my view, the fee seems aimed at curbing the kind of photo-obsessed brides I previously discussed. I can completely imagine many status-conscious, eager Chinese brides-to-be coming to Vera Wang along with their tuxedo-wearing husbands, and then having their pictures taken wearing the expensive dresses to add to their wedding photo albums. Of course most such brides have little or no intention of actually buying a dress, meaning the shop will have to waste valuable time and resources catering to these people with zero chance of becoming real customers.

So for that reason, I completely support this kind of fee, as brides simply looking to be photographed in a Vera Wang gown with no intention of actually buying a dress are far less likely to go through this kind of charade if they have to pay a non-refundable 3,000 yuan fee. At the end of the day, I suppose all of these wedding traditions are aimed at helping to make a day that both the bride and groom can remember in vivid detail for many years to come, complete with pictures and other memorabilia to show to their friends, children and grandchildren. But I personally think that some of the practices have become a bit overblown, such as this Asian photo obsession, and thus fully commend Vera Wang for helping to clamp down on some of the excess.