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| Students study fabric at the Weddings Beautiful China's wedding planner certification program in Beijing. (China Daily) |
Getting married in the world's most populous country is big business. About $57 billion is spent annually on 10 million weddings in China.
The money goes on pre-ceremony photographs, limousine rentals, wedding gowns and honeymoons. A tenth of the total expense traditionally goes to the wedding banquet, according to the China Wedding Industry Development Report.
About half of the couples getting married now turn to wedding planners, according to Weddings Beautiful Worldwide, a website with information on planning weddings worldwide.
When events and marketing professional Ling Ying decided she wanted to get into the wedding business, she looked to WBW to study wedding planning and receive certification. Not only did Ling go on to found Weddings by Ling in Beijing, she also contacted WBW CEO Gary Wright with a proposal that eventually brought his accredited program to China.
"The main reason why Ling felt it was so important to bring the program to China was because Chinese brides are now demanding better service and yet the industry as a whole was lacking a standard of excellence," says Raul Vasquez, president and an independent licensee of Weddings Beautiful China, and also Ling's husband.
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