China’s wedding photography industry worth $30B a year

World Today

Getting hitched is big business in China. The country’s wedding market is now estimated to be worth 800 billion yuan, or $130 billion. One of the key sectors reaping the revenues is wedding photography, with couples paying tens of thousands of dollars to get that perfect picture. CCTV’s Grace Brown reported from Beijing.

When it comes to taking wedding photos, Chinese couples are leaving nothing to chance and using all the props available.

“We first met in high school, and met again by chance, working together in Beijing. I think my fiancé’s photos today are beautiful and full of life. I’m doing this photoshoot for her,” client Wang Qingyao said.

It can be a painstaking process, involving a makeover and multiple costume changes. “Love Story in Rome” costs between five thousand yuan to 50 thousand yuan, or roughly $800 to $80,000.

“We offer a range of styles and settings here. We can also go wherever customers want. Bali, South Korea, Thailand, and Paris, we can go anywhere,” Wang Ziting, products manager of Love Story in Rome, said. “In 2013 we did 9,000 photoshoots. In 2014, we had 10,000. We had about 50 couples taking photos every day here, last year.”

Wedding photography is part of the multi-billion dollar marriage industry in China. And getting that perfect picture is something more and more Chinese couples can afford as incomes here continue to climb.

And with more than 10 million couples in China tying the knot every year, that’s a big market.