Small is beautiful, say South Koreans making plans to marry
SEOUL (Reuters) - The night before their wedding, Kim Kwang-yoon and Cho Jin-oh were up until 2 a.m. with the bride's mother, setting tables. Their marriage venue: a room in the basement of Seoul city hall, rented from the government for $60.
With South Korea's average wedding expenditure last year at nearly $64,000, or about double that of the United States, more citizens are spurning lavish events for smaller functions as the economy slows, the age at marriage rises and parents nearing retirement have less money to splurge.
South Korean weddings are typically a show of status, with hundreds of guests and expensive gifts. The average expenditure, from a survey by wedding planner Duo, excludes the cost of housing, traditionally provided by parents.
"I felt that if I don't like getting invitations from people I don't know very well, they would feel the same. I wished for my wedding to be celebrated by people I wanted there," said Cho, 32. She and her 34-year-old husband paid the $10,000 cost of their recent wedding themselves.
Huge marriage expenses prompt more young people to delay marriage, and consequently children, worsening one of the world's lowest birth rates in a population that is ageing the fastest in the industrialized world.
http://news.yahoo.com/small-beautiful-south-koreans-making-plans-marry-025134959--business.html
Here is a link to the video report: http://dinkyurl.com/cSPkNf
This topic compliments the one about the Japanese population problem, since Korea is essentially in the same boat.
Given the lavish weddings in Korea, it is good to see some take a different approach. According to the article the average cost of a wedding last year was $64,000. We had our reception 9 years ago and it cost about $3,200 then, which was with no ceremony and didn't include the cost of our hanbok (paid by my in-laws) or the trip we took to China (self-paid).
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