On the night of June 5, 2007, the 508-meter-tall Taipei 101 building, the world's tallest, was illuminated with the words "Marry me? Diana." Such a romantic gesture had many in Taipei wondering who the lucky woman was. Local media reports soon revealed that the Diana in question was Diana Chen, chairperson of Taipei 101, and the illumination was, in fact, a publicity stunt launched by Taipei 101 itself to herald its entrance into the wedding service market.
With an emphasis on custom-built services, the company aims to serve clients rich enough to pay NT$10 million (US$307,692) for such an ad that will run for two weeks. Taipei 101 is also introducing three service packages based on customers purchasing gift certificates to a value of NT$500,000 (US$15,386), NT$1.5 million (US$46,153) or NT$3 million (US$92,308). While using these certificates to shop in 101's resident boutiques, couples are entitled to shoot their wedding photos, rent a wedding site and hold a banquet within its facilities.
Taipei 101 is striving to provide those about to marry with a one-stop shopping service to take the pain out of organizing their dream wedding. It is, therefore, negotiating with renowned bridal gown suppliers, hairstylists, makeup artists and photographers to set up shop in its mall.
Taipei 101's recent entry into the wedding service market is symptomatic of current expectations of the sector's business potential. Ministry of the Interior statistics show that 142,800 couples married in Taiwan last year, and average spending by each couple on their wedding is running at NT$500,000 (US$15,386), making the domestic wedding market worth NT$71.5 billion (US$2.2 billion) in sales annually.
Taiwan's increasing affluence and the growing emphasis placed by couples on having a distinctive wedding have fueled the popularity of wedding planners. Many related enterprises, including bridal shops, hotels and restaurants, have sought to enlarge their operations and call themselves wedding planners.
For Confiance, Taiwan's first wedding planner, established in 1996, the market has come a long way. "When we set up our company, this kind of business was just not recognized. Most people had no idea what a wedding planner did," says Sharon Chen, vice president of Confiance. "So we had to rely on the patronage of our own friends to build our name bit by bit."
Upper-Class Appeal
Michelle Koo, daughter of business tycoon Jeffrey Koo, chairman of the Chinatrust Group, is the chief executive officer of Confiance. She was educated in the United States and once helped organize her three brothers' weddings. She got to know about the massive undertakings a wedding involved and when she found related services were not available here, she saw a business opportunity.
Initially the company had a celebrity clientele, including Chen Chih-chung and Chen Hsing-yu, son and daughter of President Chen Shui-bian. Sharon Chen admits that this has left the general public with an impression that wedding planners are only for the rich and famous, a stereotype that in the last few years she has been working hard to change.
On another front, stronger competition in the market has driven down service fees for wedding planners as well as the quality of the product. Sharon Chen sees her task as establishing some kind of professional standards in an area which, at the moment, is a free-for-all.
"In the past, this industry had quality but no quantity, but later on it had quantity but no quality," she says. "Now is really a transition period and the industry will become healthier after unqualified players are eliminated from the market."
She thinks a professional wedding planner must excel in planning, coordination, integration, execution and tackling contingencies, as well as have a good knowledge of local customs and traditions.
"Our ideal is to help organize a wedding that combines the western romantic style with traditional Chinese customs for average people," she says. "In particular, Taiwan has many interesting customs that have significant implications. We like to let young couples know about them and decide whether to adopt them."
For instance, when the bride gets in the car prepared by the groom and is about to leave her family home, she is supposed to throw a fan out of the car window as a gesture of leaving all her bad habits behind. And the mother has to pour water on the doorway after the wedding car departs, signifying once the daughter is married, she should follow her husband and not return, just as spilt water cannot be gathered up.
Chen says that young people are nowadays far more opinionated and have very strong ideas about what they want at their wedding. Hence, her first job is to talk to the couples to find out what they want and then decide on a theme for their wedding before moving to formulate the whole scheme.
For example, one couple recently wanted to emphasize environmental protection in their ceremony. Accordingly, the banquet served vegetarian food for guests to enjoy and reusable chopsticks for them to use and take home, she says.
The Importance of Networks
One of the most important aspects of the wedding planning business is putting together networks of business partners. After all, the planner must outsource most of the key functions. "To cater to various customer needs, our work has to cover everything from decorating the wedding site, hiring a band and a photographer to finding a caterer. That necessitates good networking," she says. "Plus, we need to offer a number of packages at different price levels for customers to choose."
In its wedding planning service, The Precious Moment seeks to attend to details, ranging from lighting, music and menus to flower displays. (Courtesy of The Precious Moment)
To popularize its services, Confiance has unveiled two packages at NT$30,000 (US$923) and NT$50,000 (US$1,538). "We want to promote wedding planning as a professional service through our quality work and affordable pricing," she adds.
Last year, about 100 couples used Confiance's services, posting sales of NT$40 million (US$1.2 million). The company hopes to raise this to 150 couples and more than NT$50 million (US$1.5 million) in sales this year.
The company plans to expand its business from the capital, Taipei, in the north to the central and southern parts of the island, as well as organize courses for talent cultivation. Afterwards, it will seek to lure overseas Chinese and foreigners to come to Taiwan to hold their weddings and honeymoons, citing Taiwan's strengths in bridal photography, delicious cuisine and scenic attractions.
The Precious Moment Taiwan Ltd. is another established wedding planner. One company project, themed "Early Spring Chinese Garden," was a 2004 Gala Award winner in the Best Wedding category of the U.S.-based Special Event trade show's international banquet competition, making it the first Asian company to garner such a prize in the contest's 20-year history.
With a floral focus, the theme incorporated traditional Chinese symbolism and modern creative touches. Many of the more traditional motifs used the color red. Representing good fortune, bright red made its way into the design theme through the extravagant usage of cockscombs, lilies and dahlias in the site decoration.
In addition, gold-on-red calligraphy scrolls were used to cover the ballroom's bland pillars. And the pillars' surrounding beds of rose petals that served as a foundation for sprays of phalaenopsis orchids did double design duty in that rose petals were used for their red color, as well as being symbols of love in Western culture.
"Wedding planning is a western concept. Nevertheless, while absorbing western methods, I have been making the effort to devise weddings in a Taiwanese style," says Kao Yi-ching, director of The Precious Moment. "Winning an international award proves that I've found my own way that can work well."
Exceptional Demands
The most gratifying part of working on a wedding, Kao says, is meeting difficult and demanding design objectives. In recent years, more and more Taiwanese born and educated in the US have returned to Taiwan to hold their weddings, and planning for such events often calls for special attention.
"In the West, the couple getting married are the leading characters in the ceremony, whereas their parents play only supporting roles. But I prefer to stick to the traditional Chinese practice in highlighting both as the main figures," she says. "My design ideal is to cater to the expectations of the young and old generations alike."
Many traditional Chinese customs, Kao says, are meaningful in showing respect to the elders and should be preserved. For instance, a proper engagement ceremony, in which a matchmaker formally introduces the two sides to each other and makes a formal proposal, is a tradition worth preserving. Another one is that, on the wedding day, before leaving home, the bride shall kneel down, together with the groom, before her parents to thank them for bringing her up.
The Precious Moment started as a flower shop in 1990 and has since gradually broadened its business scope to include event design and execution, commercial space decoration and wedding planning.
"Though I didn't officially offer wedding planning services until 2004, I'd been preparing myself for this for 14 years," Kao says. "Years of doing the decor at wedding sites had acquainted me with the whole procedure and the know-how of creating the desired atmosphere. And that's my competitive edge."
A wedding planner, Kao maintains, must attend to details, ranging from lighting, music, menu, flower displays and the order and procedure of various rituals, to the gifts to be given away to guests. Moreover, he or she must be creative and good at communication.
veryWed.com functions as an information platform, as well as a channel for consumers and the wedding industry to interface. (Photo by Chang Su-ching)
"I'm like a storyteller, trying to tell a love story that can touch everyone," she says. "What every couple wants is a unique, personalized wedding that can showcase their personal lifestyle and taste, in addition to revealing a sense of bliss. My work is to address this aspiration."
Kao's vision is to serve Chinese anywhere in the world as well as to participate in more international competitions. "I'd like to let the world know that, apart from information technology talent, Taiwan also has wedding planning specialists and they've built their own brand names," she says.
In the near future, Kao intends to establish another brand name to target middle-class clientele while continuing to use The Precious Moment to serve high society.
Uses of the Web
In recent years, another type of wedding service has quickly gained popularity in Taiwan in the wake of rapid technological development and changing consumption habits.
"Technology ought to be associated with people's lives to warrant its existence, and that's the idea when we set up our Internet company," says Hsu Shu-fu, business development director of veryWed.com. "Given that the majority of people will get married and thus demand is always out there, and the complexity of preparing a wedding, nuptials-related services should be made available."
In 2000, therefore, Hsu created a specialized wedding Web site that acted as an information platform. Since then, the site has seen annual growth of 70 percent in hits and 40 percent in advertising revenues.
"Though the number of couples getting married is declining on the island, people tend to put more emphasis on the quality of their ceremony and are willing to pay for it, so the related market value hasn't seen noticeable shrinkage," he says.
In principle, what Hsu's Web site offers is an information forum. Wedding goods suppliers and service providers can advertise their business on the site, while consumers can search the information as well as exchange their personal experiences regarding holding weddings on the message boards.
"We function as a channel for consumers to reach the wedding industry, and vice versa in an efficient way that saves on time and energy. And consumers can tailor-make their own combinations from some 400 merchandise and service providers on our Web site, based on what they want and how much they want to spend," he says.
Hsu explains he mainly utilizes the concept of community to run his Web site and places an emphasis on interaction in that the users can pose their questions, needs or photos, whereas others can make response or sharing.
More than 90 percent of his Web site content is provided by consumers, he says. And the opinions they present can push suppliers to raise their game to stay afloat in a highly competitive market. Meanwhile, veryWed.com conducts regular evaluations of its advertisers in which those who have purchased their products or services evaluate them. The idea is to pinpoint both good companies and bad for the benefit of others.
Another successful wedding Web site operator is Kute.com that started operations in 2006 and began to make a profit in its third month. It is an online shop that sells a variety of wedding merchandise and services.
"Our sales show that we are on the right track and that we're serving a clientele that was previously neglected," says Lucile Lo, Kute.com's marketing director. "People can order nearly every wedding 'must-have' at affordable prices directly on our Web site and at any time, sparing the hassles of shopping around."
Lo says her company cooperates with a few reputed wedding service providers, including bridal secretaries, photographers, florists and stylists after strict screening and adopts a fixed price strategy for the same service item. Thus, the customers do not have to spend much time making comparisons.
"Our target clients are middle-class couples who cannot afford a wedding planner, but desire to obtain integrated, organized services. They can simply tell us their wedding date and place. Our planners will then provide them with a selection of options on which they can make the final decisions," she says.
Lo has seen an increasing number of her clients coming from among Taiwanese living abroad. "For those living overseas, they usually have only one to two weeks to come back to Taiwan to hold their weddings. Through our services, they can settle most of the stuff online before their return. That's really very convenient for them," she says.
To consolidate its credibility, Kute.com also operates a bricks-and-mortar shop, which customers can visit if they want. "The shop helps us gain greater trust from potential buyers by showing we really exist, given the prevalence of fraudulent dealings on the Internet," she says.
Apart from developing more new products, Lo says her company would like to team up with Internet portals and other Web site operators to expand its sales channels.
"Nowadays, most people are busy with work and at the same time they want their wedding to be different and reveal a personal style. Plus, they are smart shoppers seeking a good buy. All these tendencies drive our business," she says.
Write to Kelly Her at kelly@mail.gio.gov.tw