Professional bridesmaids are making their mark by helping young couples realize the wedding of their dreams as the ‘sweet economy’ picks up in the aftermath of the pandemic. Li Xiaoyun reports from Hong Kong.

Professional bridesmaid Charlotte Kan strikes a pose at a wedding held in Sha Tin, Hong Kong, in January. (PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)

To meet the growing demands of brides-to-be among the younger generation, paid bridesmaids are turning professional, cashing in on the swift growth of the “sweet economy”.

Professional bridesmaids attend to new couples during their marriage rites, soothe the bride’s emotions, help her get dressed up to the nines, and change into wedding dresses for different occasions.

Charlotte Kan is a secretary at a Hong Kong-based asset management company but, off the clock, she has played professional bridesmaid for nearly 30 couples, earning about HK$4,000 ($512) a month. In July, Kan set up a team of bridesmaids with three friends, specializing in attending to bridal functions.

Surrounded by flowers, balloons and champagne, being a professional bridesmaid would seem to be a dream part-time job, but it is also a demanding role that requires meticulous attention to detail and exceptional adaptability.

Kan says these traits align perfectly with her own personality, allowing her to enjoy the role. Before each wedding, she carefully double checks on everything to ensure it is all perfect. She recalls that during one routine check, it was found the groom had inadvertently left behind the bridal bouquet. But, thankfully, the oversight was detected in time, and was solved by arranging for a taxi to deliver the bouquet to the wedding venue. The sight of the taxi arriving there with just a bunch of flowers left a lasting impression, she says.  

Kan’s decision to become a professional bridesmaid arose from a personal experience. She had been a bridesmaid for a close friend and lent her car and apartment for the big day. She felt that being a bridesmaid was quite tiresome. But the bride said it was what a bridesmaid should do in return for her red packets.

The experience inspired Kan to explore the concept of being a bridesmaid and turn it into a “business”. In January 2021, she posted her first advertisement on a trading platform, offering her services as a professional bridesmaid for hire. In the beginning, she received few responses, as hiring a bridesmaid could lead to assumptions that the bride’s relations with her friends were poor, plus the effects of the pandemic.

For that reason, keeping it a secret that a bridesmaid has been hired is of great importance to Kan’s clients. She would meet the bride before the wedding for a meal and they then follow each other’s social media accounts. The purpose is to gain a comprehensive understanding of the bride, so that they won’t appear as strangers at the wedding. In the eyes of guests, Kan has to be the bride’s long-lost “classmate” or “friend”. 

Based on Kan’s experiences, couples opting for the services of professional bridesmaids do so for two main reasons. Some brides are worried that their friends lack a bridesmaid’s experience and so might fail to handle unforeseen challenges at wedding functions, while others might have problems in finding same-age peers as bridesmaids, as many young people are away from Hong Kong pursuing their studies or careers abroad.

On the Chinese mainland, the demand for professional bridesmaids is driven by the custom that a bridesmaid must be unmarried, says Gong Wenli, who has thrice worked as a professional bridesmaid in Jiangxi province. She says the tradition has made it particularly challenging for couples who are tying the knot later in life to find single bridesmaids within their social network.

Couples are not the only ones seeking the services of professional bridesmaids. Molly Chen, who works in Hong Kong, has acted as a bridesmaid for three of her closest friends in the past 12 months, having traveled to the mainland’s Hebei and Heilongjiang provinces, and to Los Angeles in the United States. She says wedding rituals vary significantly in different regions and, being an outsider unfamiliar with local customs, she often finds it challenging to navigate unforeseen situations at ceremonies. In addition, the long hours of travel left her exhausted. Chen says she would be willing to help other friends find professional bridesmaids who are well-versed in local traditions if they need such services.

According to Kan, the busiest period she experienced was in November 2022, when she was booked every weekend for a total of six weddings, earning HK$1,500 to HK$2,000 on each occasion. “The demand for professional bridesmaids has gone up this year as life returns to normal following the pandemic,” she says. 

Besides the surge in demand for wedding ceremonies, there’s popular belief that 2023 is an auspicious year for couples to get hitched as it features a “double spring and a leap month” in the lunar calendar, which has also contributed to the robustness of the wedding market, says Tony Ma Chung-kit, CEO of ESDlife — a Hong Kong-based lifestyle information platform.

A survey released by ESDlife last month showed the number of marriages registered in 2023 is expected to reach 42,247 — a significant rise of 40.8 percent from last year’s 30,012.

A rise in the number of marriage registrations has been seen on the mainland. According to the Ministry of Civil Affairs, some 5.69 million couples got married in the first nine months of this year — an increase of 245,000 over the figure for the same period last year.

The fact that more couples are walking down the aisle has given the “sweet economy” a boost in Hong Kong and on the mainland. 

ESDlife found that the value of Hong Kong’s wedding market this year is projected to reach HK$16.14 billion — a notable increase of 58 percent from a year earlier and a rise of 6 percent, compared with the pre-pandemic level in 2019. 

On the mainland, Guangdong is among the provinces with the highest demand for wedding services, as the number of newly registered wedding planning enterprises there had reached 13,400 by October, surpassing the total number for 2022, according to Qichacha — a data bank tracking business registration information.

Although not all wedding service firms have in-house professional bridesmaids, they can help clients to hire one if they need. However, many couples still adopt a wait-and-see attitude.

Julie Zhang, who will return to her hometown in Zhejiang province from Hong Kong later this month for her wedding, says she would not hire a stranger to be her bridesmaid out of safety and reliability considerations.

Such worries are not limited to couples. Many young women interested in becoming professional bridesmaids are also deterred by concerns about personal safety.

It seems the zeal and passion for the role do hold sway, quite apart from the financial rewards.

Contact the writer at irisli@chinadailyhk.com