Suzhou wedding market: The perfect hunting ground for 'The One'

Married friends tell me that finding the perfect wedding dress is like choosing the right man to wed: you often have to patiently sieve through a heap and may sometimes have to try on some cringe-worthy “What was I thinking?” fits before you find the perfect one.

But you should never settle for anything less.

Suzhou’s wedding market -- the largest in China -- is a wedding dress hunting ground.

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To take it on I channel my inner bridezilla and jump on the fast train from Shanghai to find the dress of my dreams. 

If “The One” -- that is the perfect dress -- really exists, it would be among the offerings in more than 1,000 stores with bridal dresses in styles ranging from traditional to Victorian and even punk rock.

Their cheapest item is a plain off-the-rack taffeta dress for RMB 1,400 and their most expensive transaction was a RMB 6,000 dress custom-made for a Swedish client. It had a three-meter train and weighed almost five kilograms.

Taking on the wedding market

Established in the late 1980s around an already thriving local silk industry, Suzhou’s wedding market quickly outsized older markets in Guangzhou and Chaozhou with low prices as its main draw.

Brides from across China have been known to flock here for frocks that cost just RMB 200 (US$30) to RMB 2,000 (US$305) apiece. 

Unlike the big boulevard of swish boutiques that I had imagined, the Suzhou “market” turns out to be a mass of standalone shops scattered across four sides of a large and busy traffic junction at the foot of Huqiu, or Tiger Hill, a well-known tourist attraction. [Editor's note: directions on getting there at the end of the story.]

Decide if quality or budget is your priority, as that helps to determine where to start your search.

Stores along the main road tend to have pricier dresses (RMB 800-2,000) made of higher quality fabrics with neater hems while prices in stores along the back alleys are much lower (RMB 200-800), but could end up looking cheap.

A general way to gauge a shop’s prices is to look at how well furnished its interior is.

As the bulk of business for shops here come from making wholesale trades rather than from walk-in customers, store assistants tend to be less pushy and starting prices tend to be much less of a hike from the real price. 

Let the shopping begin.

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My first stop is at one of the stores facing Huqiu Lu, right next to the junction.

Prices here start from RMB 800 for a knee-length tulle frock and go up to RMB 2,000 for a hoop-skirted, floor-length dress with embroidered flowers and lots of lace.

There are also evening gowns in all shades.

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When I balk at the RMB 1,600 price tag of a satin off-white dress with a corset bodice and a pouf skirt, the store assistant drops her price to RMB 1,300 without much persuasion.

Not wanting to commit to the first find, I say it was still too pricey. She shrugs, apologetically saying that this was already the wholesale price and does nothing as she watches me walk away.

The second shop I enter sits right beside the first one, except its door front faces a side alley instead of the main road, which instantly halves prices. 

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“Want to try? Try on both or as many as you want, no problem,” says a smiley store assistant as I stroke a cream colored satin dress displayed on a mannequin (RMB 420) and chuckle at a short dress with a tulle train skirt (RMB 360) -- perfect for a rock and roll-themed wedding.

I am led up a narrow flight of carpeted stairs to a luxuriously furnished fitting room on the second floor.

The upper level was three times as large as the first floor and shelves holding over 200 dresses line the walls -- a common set-up among many shops, I would later find out.

The cream dress fit perfectly but the gold lace trimming on the bodice is slightly tacky. For no extra charge, says the shop assistant, I could customize the bodice by choosing a style I liked from among the other dresses on the racks. 

The best strategy is lots of patience and stamina.— Ge Chengjun, shopper at the Suzhou wedding market

Its all in the details

Making a dress from scratch usually takes four days to a week. Some shops can have a dress ready on the same day if you only need minor alterations, as the "factories" -- typically small workshops of 10 to 20 seamstresses each -- are scattered all around Huqiu. 

If you are too lazy to make a return trip to Suzhou, most shops can messenger dresses to Shanghai or other parts of China if you pay for transport fees (RMB 5 to 15).

Should an overdose of white chiffon and gossamer set in -- as it did for me after three hours -- there are options aplenty for those seeking something different.

I spot a burgundy, velor bell-sleeved Shakespearean dress for RMB 1,800, a flamenco-esque black and red lace dress for RMB 640 and even a bum-skimming ballerina frock with a see-through lace bodice for less-than-virtuous brides.

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Veils and gloves are usually thrown in free but they are often of poor quality -- you’re better off forking out a bit more to buy them from the myriad of accessory shops in the area (RMB 10-30 for veils, RMB 20-50 for gloves). 

Men’s suits start from RMB 350 for a regular all-black one, and go up to RMB 800 for more outrageous styles like an English guardsmen blazer or an Italian mafia-style suit. 

Shopper’s paradise

Shanghai-native Ge Chengjun, 27, was one of the scarce customers I bump into shopping that Friday afternoon. The engineer took the day off work to shop because he wanted to avoid the weekend crowds.

He was looking to spend RMB 400-500 on a wedding suit.

“I know it won’t be top quality but I’m only going to wear it for an hour or so when I go and pick up my bride. I’ll change to a proper suit after,” says Ge.

He hopes to buy a better-quality second suit from a Shanghai tailor closer to their wedding day next February.

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His fiancee, administrative assistant Wang Weijie, 26, was returning to collect the dresses she had tailor-made a week before.

With her bridesmaid in tow, Ge had spent the entire day dress hunting.

She eventually has five dresses -- two white dresses, a red qipao, a blue evening gown and her bridesmaid’s dress -- made for RMB 800 in total.

With no specific dress design or shopping plan in mind, she picks shops based on the dresses they displayed outside.

I spotted a burgundy velor bell-sleeved Shakespearean dress for RMB 1,800, a flamenco-esque black and red lace dress for RMB 640 and even a bum-skimming ballerina frock with a see-through lace bodice for less than virtuous brides.

“The best strategy is lots of patience and stamina,” says Ge, who had heard about the market from other Shanghainese friends and online forums.

Ms Xu, a store assistant at Yi Shi Qing Yuan, which specializes in whimsical, colorful gowns popular for wedding shoots, says that shops are busiest during the Shanghai Wedding Expo in February, and around May 1 and October 1, “When most couples can take time off to go somewhere scenic and take pictures.”

Expanding markets

A relatively new entrant to the market, Rong Xianfeng, 24, opened his bridal shop, Jing Hua Yuan, a year ago.

Sited in the newly renovated shopping complex just outside the entrance to Tiger Hill, prices in Rong and his neighbors’ shops are much higher compared to those across the road.

“I wanted to run my own business and it seemed like there was a good opportunity in Suzhou,” says Rong who graduated with an economics degree from the Anhui University of Finance and Economics last year.

He manages the coffers while his younger sister designs the dresses.

“Though there is more competition, the market is so big that I’m not worried,” he adds.

“We try to offer better quality and newer designs at lower prices, which not everyone can offer because it depends on your relationship with your suppliers.”

The siblings browse through bridal catalogs from the United States and Europe to get ideas for their designs. Clients can also bring in pictures of designs they like. 

Prices start from RMB 1,400 but can go much higher depending on the complexity of the design.

The Rongs also target international markets through their online store on Alibaba.com.

Their cheapest item is a plain off-the-rack taffeta dress for RMB 1,400 and their most expensive transaction was a RMB 6,000 dress custom-made for a Swedish client. It has a three-meter train and weighs almost five kilograms. 

But how does one sell wedding dresses online, when they usually have to be tailor-made?

Duan Guohua, 40, a proprietor whose family-run business also has a virtual storefront on Taobao, points out the extra fabric stitched along the hems and zipper of each dress.

“Customers can buy dresses from us cheaply and then alter them at their neighborhood tailor closer to the wedding day,” he explains.

The bridal business only makes up half of the Duan family business. They also produce men’s suits and school uniforms, but expanded into making wedding dresses eight years ago “because everyone seemed to be profiting from it.” 

Back then, a dress could fetch RMB 80 to 100 in profit, but today Duan takes in only RMB 10-20 in profit from each dress he says. On average, he gets about 50 walk-in customers a month.

The bulk of his clients are middlemen who then sell the dresses to bridal shops and wedding exhibitors across the country.

With all that talking and not enough shopping, I notice that the closing time was fast approaching (most stores open at 9 a.m. and shut at 6 p.m.) so I eventually do what every prospective bride is warned not to do: I settle.

I eyed a dress with a feather bodice and flouncy multi-layered tulle skirt among Duan’s shelves and it fits like a glove.

Although not quite something I’d walk down the aisle in, at the cost of only RMB 280, it could be "The Fun One" for the traditional Chinese photo shoot. I make a mental note to come back with more time and patience to seek "The Actual One."

Thankfully, unlike with husbands, a girl can have more than a few wedding dresses at once.