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.
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.
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.
“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.