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Feature: Bulgarian wedding industry shows glamor ahead of high season

Xinhua, January 25, 2015 Adjust font size:

Over 53 leading companies displayed the best of the bridal industry during the Seventh Balkanica Wedding and Honeymoon Expo, trying to attract customers on the eve of the high season.

The visitors of the two-day annual event, which began in Sofia Hotel Balkan on Saturday, can get acquainted with proposals for bridal dresses and cakes, wedding parties and photo services, fireworks and jewelry.

Indeed, the Bulgarians usually get married at the evenings in May, June and mostly in September, while in winter weddings are in principle held "only if the bride is very pregnant," Emilia Lukanova, manager of Aegean Fashion Group, told Xinhua.

Recently, the number of marriages in the country is much lower than 15 years ago, according to the National Statistical Institute. For example, in 2000 it was 35,164, while in 2011, 2012 and 2013 it went down to 21,448, 21,167 and 21,943 respectively.

However, Lukanova, who offers bridal dresses and everything related to the organization of weddings, said the number of big-budget weddings has increased.

Based on data from the exhibitors, the cost of a wedding ceremony is not small in the Balkan country, where the average monthly salary is of some 470 dollars.

According to Lukanova, the price of a nice wedding dress starts from 860 U.S. dollars, and taking into account that the usual number of guests is about 100, it means another at least 570 dollars for decoration, and normally from 2,800 to 5,700 dollars for food and drinks.

More and more people liked to order a fireworks show, Radoslava Koleva from Fireworks Tornado said. Her colleague Dimitar Dimitrov told Xinhua that the conduct of classical fireworks costs from 850 dollars to 1,145 dollars. When the fireworks are synchronized with the music, it can cost twice as much.

Almost 99.9 percent of the fireworks on the Bulgarian market was made in China, because its price was only 10 to 20 percent of the fireworks made in Europe, while the quality was almost the same, Dimitrov said. Endit