Global Times reports on “wedding scalpers,” or individuals who book venues on auspicious dates for exorbitantly high prices:
My friend Xiao Xu and his wife-to-be were at least as worried as happy by their upcoming wedding. Their parents asked the couple to hold their wedding party by the end of the year. But they were not able to book an appropriate hotel, since the schedules on all the auspicious dates had been reserved.
Helpless and desperate, Xiao Xu logged on a local forum. To his surprise, several posts offered to “transfer” their wedding party reservations at decent hotels and on perfect dates, but he needed to pay for an extra 2,000 yuan ($294) as a “transfer fee.”
Wedding party scalpers aren’t new. They’ve been around since at least 2008, when they bet on the “Olympic Year” and the traditionally lucky number 8, so that dates like August 8, 2008 was then considered “thousand-year’s golden opportunity” for a lucky marriage.
