China News Service, Lijiang, Yunnan, October 8 (Han Shuainan, Zhao Qingzu) During this year’s National Day holiday, at the Blue Moon Valley Scenic Area in Lijiang City, Yunnan Province, the melting water of the snowy mountains reflected the autumn light. The newlyweds Li Zhe and Yang Siying from Guangdong completed their wedding ceremony by the lake with the snowy mountains as the curtain. "Ten years ago, we each traveled to Lijiang; this time we come again to put the two fates together." Yang Siying said. What further pushed the two to make up their mind was the cost-effectiveness - for a cost of more than 10,000 yuan (the same below), makeup, dress, private transportation, and accommodation were all-inclusive, making a "destination wedding" a perfect success.
Zhao Chengyu, a young man from Gansu who also chose to get married across provinces, was interested in "lightweight". He said that the wedding was arranged in Dali, Yunnan, and only a dozen of the closest relatives and friends of both parties were invited to witness it. The ceremony ended at noon. We took wedding photos in the afternoon and stayed at a B&B on the Erhai Lake in the evening. "Changing the banquet to a 'small ceremony + travel photography + short honeymoon' will cost less and make people more relaxed."
On October 3, a couple took wedding photos at the Blue Moon Valley Scenic Area in Lijiang, Yunnan. Photo by Zhao Qingzu
Instead of the traditional wedding banquet process and social interactions, "destination weddings" are becoming a new choice for many Chinese young people.
In Yunnan Province, which has unique scene resources such as snow-capped mountains, plateau lakes, ancient cities, and seas of flowers, many wedding agencies have quickly caught up with this market demand and established an integrated service chain of wedding photography, weddings, accommodation, and honeymoons. Zhang Xiaoqiong, a practitioner in the wedding industry in Lijiang, said that after guests place orders online, the agency will arrange the itinerary in advance, pick up the guests at the airport, check in, and schedule photos as soon as they land. It is a one-stop service. "The passenger flow during the National Day holiday is the peak period of the year, and more than 20 couples are served every day."
On October 3, the Blue Moon Valley Scenic Area in Lijiang, Yunnan attracted many couples to travel and take photos. Photo by Zhao Qingzu
According to data from the Yunnan Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism, Dali will host about 5,600 destination weddings in 2025, achieving an output value of about 280 million yuan, and serving about 220,000 pairs of travel photography consumers throughout the year; Lijiang's wedding photography and travel photography business entities will increase from 83 in 2015 to 2,056 in 2025. In 2025, it will receive about 90,000 pairs of wedding photography and travel photography customers, and the comprehensive expenditure will exceed 1 billion yuan.
Cao Zhonghua, director of the Marriage Industry Working Committee of the Chinese Traditional Culture Promotion Association, said, "The new generation of young people are no longer satisfied with the same hotel wedding ceremony. What they desire is a unique expression of love and a precious memory created with relatives and friends."
Nowadays, “destination weddings” are becoming a new trend. More than 5,000 high-end weddings are held in Sanya, Hainan every year. Qingdao, Shandong has built 11 unique marriage registration sites such as Loverba Lighthouse and Yunhai Tian. Pingtan, Fujian, has launched small island weddings relying on windmill fields and coastlines. In May 2025, the newly revised "Marriage Registration Regulations" came into effect, making marriage registration "universal across the country" and lowering the threshold for obtaining certificates in other places, which also "added fuel to the fire" to this trend.
Cao Zhonghua believes that China's wedding industry is transforming from the traditional "wedding and banquet economy" to the "emotional experience economy", which has given rise to the explosive growth of the trillion-level blue ocean market of "wedding + tourism". Wedding tourism will present three major trends: deep cultural immersion, extreme personalization, and sustainability and community symbiosis. In the future, the integration and innovation capabilities of the wedding industry chain will face new tests.
