Japanese company organizes weddings for single ladies

A Japanese travel agency is offering "weddings" for single women to encourage them to have "positive feelings about themselves".

Cerca Travel's two-day "solo wedding" package enables women to choose their own bridal gown, bouquet and hairstyle before taking part in a photo shoot in the city of Kyoto.

The company's website says it is offering the opportunity to "experience the feeling of being a princess" to single women who are not sure if they will get married but want pictures of themselves in a bridal gown while they are "young and beautiful".

The "tour" comes with a wedding dress or bridal kimono, hairstyling/makeup, a photoshoot, the images from the photoshoot, hotel accommodation, taxi rides involving the studio and the shooting location, and a bouquet. It only costs ¥300,000 (about $2,500) if you want to put on a wedding dress and ¥380,000 for the bridal kimono. There are also some sweet optional add-ons like a Japanese man to be your stand-in husband for images, dinner for two with the tour coordinator "if you're feeling yourself a tiny bit anxious and you do not want to consume your dinner alone," and a spa remedy. This could be the wedding of your dreams.

Considering that the service launched in June, about 30 girls from all more than Japan have taken the tour and become "solo brides." Interestingly sufficient, Cerca Travel says half of these females were basically married but did not have a wedding ceremony or basically did not like the 1 they did have.

"I always wanted to wear a wedding dress and I didn't want to regret it, but I also didn't want to pester my boyfriend," says one woman on the Cerca Travel website.

Another woman tells Kyodo news agency: "This package boosted my sense of self-esteem… the effect was equal to a more extraordinary experience, such as visiting a World Heritage castle."

Cerca Travel President, Yukiko Inoue said she created the package "to encourage women to have positive feelings about themselves," but admits that "some people have said it would be 'lonely, miserable and sad' to use it".

Cerca Travel also offers a "broken heart taxi" tour in which customers can change their hairstyle, let go of their negative thoughts at Yasui Konpiragu shrine and forget their worries while shopping for "cute Japanese craft items and miscellaneous goods".