Puppy love: Canine weddings on the rise in China

It was a dream wedding, complete with picturesque outdoor setting, white lace gown and a delectable cake. The perfect day for golden retrievers – Bree and Bond – to tie the knot in front of their closest human and canine friends.
Pet weddings are on the rise in China, where government policies have had little success in encouraging more humans to wed in this fast-ageing society where the population is declining and marriage and birth rates remain low.
The popularity of pets and an increasing willingness to splurge on them are driving the trend. Spending on furry companions in 2023 rose 3.2% to 279.3 billion yuan ($38.41 billion) from a year earlier, industry figures show.
As of 2023, there were more than 116 million cats and dogs in urban China, according to figures by research firm Acuity Knowledge Partners. According to the research firm, if distributed evenly across China’s urban population, roughly one in eight Chinese people own a cat or a dog, with a majority of owners under 40.