Brides, pressure for perfection leads to multiple meltdowns

At first, Yang Liu didn't even want to have a formal wedding. Now the 30-year-old is struggling to retain her sanity and battling her fiancé's parents to maintain control of the biggest day of her life so far.

Yang's fiancé is Korean. Although they both work in Beijing, they've decided to go to South Korea to have the wedding. "I'm glad you called me," she said during an interview with Metropolitan. "I'm at the stage where I just want to talk to anyone about my situation and my troubles."

For example, she wants fresh flowers at her wedding, but the trendy thing in Korea right now is using plastic flowers.

"In China, we only use fake flowers for funerals," she said. "But in Korea, if you want to switch to real flowers, the fee goes up by 10,000 yuan ($1,600). So I can't ask them for more."

But there are also things she can't make compromises on, and she had quarrels several times with her fiancé. It's important that her fiancé often comforted her, she said, otherwise she would have exploded by now.

Many brides-to-be have the desire for a perfect wedding. However, in the process, they gradually realize it's almost impossible to achieve, and even trying it often leads to stress, fights and unhappiness.

If they are lucky, they learn a valuable lesson: life is full of little disappointments. But sometimes the process is so traumatic it throws the whole marriage off the rails.

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