More often than not... the most stressful question for women who are past what Korean
society deems as the ripe age for marriage is...
WHEN they are going to tie the knot.
That said,... times and traditions are steadily changing...
with more Korean women feeling comfortable putting that plan on hold... or just choosing
to stay single.
Kim Hyesung reports.
Classy, glamorous, elegant.
Thirty-three year old Kang Bo-hyun, trying out different wedding gowns to find the one
just for her.
"It's so pretty.
Doesn't it look good on me?"
But this bridal wedding photo shoot is a little different.
Have you noticed?
There's no groom.
It's a solo wedding shot.
I "I'm in my thirties... and I want to leave a wedding shot of me when I'm young and pretty.
So I came here today to take pictures at a professional studio."
At around 300 U.S. dollars, the studio provides dress fitting, hair, makeup, bouquet, and
photo shoot.
Basically, the traditional couple wedding shot service package minus the actual ceremony.
The studio CEO says as a growing number of single women in their late 20s and 30s come
for the service, demand for solo wedding shots has gone up by 150% on-year.
"The term 'solo wedding shot' was coined just two years ago after a reality show featured
single female celebrities taking bridal wedding shots.
A couple of years back, customers were shy and asked if there were people taking wedding
shots by themselves.
Now, customers bring pictures asking "Can you take one like this?"
Solo wedding shots have become a new trend in our industry."
"In addition to capturing youthfulness and beauty by taking solo wedding shots, a small
but growing number of single Korean women are freezing their eggs in case they want
a baby later in life."
In this oocyte bank, eggs are frozen at minus 210 degrees Celsius until they are thawed
for artificial insemination.
Egg freezing started in the 1990s in Korea to help female cancer patients facing chemotherapy,
as their eggs and fertility system could potentially be damaged.
But recently, egg freezing has expanded to single women in their thirties.
This fertility center which charges around three thousand dollars to freeze eggs, has
seen the number of eggs increase 17 fold in the last five years.
"More women are freezing their eggs, thanks to an improvement in freezing methods.
We extract around seven eggs at a time and the survival rate after defrosting is over
80 percent.
Another reason is a growing number of single women in their 30s freezing their eggs, mostly
with professional careers who want to save their eggs before the age of 35 or 37 as a
kind of insurance."
A woman is born with all the eggs she'll ever have, around 2 million eggs in their ovaries
from age one.
Eggs can't be produced, the number just keeps decreasing as women age until the menopause,
with 35 marking a turning point.
The older the egg, the more problems it could cause, such as chromosome issues that could
result in birth defects."
Single women who want to expand their reproductive options are choosing to freeze their eggs,
and according to Statistics Korea, more women are getting married with men younger than
them.
The total number of marriages in Korea has been declining, while marriages between older
women and younger men continue to increase, reaching over 36 thousand last year, and accounting
for more than 15% of total first time marriages.
"During the industrialization period, people married for various reasons, like having babies
or for economic reasons.
Traditionally, the Korean family was one with the husband, older than wife, being the breadwinner.
But now the concept of an optimum age to get married, between 26 and 28 for women is gone,
especially as more women enter the workforce.
In Seoul alone, around one in five women aged between 40 and 44 are single.
Staying single or marrying late is no longer deemed abnormal in our society."
More Korean women are choosing to stay single or put off marriage.
It's a change which isn't good or bad.
But one thing's for sure.
It's creating new trends and is set to diversify Korea's traditional family structure.
Kim Hyesung, Arirang News.