With each passing year, Ukrainians spend millions of hryvnias more on special wedding services
With each passing year, Ukrainians spend millions of hryvnias more on special wedding services offered by civilian registry offices, known commonly by the Russian acronym “ZAGS,” which stands for “registration of acts of civilian status.”
A recent report issued by the Justice Ministry said that state coffers are growing every year as new couples opt for more than just marriage certificates when they decide to tie the knot.
Experts say the tendency will continue as personal incomes rise. The marriage boom in 2007 can also be explained by generational demographics and superstitions, according to experts.
Higher incomes, better demographics
Iryna Kurylo, the head of the population department of the Kyiv Institute of Demography and Social Research (KIDSR), said that the tendency of paying more for special wedding services is attributable to higher standards of living and growing personal incomes.
Also, the number of children in the 20-25 age group (the most marriage-bound group) is proportionately higher today because of an incentive that the state first offered in 1980 in the form of yearlong maternity leaves and baby bonus payments.
Prior to that, new mothers were allowed to take only a few months’ leave after the birth of their children.
She said that the 2007 boom in marriages is also in part due to 2008 being a leap year, which a large part of Ukrainian society still considers taboo for holding weddings.
“Normally, the number of marriages jumps during pre-leap-year years and falls considerably during leap years with gradual growth in the following years,” said KIDSR’s Lyudmyla Slyusar.
The statistics collected by KIDSR confirm the leap-year fear.
The year 2000 was a leap year and less than 275,000 marriages were registered. In 2001 and 2002, that figure grew to nearly 320,000 marriages annually and jumped in 2003 – the year before the 2004 leap year – to more than 370,000. In 2004, the number of marriages fell again to less than 280,000 and then picked back up to more than 330,000 weddings in 2005.
The first six months of this year saw slightly more than 130,000 marriages.
Nevertheless, regardless of the leap-year fears, Slyusar said that the amount of revenues collected by the country’s ZAGS for special wedding services will continue to grow.
Standard and special weddings
The funds typically collected by ZAGS include those for holding standard wedding ceremonies, registering marriages outside registry offices, engagement ceremonies and the registry of weddings on official holidays and weekends.
However, Justice Minister Oleksandr Lavrynovych said that in the first six months of 2007, the country’s ZAGS collected Hr 16.7 million (more than $3.3 million) in special services alone compared with the Hr 12.3 million (nearly $2.5 million) collected for such services in the same period last year.
For comparison, Ukraine’s 764 civilian registry offices, which are subordinated to the Justice, and which also record divorces, births, deaths and changes in name, collected more than Hr 1.4 million ($280,000) for these services since the start of this year – far less than the amount collected for special wedding services.
In the country’s largest cities, revenues from special ZAGS service have outpaced those collected from standard services by around 1,000 percent.
Special wedding services cost Ukrainians a total of Hr 18.9 million (nearly $3.8 million) in 2004, Hr 23.7 million ($4.7 million) in 2005 and Hr 21.5 million ($4.3 million) in 2006.
In terms of the country’s regions, Kherson Region leads the country in collections for special services: The ZAGS in that region have taken in more than half a million hryvnias ($100,000) since the beginning of the year – 23 times more than for standard services.
Special ZAGS services are also popular in Volyn, Zaporizhya and Odessa regions, which contributed Hr 2.5 million ($500,000) to the state budget over the same period.
Special ZAGS services are least popular in the central Vinnytsya, Mykolayiv and Cherkassy regions.
The director of the central ZAGS in Kyiv city, Natalya Naberezhna, said that the special wedding services are the sources of greatest revenues for ZAGS. She said that the cost of weddings is generally growing, although prices charged by the ZAGS have remained stable.
“Most of the money that couples spend on their weddings is not connected with the civilian registry offices, but include expenses for a restaurant and other traditional wedding items,” she said.
“For example, one hour’s rental of a limousine costs $100, while the prices for special services by our marriage registration department are quite meager.”
According to Naberezhna, the basic registration ceremony at the ZAGS costs Hr 140. Newlyweds can choose from several different scenarios, which include the traditional “stepping on the embroidered towel” and “salt and braided bread’ ceremonies.
The ZAGS charges a customs duty of Hr 0.85 (around $0.16) for the actual marriage certificate, while laminating the document costs Hr 5 (less than $1).
The additional services offered by civilian registry offices in Kyiv include car rentals ($35-40 per hour), and consultations on marriages with foreign citizens (Hr 26 – $5), while a master of ceremonies will cost around Hr 140 ($28) per hour. A wedding video can be arranged for Hr 350 ($70) per hour.
Some civilian registry offices also offer makeup and hairdresser services, while others offer special ceremonies for weddings, including outdoor ceremonies and so-called “European” weddings.
A standard ceremony costs Hr 140. “European style” ceremonies start at Hr 300 ($60) and include extras, like doves, balloons and candles. For outdoor ceremonies, couples can expect to pay up to Hr 1,000 ($200).
More extreme ceremonies, like weddings in the air or underwater, have not yet gained popularity in Ukraine, though weddings in different styles proposed by some civilian registry offices include medieval weddings, 1960s-style weddings, and traditional folk weddings.
