Choosing a wedding photographer should be fun, so why do I feel I'm being ripped off?

'Sign your name. We're already 40 minutes past closing," said the saleswoman. Yet still my wife kept asking questions. "So that's all the photos we'll get? Can you throw in an extra photo album?" she says. "Well, OK. Only for you," came the saleswoman's response. "Now sign your name."

Question, sign your name, question, sign your name, question, sign your name; the conversation was beginning to sound like a Buddhist mantra.

Everyone was getting tired. "Just sign it," I told my wife. She sat and vigorously tapped her fingers while the saleswoman kept on talking. Finally, after I insisted, she signed the deal for our wedding photos to be taken.

We paid a 1,000-yuan deposit and started on the journey back home. I tried to make the situation more positive with some encouraging words, but as each subway stop brought us further from Xidan's New Wedding Shopping Center the realization that we had just got ripped off hit me like a stack of books. Obviously my wife was thinking the same thing.

"You shouldn't have pushed me," she said in frustration. I offered a weak smile. "The price was a bit much," I said. "Yes," she responded. "So why did we sign it?"

The price was so bad we both dreamed about it that night. My wife could hardly sleep.

What should be a happy opportunity to record our martial bliss for posterity has turned into an unhappy mixture of arguments, shady deals and complete frustration. As the saying goes, misery loves company, and luckily for my wife and I we aren't the only newly married couple that has been ripped off by a wedding photo studio in Beijing.

The warm weather and freshly green landscapes of May and June makes these months a peak season for wedding photo services in the capital.

Unlike my native United States, where wedding photos are usually taken at the wedding itself, in China they are usually done in a studio weeks or months before the actual ceremony. So every weekend youthful lovers crowd into wedding photo studios only to be assaulted by salespeople and nicely doctored photos. They talk your ear off trying to convince you their "set plans" are good deals. If you have the patience to investigate further, however, you'll soon find out "add-ons" to these set plans - better wardrobe choices and actually going to a real outdoor locations instead of some flowery painted wall - jack up the final price to unbelievable levels.

In the US we say you can never trust a lawyer. In Beijing you might as well make it you can never trust a wedding photo salesperson. In our case my wife dropped all pretension, telling one saleswoman: "You know your industry has a bad reputation. Before people even come in and talk with you they think you are going to rip them off. You seem like a nice girl, I think you should do sales in another industry."

Surprisingly the saleswoman was quick to agree. "Yes, that's so true," she said. Maybe it was because her supervisor was on the other side of the room, maybe it was because the repetitive shallowness of the sales pitches she uttered a mile-a-minute had left her feeling a bit numb, too.

By the time couples emerge from these wedding studios you can easily hear a chorus of sighs and looks of bewilderment.

I just don't understand why an industry that caters to what for many is an important and happy event does so with such indifferent greed. Are they trying to sadistically symbolize how many modern marriages in China are all about money, houses and other material possessions? Are they trying to prepare you for the rigors of married life?

I doubt they are thinking that deeply. In the end I really don't care if someone makes a little money off me, but at least treat me like a human being and help me tell the story surrounding my marriage without all the wailing and gnashing of teeth.

The author teaches English at Beijing Foreign Studies University. To comment, e-mail metrobeijing@chinadaily.com.cn. The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of METRO.