Kang Ki-jung, Fair Trade Commission Chairman, "Strengthening Price Disclosure for Sdeume Costs That Cause Discomfort to Prospective Couples"

Fair Trade Commission Corrects Penalty Fees and Contract Withdrawal Periods

Han Ki-jung, Chairman of the Korea Fair Trade Commission, agreed with the analysis that young people are avoiding marriage due to the burden of wedding preparation costs, commonly referred to as 'Seudeume' (Studio, Dress, Makeup), and promised, "We will focus on resolving this issue next year."

On the 28th, Chairman Han explained on KBS Radio's 'Jeonggyeok Sisa' that "there are about 400,000 prospective couples every year, and many feel burdened and uncomfortable with the costs during the wedding preparation process," adding, "Our Fair Trade Commission is working on addressing this problem."

On the 12th, the Fair Trade Commission announced that it had corrected six types of unfair terms in the contracts of 18 wedding preparation agencies. According to the commission's investigation, these agencies operated unfair contract clauses by charging separate fees for essential services. They ambiguously notified that additional fees might occur upon contract signing and did not provide specific information about additional charges.

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Regarding this, Chairman Han explained, "We identified that wedding preparation agencies had been charging separate additional fees for essential services such as photo file purchase fees and dress fitting fees, and we corrected the terms to include these in the basic services." He continued, "There were also cases where excessive penalties were imposed regardless of whether the service had started or not," adding, "In such cases, we revised the terms to differentiate penalties before and after the service."

He also said, "The withdrawal period is guaranteed for 7 days under the Installment Transactions Act or 14 days under the Door-to-Door Sales Act. However, the terms of wedding preparation agencies unfairly set this period as short as within 3 days, and we have corrected these parts." According to Chairman Han, the Fair Trade Commission plans to establish standard terms for wedding preparation agencies next year and strengthen the obligation to disclose price information.

Meanwhile, excessive wedding service costs have been pointed out as an obstacle to young people's decision to marry. According to Statistics Korea's '2024 Social Survey,' 76.9% of the population responded that "wedding culture is excessive," and 31.3% cited "lack of marriage funds" as the biggest reason for not marrying. A survey conducted by the Ministry of Economy and Finance from May to November this year on 995 newlywed couples and 9 online platforms showed that the average payment for wedding services reached 24.68 million KRW. For the Seudeume package, the average payment was 3.46 million KRW for the basic fee and 1.76 million KRW for additional fees.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.