The red hot business of divorce celebration
English:
After finalising a painful divorce Wendy Lewis decided there was only one way to celebrate - by blasting her wedding dress with a machine gun.
To get the job done the newly divorced American gathered her female friends - and the dress - and flew to Las Vegas, Nevada for a long weekend.
Upon arrival in Vegas the trip to a shooting range was arranged by a small firm at the forefront of one of the city's fastest-growing business sectors - divorce party planning.
And while what happens in Vegas is supposed to stay in Vegas, the planner in question, Glynda Rhodes, 51, is happy to take up the story.
"Ms Lewis had never picked up a gun before, but she brought her wedding dress into the shooting range and hung it up," she says.
"Oh if you could have seen the look on her face when she was shooting at her dress. You could just feel that she was letting all that anger out."
A long-established Vegas-based events planner, Ms Rhodes was historically more used to organising bachelor and bachelorette parties (stag and hen dos) for the hordes of young Americans who fly into the city for one last celebration of single life.
Yet with more than half of marriages in the US now ending in divorce, including her own, Ms Rhodes started to receive a growing number of inquiries from people - both women and men - wishing to celebrate the end of their wedlock.
So in 2012 she launched a new company - The Divorce Party Planner - and the business has boomed ever since, a situation mirrored at similar firms in Vegas and across the US.
In addition to the visits to shooting ranges, a popular option called "Glocked and Loaded", Ms Rhodes arranges for divorce parties to get entry to nightclubs, get tables at restaurants, play rounds of golf... or visit strip shows.
She also organise skydives for people who want to "jump right back into being single".
Some of Ms Rhodes' customers celebrate with a skydive Ms Rhodes says that the cost of the set packages - which also have names such as "Barely Survived", "Self Sufficient", and "I Got It All" - typically range from $1,000 to $4,800 (£600 to £3,000).
However, prices can skyrocket if someone really, really wants to celebrate getting divorced...
中文:
在結(jié)束了一段充滿傷痛的婚姻之后,溫迪·劉易斯(Wendy Lewis)打算采取一種特殊方式來慶祝——用機(jī)關(guān)槍打爛自己的婚紗。
為了完成慶祝禮,剛離婚的美國(guó)女子溫迪帶著她的幾名女性朋友——和婚紗——前往拉斯維加斯(Las Vegas)度過這個(gè)漫長(zhǎng)的周末。
剛到那里,這場(chǎng)射擊之旅就已經(jīng)被一家小公司安排好了,這家公司是離婚派對(duì)策劃行業(yè)中的佼佼者。離婚派對(duì)策劃是拉斯維加斯發(fā)展最快的行業(yè)之一。
既然拉斯維加斯之旅會(huì)發(fā)生什么,想必要待在拉斯維加斯才知道,上述公司51歲的策劃人格琳·達(dá)羅茲(Glynda Rhodes)很樂意給我們講講這個(gè)故事。
“劉易斯女士之前從沒拿過槍,但她還是把自己的婚紗帶進(jìn)了射擊場(chǎng),并掛了起來。”她說。
“如果你看到她打完婚紗之后的表情,你就能體會(huì)到她那怒氣全消的暢快心情了。”
羅茲(Rhodes)女士多年來一直從事拉斯維加斯當(dāng)?shù)鼗顒?dòng)策劃的工作。她過去常常在大群的單身男女青年間組織派對(duì)。這群涌入城市的美國(guó)青年都希望借此機(jī)會(huì)慶祝最后的單身生活。
至今,美國(guó)人半數(shù)以上的婚姻都以離婚收?qǐng)觯@其中也包括羅茲女士本人。而她也開始收到越來越多人的詢問,男女都有,這些人希望慶祝一下自己已經(jīng)結(jié)束的婚姻。
因此,2012年羅茲女士成立了一家公司——“離婚派對(duì)策劃人”(The Divorce Party Planner)。公司業(yè)績(jī)蒸蒸日上,同樣的情況也發(fā)生在城里其他相同類型的公司,甚至在全美都有所體現(xiàn)。
除了射擊之旅,還有一個(gè)大受歡迎的選擇——“Glocked and Loaded”。羅茲女士安排的派對(duì)項(xiàng)目有夜店狂歡、餐廳聚餐、打高爾夫……或者觀看脫衣舞表演。
針對(duì)那些想“重新跳進(jìn)單身圈”的人,她還組織了跳傘活動(dòng)。
一些羅茲女士的客戶正在用跳傘慶祝的顧客
羅茲女士說,套餐分為“初步重生”(Barely Survived)“自我滿足”(Self Sufficient)“得到一切”(I Got It All)等,花費(fèi)從1000美元到4800美元不等(約600到3000英鎊)。
然而,如果有人非常非常迫切地想要慶祝離婚,價(jià)格就會(huì)猛漲了。