国外离婚庆祝业生意红火

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：

在结束了一段充满伤痛的婚姻之后，温迪·刘易斯(Wendy Lewis)打算采取一种特殊方式来庆祝——用机关枪打烂自己的婚纱。

为了完成庆祝礼，刚离婚的美国女子温迪带着她的几名女性朋友——和婚纱——前往拉斯维加斯(Las Vegas)度过这个漫长的周末。

刚到那里，这场射击之旅就已经被一家小公司安排好了，这家公司是离婚派对策划行业中的佼佼者。离婚派对策划是拉斯维加斯发展最快的行业之一。

既然拉斯维加斯之旅会发生什么，想必要待在拉斯维加斯才知道，上述公司51岁的策划人格琳·达罗兹(Glynda Rhodes)很乐意给我们讲讲这个故事。

“刘易斯女士之前从没拿过枪，但她还是把自己的婚纱带进了射击场，并挂了起来。”她说。

“如果你看到她打完婚纱之后的表情，你就能体会到她那怒气全消的畅快心情了。”

罗兹(Rhodes)女士多年来一直从事拉斯维加斯当地活动策划的工作。她过去常常在大群的单身男女青年间组织派对。这群涌入城市的美国青年都希望借此机会庆祝最后的单身生活。

至今，美国人半数以上的婚姻都以离婚收场，这其中也包括罗兹女士本人。而她也开始收到越来越多人的询问，男女都有，这些人希望庆祝一下自己已经结束的婚姻。

因此，2012年罗兹女士成立了一家公司——“离婚派对策划人”(The Divorce Party Planner)。公司业绩蒸蒸日上，同样的情况也发生在城里其他相同类型的公司，甚至在全美都有所体现。

除了射击之旅，还有一个大受欢迎的选择——“Glocked and Loaded”。罗兹女士安排的派对项目有夜店狂欢、餐厅聚餐、打高尔夫……或者观看脱衣舞表演。

针对那些想“重新跳进单身圈”的人，她还组织了跳伞活动。

一些罗兹女士的客户正在用跳伞庆祝的顾客

罗兹女士说，套餐分为“初步重生”(Barely Survived)“自我满足”(Self Sufficient)“得到一切”(I Got It All)等，花费从1000美元到4800美元不等(约600到3000英镑)。

然而，如果有人非常非常迫切地想要庆祝离婚，价格就会猛涨了。