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Although most young Argentinians aren’t even thinking about marriage these days, they seem quite fond of wedding ceremonies. So they’ve come up with a bizarre party trend of fake weddings, where groups of 20- and 30-somethings get together to attend wedding-themed parties complete with fake bride and groom.
虽然大多数阿根廷年轻人根本没考虑过谈婚论嫁，可他们似乎都还很喜欢参加婚礼。所以他们开启了“假结婚”的奇异潮流，一堆20或者30多岁的年轻人齐聚一堂，参加婚礼主题的聚会，不过新郎和新娘都不是真的。
The idea was the brainchild of 26-year-old publicist Martin Acerbi, who, a couple of years ago, organised a fake wedding with four of his friends in La Plata, about 32 miles away from Buenos Aires. “It all started two years ago with a group of friends: we realised we hadn’t been to a wedding in a long time because hardly anybody is getting married anymore,” Acerbi says.
26岁的公关马丁·阿克比想出了这一主意，几年前，他与他的四位朋友在距离阿根廷布宜诺斯艾利斯51.5公里远的拉普拉塔组织了一场假婚礼。他回忆道：“一切始于两年前我和一群朋友的经历：由于现在很少有人结婚，我们意识到我们很久没有参加过婚礼了。”
To his surprise, the event was a huge success which got him thinking about a new business. The friends went on to found ‘Falsa Boda’, a fake wedding organising company, in November 2013. They rent out real wedding locations, hire caterers, florists, and DJs, and make everything look like a real wedding. Except, there is no ‘happily ever after’.
令他惊讶的是，他们组织的假婚礼获得了空前的成功，这使得阿克比想到了新商机。这几位志同道合的好友于2013年11月成立了一家组织假婚礼的公司Falsa Boda。他们租赁了真正的婚礼举办地点，雇佣了宴席承办者、花匠和DJ，让一切看上去与真正的婚礼一模一样。唯一的差别在于，婚礼过后没有“从此之后的幸福生活”。
The bride and groom are hired too, as is a secret boyfriend or spurned lover who arrives unexpectedly to disrupt the ceremony. There’s a fair bit of drama when the bride or groom abandons the wedding and elopes with the third actor. There’s a different storyline for each event, and sometimes the ‘bride’ even throws her bouquet to the female guests.
新娘和新郎也是雇佣来的，假婚礼上还会有秘密男友或者感觉备受冷落的情人前来闹场。有时新娘或者新郎会抛弃婚礼与第三名演员私奔。每场假婚礼最后都会有不同的故事结局，有时新娘会将捧花扔给女性客人。
“These wedding professionals have become our strategic allies, we organise it like it’s the real thing, except the marriage itself is fake,” Acerbi said. “Our guests get all the fun of a wedding party with none of the commitment, or the problem of finding someone who is actually getting married.”
阿克比说：“这些婚礼专家已经成为了我们的战略同盟，我们将它当做一场真正的婚礼来举办，只有婚姻本身是假的。我们的客人可以充分享受这场没有承诺的婚礼的乐趣，就算看中新郎新娘也没有关系，因为他们不是真的结婚。”
Each fake wedding event can accommodate 600 to 700 guests, who all pay about $50 to attend. According to Acerbi, the events are mostly targeted at women, who end up buying the majority of the tickets. “The romanticism around weddings is clearly still alive, at least in that respect,” he explained.
每场假婚礼能容纳600-700名客人，每位客人需付50美元入场费。据阿克比透露，假婚礼的主要目标是女性，她们购买了大部分入场券。他解释说：“虽然婚姻本身是假的，但婚礼的浪漫氛围并未减少。”
32-year-old marketing manager Pablo Boniface, who recently attended a fake wedding, said: “The girls were euphoric, as if a cousin of theirs was really getting married, but it was just an actress. When the bride arrived, everyone went crazy, pulling out their phones and snapping pictures like she was a Hollywood star.” He agreed that the fake weddings were a big hit because hardly anyone his age ever talks about getting married. “I’m single and so are all of my friends of both sexes. Marriage is something we don’t even think about. It’s a formality that has nothing to do with love.”
32岁的市场经理帕布洛·伯尼菲斯最近参加了一场假婚礼，他说：“姑娘们的情绪都很高涨，感觉就像她们的亲戚真的在结婚一样，但其实婚礼上只有演员。新娘入场之后，每个人都很疯狂，拿出他们的手机拍摄照片，感觉她就像一名好莱坞明星。”他承认假婚礼特别受欢迎，因为他的同龄人很少会考虑结婚。“我还是单身，我身边的男女朋友们也一样。婚姻是我们不会考虑的东西。这是一场与爱无关的仪式。”
There’s plenty of data to prove Boniface right. 22,000 couples tied the knot in Buenos Aires in 1990, but that number nosedived to almost half that – 11,642 – by 2013. According to government statistics, the people who do get married are much older. So people these days don’t have many opportunities to attend wedding parties, which is why Acerbi’s fake weddings are so popular.
不少数据显示1990年布宜诺斯艾利斯有2.2万人结婚，而这一数字到了2013年暴跌至11642人。据政府统计，真正结婚的人年纪都比较大。如今阿根廷的年轻人没什么机会参加婚礼，阿克比的假婚礼才会如此受欢迎。
“They are going to see something they don’t do in real life any more,” explained sociologist Victoria Mazzeo. “The fact is that very few young people get married anymore.”
社会学家维多利亚·马泽尔表示：“他们会见识到现实生活中看不到的东西。事实上，现在很少有年轻人结婚了。”
And as Boniface pointed out, it’s apparently easier to meet someone at fake weddings than at real ones!
正如伯尼菲斯指出，很明显去假婚礼结交朋友远比去真婚礼方便。
