Tens of thousands of couples flocked to marriage registries across the mainland and in Hong Kong yesterday to marry on what was seen as an auspicious day, offering blessings for lifelong love.
A numerical form of yesterday's date - 2013/1/4 - roughly sounds like "I love you for my whole life" in Putonghua.
Liu Dongmei , a 25-year-old office worker who registered her marriage at the Chaoyang district marriage registry in Beijing, said that when she and her fiancé first went to the office to get acquainted with its location at lunchtime on Thursday, there were already more than 200 couples queuing outside.
They returned there with a friend and took turns to queue from around 10pm on Thursday. The registry opened at midnight and they were issued with their marriage certificates just before 1am.
"It was very cold but it was worth all the effort because we could get married on such an auspicious day," Liu said. They plan to hold their wedding banquet early next year.
The official marriage registration statistics will take days to emerge, but the Beijing Morning Post, citing the Beijing Civil Affairs Bureau, which administers marriage registries in the capital, reported on Thursday that the bureau had received 7,000 online reservations. It had estimated that at least 10,000 couples would get married yesterday.