Lucky Date 08 08 08

According to the Ministry of Civil Affairs, China registered 314,224 marriages on Friday, August 8, a single-day record for weddings in that country. In Beijing alone, 15,646 couples married. That’s 23 times as many marriages on a typical day in China’s capital city. Beijing’s previous one-day record was 4,452 marriages.

Officials at the Ministry of Civil Affairs asked local authorities around the country to take on extra staff, put in extra hours and open additional offices to meet the highly anticipated demand. Some registry offices opened just after the stroke of midnight and worked around the clock to marry waiting couples. Officials said that this marks the first time that such an accommodation has been made to meet the demands of couples seeking to be married.

Couples from around the world used the unusual date to marry. Registry offices and courthouses reported an unusually high number of weddings, in some places as many as five to six times the normal volume.

Weddings weren’t the only things taking place on the lucky date: hospitals in China reported a higher-than-normal number of births, as couples chose to have their babies by Caesarean section to take advantage of the calendar. In the months leading up to August 8, which the government chose for the opening ceremonies for the Olympics, 3,500 babies were named Aoyun, the Chinese word for Olympics, and an additional 5,000 babies were named for the five Olympic mascots: Huanhuan, Nini, Beibei, Jingjing and Yingying.

Keywords: Wedding News, Weddingblog, Wedding

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