Nearly 20,000 couples married in Beijing yesterday

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The Beijing Times front page headline today is ’20 thousand couples register to marry on September 9′ in Beijing.

The ninth day of the ninth month of 2009 is a lucky combination of numbers, like August 8, 2008. But this year’s total exceeded the tally of 2008 08 08 when 15,646 couples registered.

According to the newspaper, many couples set up camp on the evening of September 9 outside the city’s various marriage registration offices to ensure they could apply and be issued with marriage registrations on the day. Many marriage offices also opened their doors at midnight to ensure they could cope with the additional demand for marriage paperwork.

In China, a marriage becomes official through this registration process, not from a ceremony or ritual at the couple’s wedding party. If couples arrive early enough on a given day and their documents are all in order, the registration is usually processed on the same day.

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