Couples marrying on 08-08-08 ties in with the Olympics
August 6, 2008 by Christine Gooding
Filed under Weddings and Honeymoons in the News
It seems that the lucky date of 08-08-08 on Friday is a magical date for Beijing couples! And why is that? It ties in with the 2008 Summer Olympics that China is hosting!
Did you know there are 16,400 couples registered to get married on 08-08-08? Crazy isn’t it? And that’s only in Beijing!
The majority of the reservations came from Beijing’s eight major districts: Chaoyang, Haidian, Dongcheng, Xicheng, Chongwen, Xuanwu, Fengtai and Shijingshan, Zhou said.
In anticipation of the huge demand, authorities in 18 districts and counties in the capital began taking registrations for the special day at the start of June, he said.
Once the applications have been processed, the couples simply have to call into the relevant office on Friday to collect their marriage certificates, he said.
Wu Shimin, head of the Beijing municipal civil affairs bureau said all marriage registration departments will open from 6 am to 6 pm on Friday.
“Our goal is to provide 100 percent satisfaction for all the couples,” he said recently during a tour of the marriage registration office in Chaoyang district, which is expected to hand out more than 3,000 marriage licenses on Friday.
Me and my fiancé of (of course!) eight years were watching tv on friday (08-08-08) at around 5:00 am, looking for a direct transmission of the opening ceremony of the Beijing Games since that was the time they were starting due to the time difference, when all of a sudden the person on CNN mentioned that many couples were getting married that day because according to the Chinese the number 8 was considered lucky.
I just looked at him and said “It would be awesome if we were married on a date like this!” So he just said “Why not?, You wanna do it?”
So just like that we decided to get a few hours of sleep, go downtown, get our marriage license and get married!
I had many reasons why to choose this date:
I was born on January 8, my oldest son was born on the 8th month of 1988; my daughter was born on the 8th day of Dec, 1998, me and my fiancé had been together for 8 years, and 8 had always been my lucky number!!
So just like that, we drove downtown, got out license, and got married in a pressure cooker kind of way!! Fast and easy!! I’m just happy I got to marry my best friend and the true love of my life!! It doesn’t need to be fancy, or super duper planned!! It just have to feel right!! (And it did!!)
We are still having a nice ceremony with all our friends and family on a beach in Mexico, with a nice fancy dress, and all the trims and fancy we always wanted, but this still felt very special, it was fun and it was in the spur of the moment. Besides, the number eight looks so much like the infinity symbol! Perhaps that is telling us that our decision and love will last forever!